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

[NervousNutty]

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.

Come to think of it, dd's new school didn't send us a letter last year, so they must have quietly lost our address. Perhaps that's rather naughty of them, then

Her previous school never missed an opportunity, even years after diagnosis. They even managed to mark her as absent when she was being educated in the hospital school, which they are not supposed to do.

So while the attendance targets are imposed on schools from above, I think it depends a lot on the individual schools how they actually handle it.

No it is fine, like I said, I give up.

Well, I wouldn't disagree cory. I was respoding to the info in the OP. I didn't think it was unreasonable on the part of the school.

Do you expect them to ignore the fact that your ds has missed nearly one day a week for a whole school year?

I already said, no I do not expect them to ignore it, but I do not expect to be sent a letter about his attendance 3 days into a new school year when he hasn't been absent since the last letter in may/june, especially since they know it was down to illness.

It may equate to one day off a week but it was infact chunks of illness, not me just not being arsed.

I don't know why I am bothering to explain anymore.

Here's a good ruse for encouraging better attendance - local school (not ours) insisted that sickness absences had to be verified by a doctor's note.

Local GP surgery apopleptic with rage and disbelief at trail of sad snotty children trooping in to surgery to be certified. Pre-swine flu, I should add.

Surely the biggest problem with sending a form letter is that it will not alter behaviour in the vast majority of cases, so all that monitoring, identifying, printing, stuffing in envelopes, upsetting the parents of children with chronic illness or those that have suffered bereavements and so on will be a total waste of time. The school may be seen to be "doing something" about attendance but if what they do won't change behaviour then they are not really doing any thing at all.

What does the evidence base say about how to improve attendance among those with low attendance for different reasons and at different stages of a child's school career? Any teachers/heads/educationalists/Educational Welfare Officers up to date with that?

As battle scarred parent of teenage boys and a four year old, I am afraid I am planning to be blithely oblivious to the school's refusal to authorise family holiday time in October for the little one as his brothers get a two week half term and we always visit his cousins in Spain in the "early" week. I wont be doing it once he is older but meanwhile they can send the EWO round and I will make him or her a nice cup of tea. I'm quite happy to do his phonics with him while we are away...

And anyway how does 87% attendance equate to four days a week? 4 out of 5 is 80%?

Come on now everybody you are exaggerating a bit. 87 % is not "nearly one day a week." It's closer to one day a fortnight.

ageingmum - I said something similar above re the effects of letters; the only people I think you upset by those letters are the ones whose children are genuinely absent, not those who can't be bothered!

and you're right re %ages as well - 87% is actually closer to 4.5 days average attendance a week than 4.

I´msure I´ll get flamed.
But to me, when you take a child out of school for a holiday, you are sending a message that having a holiday is more important than school.
They already get about 12 weeks off!

Seeker - "It's not aimed at the genuinely ill child, but it has to go to everyone. "

Why does it have to go to everyone?

Diddl - not necessarily sending that message. Depends on the parent's attitude to school in general.
Also, in some cases, maybe the holiday is more important than school.

Yes, possibly depends on where the holiday is taken.
But for me, it´s all part of the gradual slide that´s happening in the UK.

I had good reasons imo for the holiday and do not regret it for one moment. It was a one off.

Like I said last night though, I obviously do not give a toss so nothing I say will make any difference.

I think you just need to step back and let it wash over you.

They will presumably have been through the lists for last year's attendance once they had the confirmed figures for the whole year, and then sent a letter to everyone whose attendance was below a certain figure, regardless of at what point in the year that absence occurred.

No-one is saying that you should send your DS in when he's ill, and obviously the holiday is long gone, and you felt it was important to take him out of school to go. So there's no issue - you haven't done anything "wrong", there was just a particular set of circumstances over the last year which meant that your child was in school less than you might have hoped for them to be.

NervousNutty I get those letters all the time despite dd being away for official appointments that are pre agreed with school. I think they just print them off automatically according level of attendance. Best not to take any notice or offence. I found it annoying at first expecially the end of year awards when my dd couldn't possibly get the award through no fault of her own. Like the others say the letter is not for people like you who have genuine reasons so just ignore them.

But why does a letter have to go out to everyone? If the school are well informed of illnesses then why should a standard letter be sent to those who are not in a standard situation.

My DS2 had less than 87% attendance last year, he had a major operation not long after he started school and needed three weeks off. He misses alot of time for appointments, and even if he is only half an hour late (I try where possible to book his appointments for first thing in the morning) he is marked down as absent for the whole morning.

His immune system is comprimised and he will need more time off than the average child, the HT, and the LEA (he has a full SEN statement)are aware of it. Life is complicated and often stressful enough without letters that 'don't apply' to us arriving.

We haven't had a letter, and I like to think that this is because our headteacher has the sensitivity to know how upsetting it would be. A letter of that nature sent to us would also be pointless, a snotty letter from the LEA or school would hardly cure him!

To answer the OP.
I think YABU.
I suppose it´s sent at the beginning of the year so that attendance will improve this year.
If you know he´s off for genuine reasons then ignore it!

I also still think that YABU and oversenstive too!

It's a school fgs, they have god knows how many children to churn through the system on a daily basis and I think it is unreasonable of you to take offence at this or to expect the head to attach a hand written note (as has been suggested on this thread) Do you honestly think that anyone has the time and resources to do that

FWIW, we tend to be quite a sickly family ourselves (pick up everything going) and this is precisely why I don't take the children out of school during term time for holidays or even dentist/eye appointments as I never know when the next virus/bug will appear.

You have chosen to send your child to a state school and like it not you are now part of the 'system'

If you don't like it, then home educate!

BettySuarez Fri 11-Sep-09 08:58:59 Add a message | Report post | Contact poster

"It's a school fgs, they have god knows how many children to churn through the system on a daily basis and I think it is unreasonable of you to take offence at this or to expect the head to attach a hand written note (as has been suggested on this thread)"

Betty, you're not reading this properly. I did NOT suggest a hand written note. I suggested a standard note attached to all letters, saying please ignore if your child has a genuine medical reason.

Like the TV licencing people do: they just add another sentence to the letter saying please ignore if you have paid within the last few days.

If they can manage it, why can't a school?

Just another sentence, they can stick it in the main letter if they like; it's hardly rocket science. And it might just make the parents whose child is terminally ill in hospital feel a bit better.

"If you don't like it, then home educate!"

That's a bit extreme.

Perhaps nutty is happy with most of the 'system'.
Because she isn't happy with a part of the system that appears to be depersonalising people and has "many children to churn through the system on a daily basis " you think she should put up or shut up?

I'm not sure that it should be a case of getting into the habit of ignoring letters from the school as 'they don't apply to me'. Eventually how do we know which ones to take seriously? Surely the school should send letters out that are relevant to the people receiving them and then maybe the school would be taken more seriously over all.

i really wouldn't get so wound up OP.

Next year DH will be away for 6 months (from before Xmas this year). He will be back for 2 weeks at some point which will be determined by the Navy. Obviously I would like this to coincide with Feb half term or Easter...but it will happen when it happens. whenever that is, I will be taking DS1 out of school.

I appreciate that this will have an effect on the School's attendence records, and if I get a letter, well so be it.

how DO you remember how many 2's?

5 am a school governor. You can have no idea the amount of discussion and thought that goes into the plan to send out letters like this. We KNOW that we will piss some people off, and our Head knows he will have some parents hammering on his door every time they get sent out.

HOWEVER.
It is not for the school to judge whether or not a child's medical history justifies their level of absence. So it would eb wrong for the school to decide who to send letters to and who not. And (at a risk of flaming) it is not ALWAYS for the parent. Some parents use the tiniest, mildest illness as a reason for keeping a child away, either because they are over anxious (which needs addressing) or because they can't be bothered to get their child to school (which also needs addressing). So a note saying please ignore if there is a genuine reason for absence would not work here.

And it only takes the slightest hint in the playground that there is one rule for one set of parents and another for another for the whole system to collapse.

Hence letters to everyone whose child dip below a set level of attendance.

HTH

yanbu and yabu depending on what affected school attendence (holiday or sickness). I do agree that maybe there is a effort to be made by parents about taking a holiday during school term but you cannot stop your child from being poorly. Last year DS3 had: tonsilitis twice, chicken pox, food poisonning (not my cooking BTW)and various sickness passed on from a child to the other in school+siblings. I would say he probably missed a good month 1/2 in sick days but there was nothing much I could have done about it so a letter would have ennoyed me a lot (unless sent to entire school).

But seeker, does it actually make any difference at all to send out these letters? Not judging by the response to this post.

The school will surely need to have some further discussion and start to make some kind of judgment if they are hoping to change the behaviour of parents who cant be bothered to get their children to school or are overanxious, which will need slightly more sophisticated and targeted communication than a form letter.