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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:
thesunshinesbrightly · 13/09/2009 12:53

have just read last couple of pages! humph i see it turned into a bit of a thing

cory · 13/09/2009 12:57

Quattro, I think the poster with the asthmatic child was talking about the effects of the condition on her particular child. Severe asthma might well result in absences despite the best of medical treatment. Sometimes inhalers don't work, children end up in A&E etc.

cory · 13/09/2009 13:00

Am not myself in favour of term time holidays, but have to admit there are times when they seem the right thing to do.

Like dd's friends who had time off to holiday with their Mum after the doctors had told the family that she might not live until the next school holidays. Guess who the old charmer was who wrote snide remarks on their school report.

When dd has been exhausted from pain week after week, or when ds was devastated from his diagnosis earlier this year, I really wished I had had the moral courage to brave the opprobrium of the LEA and just take them away.

simplesusan · 13/09/2009 17:00

There is also the other serious point of parents who send their child into school, regardless of them being very ill with contagoius illnesses.

siouxsieandthebanshees · 18/09/2009 21:26

We had the same letter yesterday.
I rang the head today in my work break, and asked why.
Ds has 2 hours of every Wednesday morning to ride at the local disability riding stables, and has done since the day he started. Obviously the school gave him permission for this activity as it helps with his physio. (he has CP)
We try to make all Hospital Appts (of which he has a lot) for after school hours, but occasionally they have to be in school time.
Appart from that he is rarely of sick, last yr he missed 2 days.
The head, told me that it was the riding which was the reason we got our letter. So, I asked her why in the last 7 yrs (he is in yr6) she had never told us that she was unhappy with him coming in at 11am on wednesday.
She replied, that she was fine with the riding and he should carry on*. But the LEA still asked her to send me a letter. I see the LEA's point, but why have I never recieved a letter like this before? The LEA must be really cracking down.

*I am convinced they are fine with the riding as it frees up ds's TA for a couple of hours ... cynical moi!

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