4 year old reception attendance?

[helensoon]

Hi my DS is 4. He is one of the youngest in reception and turns 5 at the end of August. Unfortunately he’s had a lot of sick days. He’s sick again and I know his attendance level is going to drop below 90% in the next day or so. I can’t find the school attendance policy on their website. As he is still 4, will I avoid getting in trouble? Problem is the school office if really unhelpful. They say send him in when he’s got eat infection and they’ll do the meds.

You might get a letter, possibly asked in for meeting to check everything is ok. The school has to address lower attendances. But if genuine sickness then will be no “trouble”

Write an email to the school and copy in various people saying that you cannot control how ill your child has been this year and you are not going to send him to school with an ear infection.

My daughter’s attendance is much worse than your child’s for this year because she had scarlet fever in December and she was very very poorly and even in hospital for some of the time.

I may be wrong, but I thought you didn’t legally have to send kids to school until they’re 5? (I’m in Wales though, so don’t know the rules for anywhere else).

My youngest has only just turned 5 and we’ve never had any communication regarding attendance.

We did have an email saying my eldest Daughter’s (7) attendance had dropped below 90%. They just asked that why tried to improve it or something along those lines. The attendance was low due to us going abroad. They didn’t seem to mind.

I don’t think they will make a big deal of it at 4, and probably won’t get in touch at all.

Thanks - this is what I’m confused about. We also have term time holiday booked (only 2 days). They weren’t even bothered by that but maybe because the percentage was up then.

They will check up on you from a safeguarding point of view, as attendance is a new point in the EYFS for safeguarding.

Whilst it’s true that children don’t legally have to be in school until 5, I think that if they are enrolled in a school you’ve kind of opted in to a situation where the LA will check in if a child is off school a lot. This is mainly because in recent years, some abused children slipped through the net.