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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

to be fuming about this letter from school about attendance ??

155 replies

NervousNutty · 09/09/2009 18:44

Last term I had a very rude letter from school about ds's attendance. He was in yr1 at the time and his attaendance was 87%.

At the beginning of that year we had, had a holiday, which had been authorised (by old headteacher), so that accounted for 5 days. Ds was then ill several times, once with a scalp infection and virus, and then again with impetigo. He also probably had the odd couple of days here and there with sickness or bad cold/high temp etc.

I always notifed school when he was ill.

After I recieved the rude letter I was fuming and so was everyone else who had one because most people had kept their children off for genuine reasons. I was going to speak to the head about it, but so many people made appointments with her that I'd have had to wait weeks so I left it.

Ds has been back for 3 days and today came home with a letter adressed to me. This letter says that all parents have been written to, but this is a lie as not every pupil was given one.

It waffles on and on about attendance and how important it is (like i'm thick and don't know), and then basically lists a threats of what will happen if a childs attendance doesn't improve.
It also mentions that any child in the action group (which i assume ds now is) will recieve futher letters to make sure attendance targets are met.

I am so pissed off with this. If they bothered to check my other 2 childrens records they would see that their attendance is very good, so surely if I was doing it on purpose i'd keep them all off and stay in bed rather than still get 2 children up and off to school.

So basically now, if ds is ill and he has time off they are going to come down on me like a tonne of bricks.

OP posts:
morocco · 09/09/2009 22:06

agree wholeheartedly cory, ds1 also in similar situation and it is heartbreaking (at first - I've toughened up) to get those letters. I've often wondered if it goes against disability discrimination legislation?

fluffles · 09/09/2009 22:11

personally i would write back to say thank you for the letter but you will be continuing to keep your son off school whenever he had an infectious illness or is too ill to intend as you believe that to be in the best interest of both your son and his teachers and classmates.

NoahFence · 09/09/2009 22:12

oh fgs nutty stop tkaing offence
its a standard letter
if you KNOW he had reason to be off then waht is the big deal

fluffles · 09/09/2009 22:13

this reminds me of a situation where a friend at work was sent an 'automated' letter warning her about her sickness record while she was off work for a couple of days following a miscarriage. HR knew why she was off and she had permission but the letter was 'automatic' as she'd been off sick twice that year already

NoahFence · 09/09/2009 22:13

school are under a LOT of pressure to improve attendance.
ihave a list of kidss in my form who are under 90 % and they all have to go nad speak to someone about it.

I think 87 % is notable. You lot who are critical need to know the HUGE eeffect absence has on progress.

thesecondcoming · 09/09/2009 22:15

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

NoahFence · 09/09/2009 22:16

when you booked the holiday you knew he would be off
if you are so convinced it was ok why are oyu stressing?

morocco · 09/09/2009 22:17

that's part of my problem though noahfence - i don't agree that it has any impact on ds1's progress at all. he hardly learns startling stuff in the early years that he can't catch up with later. So long as he learns the basics of reading, writing and rithmatic. I missed most of a year of school when I was 11 and it had no effect on the rest of my education whatsoever.

Littlefish · 09/09/2009 22:17

Is the letter from the school, or is it from the EWO (Educational Welfare Officer)? Our EWO sends out letters to any families whose attendance falls below a certain percentage.

katiestar · 09/09/2009 22:18

Ruffles- HR departments are not allowed to count any pregnancy/childbirth related illness on your sickness record.they can be recorded only for the purposes of calculating pay.

NoahFence · 09/09/2009 22:18

oh fgs
you arent your ds and schools do change in 20 years!
i love it when peopel are experts on education because..

they went to school once.

mazzystartled · 09/09/2009 22:19

but its not going to help improve attendance is it?

it will piss off parents who are playing by the rules (like nutty) but whose child just happened to be ill

and be ignored by parents who don't give a toss

if i were in nutty's shoes i would feel compelled to make a response.

NoahFence · 09/09/2009 22:20

yes
write in and say " you are wrong - my kid WAS there"

NoahFence · 09/09/2009 22:21

tey are saying "your kid wasnt at school, that is crap, his progress will be affected"

nutty is saying ,,,
oh yes
"he was off"

presumably you lot want NO monnitoring of attendance so when kids disappear off roll and havent turned up for months that is ok...

fluffles · 09/09/2009 22:21

katiestar - apparently they didn't count recovery after an early miscarriage as 'pregnancy related' they counted it as 'compassionate leave' or 'mental health'.

mazzystartled · 09/09/2009 22:23

no, just clarify why he was off

and object to the underlying assumptions in the letter.

och what do i know my kid's only just started reception.

LuluMaman · 09/09/2009 22:23

i don't say this very often,but i agree with noahfence

the fact is that Nutty's DS had lower attendance,and the school cannot make an exception in who they monitor surely?

LuluMaman · 09/09/2009 22:25

thing is, they dont have time to do a personal letter
so they have to send a general one out

NoahFence · 09/09/2009 22:25

i think people dont like being criticised - none of us do.
they are doing their job, if nutty knows it was justified what is the issue - we had a one day absence ( or rather one session) for a perfectly legitimate reason ( in my eyes)

87% is a lot of illness. way down the list in my experience. If my kid had had that much ilness i would have thought VERY hard about the holiday.

mazzystartled · 09/09/2009 22:25

no i don't think that at ALL

AnAuntieNotAMum · 09/09/2009 22:26

I'm afraid this is probably down to a "cover one's arse" paper trail being necessary. When the audit happens an inspector is likely to pull off a file with what is considered low attendance and then ask to see what has been done to tackle it - so copies of letters to parents in and out necessary, no one much caring what happened in the real world.

I haven't worked in a school but I have worked in government funded set ups where this sort of thing happened all of the time.

To me, it's all about this awful target driven, paper trailed, cover your arse culture our society seems to have developed where an individual/institution must demonstrate that they followed the procedures set down in the manual, all often aided by computers that set levels and spew out automatic reports.

morocco · 09/09/2009 22:27

go on then - how much has education changed? what does a 5 or 6 year old now learn at school in that 11% of time that they are never going to get a chance to learn again or catch up on?

also lol at being an expert cos I went to school - well yes but being a teacher helps too

NoahFence · 09/09/2009 22:27

that is 4 days a week attendance

TheFallenMadonna · 09/09/2009 22:31

The OFSTED inspector who inspected DC's (primary) school wrote a letter addressed to every child telling them how important good attendance was and asking them to ask their paretns not to take them out of school for holidays. Where a school is good, and DC's school is very good, this is still a stick woth which OFSTED can beat them. So schools have no choice but to act. It's probably in their Improvement Plan.

CarmenSanDiego · 09/09/2009 22:36

What a joke. We're talking about 5 and 6 year olds. Plenty of countries have kids who don't go to school until later than that and don't suffer.

Why is attendance so vital at this age? What is this 'progress' they need to be making? I really think that people need to take a step back and look at what we're demanding of small children.

As a parent, my duty is to my child, to ensure they are developing in a happy and positive way and learning what they need. My duty is NOT to Ofsted or to making sure the school tick the boxes. Quite simply, not my problem. Especially if it means sending a sick child to school or missing a family trip that will give the child a lot of pleasure and experiences.

As for punishing ill children, being rude to the parents of ill children and excluding them from prizes, that is shocking.

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