Are schools asking for medical evidence now if child off school sick now?

[whatisgoingonandwhy]

Family I know had a teenage daughter reported as sick by parent. Parent said school turned up their door and took her into school even though dad had proof she had been seen by the GP. Is this normal practice?

Highly unusual and sounds either untrue or half a story missing

What?! Who’d let school staff remove their child from their house? That can’t be true

No, it's not normal IME, but DD only has the occasional day off sick.

This might happen when there is a lot of days missed...or other concerns.

You are only hearing one side of the story.

No.

if your child is off sick a lot and they suspect it’s not really justified they can ask for medical evidence but most gp’s won’t write letters so it’s usually just proof of appointment.

I always wanted to send in a bag of puke/diarrhoea as evidence

They shouldn’t be able to travel with the child in the car surely?

There’s more to this story. Why would any parent hand their child over if the child is genuinely ill? It wouldn’t matter what the school staff member at my door said, my child wouldn’t be leaving the house, they have no enforcement powers so couldn’t drag the child out or force their way into the house.

My teen DD attendance is less than 50% b/c of medical reasons. Have kept in close touch with the school and (voluntarily) shared lots of info. We are working together and they have never been to our house. You are missing half the story here I suspect. There may have been a safeguarding concern.

This didn't happen. They may have wanted medical proof, e.g a doctor's cert, but they can't kidnap a child and bring them away.

Yeah, no. Worst case scenario, they could’ve threatened a fine(ultimately up to the LA really) , and the parent agreed their kid could go to school. However home visits and strong arming like this, doesn’t happen over a one off sickness issue.

My DS was off sick earlier this with flu or similar.

School didnt ask for proof (what proof could I have given anyway? A photo of the thermometer? A voice note of him coughing?)

They also didn't turn up at the door and ask to see him.

So that's definitely not standard practice in my area and I highly doubt it happened exactly as you have been told...

This!

Surely when you were told this "story" @whatisgoingonandwhy you engaged your brain and thought why? What is the full story, what am I not being told?

Happened to an acquaintance - but she was known to SS as needing support. Her Mum would be up all night partying and just couldn't be bothered to get her up and dressed. She called her child in sick then the head teacher and attendance officer rocked up and took little one to school. Happened several times over 5 years or so.

I cant imagine it would happen under the circumstances you outlined though OP. Why did her Dad just let them take her?

Deputy head of year here.

We would only start asking for proof every time at my school if we had prior attendance concerns (below 90% att) and had previous contact with a parent notifying them of our concern. If there is no SEN/Behavioural requirement, then we would need to pursue an evidence based path alongside considering how we can best support the child to be in school.

We would ask for proof of appointments/medications taken to back up the reasons for not being in school.

There would be a lot more to this story then face value I feel.

Medical evidence, no. Or at least I’ve never been asked for it. That said, mine are rarely off sick and more often than not get sent home by the school sick as I insist they go in even with a cold or a cough as long as no fever, d&v or anything obviously serious. So if they miss a day, it’s because of the school anyway.

That said, our school does have a truancy bus that goes around every day and attempts to retrieve anyone who doesn’t turn up and bring them in. This isn’t children who are called off sick, it’s the ones who don’t turn up and they have to check on from a safeguarding perspective. It’s the safeguarding lead and some other pastoral care person.

No personal experience of what they do (like I said, mine are either in school or properly called out due to genuine illness). There is a lot of ‘sickness’ though that isn’t. My dd has a friend who manages to make it to school about 2 half days a week. I similarly was ‘sick’ a lot as a child. I fell through the cracks for many years. Only once did a teacher actually come check on me. I was actually grateful and I went to school. Otherwise, once I missed an entire year of school. I wasn’t sick, my mum just stopped taking me, school was 20 minutes away and I couldn’t have taken myself. Definitely could have done with some safeguarding, so don’t think it’s a bad thing.

At our school it’s always been normal to ask for a doctor’s cert if missing an assessment or something, otherwise no.

I very much doubt anyone is turning up at the house to round up the sick children.

If my child was truly too poorly to go into school then I wouldn't let them take my child and I think this would be the same for many people.

However for example if my child had been to the doctors that morning but possibly felt better later on (or even in the first place was ok enough to go to school) then I can imagine I'd let her go to school.

Basically I don't think this story is exactly true. At least not how it's told

No I’ve never heard of that although I do have to provide proof in the form of appointment letters when my son has a paed appointment otherwise it’s put down as unauthorised absence.

At DDs school, after 4 days off they knock on your door and do like a welfare check of sorts. We had this once but I was at work and neither DD or DH answered the door so they posted a card through and left. I called the school and they asked for evidence she was ill. My request for a docs appointment was enough. If not, they accepted a receipt for whatever medicine she had needed that day.

it’s nothing too invasive.

Schools do go out and bring children in, this is a daily occurrence, not usually if they are truly ill though.

I'm a school attendance officer can only bring children into school with parents permission so not sure you have the full story there.
Its common at our school to ask for medical evidence. Any thing over 15 days of illness in 1 academic year has to be reported to the LA. If due to medical that would be different so its important absences are recorded correctly.

Why not? You just need the parents permission and the correct insurance, ive brought 3 absent pupils into school today and visited 6 in total.

On your own? Because that's a big safeguarding concern.

Yes on my own its what I do daily