to be slightly pissed off with this letter ??

[CrackerNut]

Ds has come home today with a letter address to me about his apparently poor attendance.

It says that his attendance percentage is currently 84% and that the schools target is 96%.

It then goes on to say that unless a child is ill or you have an agreed and authorised abscence from school then your child must attend every day.

It then says that they will be monitoring the situation closely and if my child's attendance does not improve significantly over the next few weeks then they will contact educational welfare.

I am hugely pissed off with this letter and the threatening tone.

Ds is 6 and in yr 1. He had 5 days off in Sept for a holiday authorised by the head (old head, she has since left). I agree fully that this will have contributed to his apprently poor attendance record, but this was in Sept.

Unfortunatly for him, Ds has also had about 10 days off ill. He was very poorly before xmas with a virus and scalp infection and then just after xmas he had impetigo and had to stay off for 4 days as advised by the gp.

I have no problem with them pulling me up about the absence for holiday even though it was authorised, but I do have a problem with them insinuating that Ds has been off school alot when not ill as this isn't the case.

CapricaSix,I love the ''Make hospital appointments in holiday time''bit! Perhaps they think we are taking our kids to the hospital/doctor for fun?(What can we do over Easter? Farm Park? Soft Play? - no,lets go to a hospital clinic...)Dentists possibly as more of that is routine but if we need hospital appointments we go whenever they'll see us!
Children get ill and, whatever letters arrive, you shouldn't worry if you know your kids were genuinely ill.

Ime you don't get a choice about hospital appointments. My ds was ill over half term and the trip to the doctor's was apparently the highlight of his week

Though standard letters look much of a muchness, there is a big difference in how different headteachers (and EWOs) handle the outfall.

Dd's first head was crap. Not only did he behave as outlined in previous post. Dds friends were given authorised absence to go on holiday with their terminally ill mother. By the end of the term, he had clearly started worrying about Ofsted, so he wrote a nasty remark about their absence in their school reports. Just what that family needed!

Otoh, dd is now at a very understanding secondary school. She was at an attendance meeting the other day where they explained that they have to set a target, but deliberately set it much lower than normal, and reassured her that they understand if she can't meet it. Paradoxically, dd's attendance is much better at this school: the stress and tension used to affect her joints and make her more prone to dislocations.

The first EWO who came to see us was also very understanding and helped to speak for us. No 2 was useless.

Oh ffs zombie thread again!!!

STOP PULLING ZOMBIE THREADS

It's nothing to do with you, it's to do with the reports they have to make to their higher authority.

I think they might have sorted it, considering the child in the OP is now about 14!

I am amazed at the amount of "fumers" here. Save fuming if your DCs go to a school where children could be as absent as they liked and nobody gave a shit about it.

Schools are doing their jobs which is monitoring absences and attendances as per a protocol, which is necessary because they aren't running a bespoke personal service just for your and your DCs where they remember every last conversation about why your DCs were off and when, so in the office "Ah... Ms X, Dylan's mum. Don't send her the letter, for that absence it was an authorised holiday and for that absence of 5 days little Dylan had a cold and for that absence it was his broken toe and so just send out the letters to these other parents because I know for a fact Mrs Y didn't have those 2 days off authorised....

What if everyone said their DC had impetigo (without a dr ever seeing him/her) and needed 4 days off school?

Obviously OP in your case it is true, but you can surely see how easy it would be for a parent to say it when it wasn't true, because they were going on holiday out of peak times, maybe, or felt a bit tired and couldn't be bothered with the whole school run thing..

The school has to send out the letters. The alternative is that nobody gets a letter.

Someone pulled up a zombie thread? Damn. Who DOES THAT AND WHY?!

Because they're utter fuckwits.

👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻

👹👹👹👹. ZOMBIE THREAD👹👹👹👹