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.

It musy vary madly, my DD has 77% attendance due to getting illnesses much worse than other kids and more often.
I've never had a letter and she is yr2.
They cannot do anything, do they expect you to send in your child when they are ill/contagious when school sets the rules about 48hrs post D+V (sound rule) and re headlice and impetigo etc

So crazy. Do they want to have sick children in school, possibly giving everyone swine flu? What about garden variety stomach flu? My DCs school almost shut down last winter because of head lice, and there was another episode in February where half the children were out because someone sent their child to school with a stomach thing that proved very contagious. Even some of the teachers got it.

So if you have a seriously ill child (maybe in and out of hospital) you get a letter along these lines too? I bet that helps the situation no end

If your child is genuinly ill and you have kept the school fully informed about it at the time, what on earth is the point of sending out a letter of this nature at all? I'd be very annoyed too but would be up at the school having my reaction to the letter on put on record.

Little update - I was listening in on a conversation in the playground today, and another mum was complaining about this letter as her dd had also only been of due to illness.

Like me she objected to the fact that she'd been sent the letter 3 days into a new term, like there was an assumption that her dd would have poor attendance again. She also said how they should be able to tell the difference between a child that is off ill and children who regularly miss a day a week or similar, and send letters accordingly.

So, it wasn't just me who was pissed off and I still think I am justified in being annoyed.

I am not going to speak to the head this time, but if she sends me one mnore letter regarding this, without ds having been absent then I will be making my feelings known.

Seeker, did you read my post of 9:08? Then could you as a school governor explain to me why it would be impossible to include in the attendance letter a sentence reading: "please ignore this if there is a genuine medical reason for your child's absence"?

Just a small thing, but it might just make the parents of a child being treated for leukaemia feel a little bit better, and it really wouldn't cost the school anything extra or require any extra register-keeping.

Tsar, yes that's what they do.

If the child is in hospital and being educated by the hospital school they are not supposed to mark them absent (because the child is receiving an education), but dd's school ignored this. I have heard of the letter being sent out to the parents of a terminally ill child.

Disgraceful. How obtuse and insensitive.

just to clarify: it wasn't my dd whi was terminally ill or treated for cancer. Her condition is far, far less serious, but she was in hospital and they still marked her as absent.

Cory - They should mark, from memory, as 'educated elsewhere' but it doesn't mark the child as present. The school should obviously weed out the letter to that parent though.

I do this for a living . It is not up to me as an attendance officer to decide whether a parent 'deserves' the letter or not (apart from known cases of chronic illness which I don't send). Many parents call their child in sick and then take them for new shoes or on an extended weekend break - on paper most of my poor attenders are 'off sick' - reality is their parents can't be bothered to get out of bed and bring them in or prefer to swan off in to town with them (why FGS? - I'd rather have the day to myself thanks very much). It is my job to let them know the % attendance and the consequences of it falling further ie a referral to the EWO and the possibility of a fixed penalty notice.

Nutty - if you're doing your best and the children are genuinely sick then you have nothing to worry about. Keep the school informed and put the letter in the bin.

I have a chronically ill child myself so know what it's like on the other side of the fence too.

I am now worried what will happen if ds has a period of illness again though.

I really only keep any of my dc off if i think they really are too ill to go to school. If they have a cold then they go, but if they have a high temp with it then I keep them off. In that situation, would the school consider them not ill enough to be kept home ?

It is so confusing when the school themselves send the children home for stomach ache, nose bleed and feeling sick etc. I cannot remember the last time I collected one of my dc and them not be jumping around the house the minute we got home.

I am incredibly luck that ds had mild chicken pox last year too, but he managed to get it in the easter hols. Heres hoping he doesn't get it again.

saggarmakersbottomknocker Fri 11-Sep-09 18:22:52 Add a message | Report post | Contact poster

"Cory - They should mark, from memory, as 'educated elsewhere' but it doesn't mark the child as present. The school should obviously weed out the letter to that parent though."

I know they should have. And they didn't. That's what I'm grumbling about!

The school were told about dd's health problems (including letters from paediatricians/school nurse/GP, explaining why she had to be absent a lot) by the beginning of Year 3. I still had to spend 3 years putting the letters in the bin. By the end of Yr 5, the head was still trying to get Social Services involved and we were still having to endure the lectures on the benefit of education of the EWO (a woman who had to ask me for help to fill in her own forms).

Then the nagging stopped magically, following the early retirement of the head due to ill health.

So 87% is 4 days a week attendance? 4 days a week sounds perfect for infants, shame it can't be like that in reality.

Nutty, if your child is too ill to learn/play/etc and would be spending most of the time resting at home, then keep him off. If you get the letter, just shrug it off in the knowledge that the absences were genuine and medical.

'Seeker, did you read my post of 9:08? Then could you as a school governor explain to me why it would be impossible to include in the attendance letter a sentence reading: "please ignore this if there is a genuine medical reason for your child's absence"?'

Sorry, I thought I had covered this. The problem is that the over protective (child grazed knee at school and was then kept home for two days "as a precaution" - a genuine example) and the feckless (who regard any illness, however minor, as a good reason not to be bothered to get their child to school) would be able to say that they had a genuine medical reason for their child's absence.

There is no perfect solution to this problem. But it is a real shame that people feel got at and victimized. I can genuinely say, from the other side of the fence that that is not the intention. The intention is to get children into school and learning. If you are upset or worried by a letter like this because your child has medical problems, PLEASE go and talk to the Head. And of course if your child is ill they shouldn't go to school. And noting bad will happen to you if your child does need to be off.

I knew this would be you Nutty

Just ignore them. The school have to be seen trying to do something to improve attendance levels so have sent a general letter out to all those children who have less than X attendance as I suppose they can't be seen to be "picking" on certain parents who they think have kept their children off for no reason.

Please read my posts. On this subject (unlike many others) I actually know what I'm talking about!

Nutty, you can only do the best you can. And that means exercising your judgment about your child. Even after all the years of nagging and threats, I still keep dd off school if I consider her to be unfit to attend. Because her health is my responsibility.

I did go through a phase of trying to please the school at all costs, forcing dd to go in when she was genuinely ill. And of course the only result was that her absences shot right up, because she was taking longer to recover and getting secondary infections and heaven knows what else. I don't think I am a softie, but I do trust more to my own judgment these days.

Also 87% isn't even that bad. It's about 1.5 days off in a fortnight.

What do people think about having to get a doctor's note if their child is offer for longer than 2 days or something?

we get these letters to as dd has a compmise dimmune system .But then i get annoyed when someone moans if take out for a holiday doe sthan mean kids with serious illness not allowed a holiday as most case zparents can only afford termtime breaks.>

Where kids with no illness so not fo school a lot are allowed by their headteachers a offical holiday break .Guess its case pf punish the familys that have sick children

Ds started school this week and by end of month will be absent think about 12 sesions in all 6days , but hey nhs dont do appontments to suit schools you take whats given.

We considered the doctor's note thing too - but decided that the local Health Centre staff would probably be round to put a brick through our windows if we tried!

Seeker, one thing I do not think I left undone during those years was going in to speak to the Head. Or having meetings with all and sundry. Or sending in letter after letter, backed up by medical reports. Or explaining the whole problem to EWOs, Social Services etc etc.

In the end he let slip in private conversation that he was hoping that we would take dd out and send her elsewhere; he clearly didn't want to have to deal with someone with chronical medical problems.

I am sure victimisation would not be the intention in any school you had the running of: I have the greatest respect for your professionalism. But dd's former school, run by dd's former head...now that is a different matter.

Obviously, my situation is very far from being the norm and most people will never experience anything like it. But I think it is disingenuous to suggest that it can never happen or that schools can ever be less than perfect.

He sounds like a complete bast**d. I don't, however think (in my optimistic way) that he, or your experience, are at all typical. Certainly you would have been treated very differently at our school. And, to be fair, I don't think the OP's experience is anything like yours - she has been upset by what seems to me to be quite routine procedures, which is a real shame.

was suggested for DD about drs notes but when said Dr informed Ewo yes of course he will do them but where does he send the bill as each letter will cost Lea £13

Why? It doesn't cost me anything to get a doctor's note for work.

DRAUGHTS medical appointments shouldn't be included as absences, there is a separate category for them, DS' SALT appointments weren't included in his absences.

A medical mark does count as an absence if you miss a whole session.

Cory - I know you've had a tough time with this. School could have made it so much easier on you, really they could. I've had very little trouble with dd since she's been in secondary because her EWO/school nurse/SENCO are all working from a point of what's best for dd not what's best for school and the DCFS. It helps knowing the system from this side of the fence though.