Educated off site/Code B

[AndThatsAnotherThing]

My DS, suffered a head injury on a school trip last week. He ended up in A&E with mild concussion and had it glued. (Badly)

The school called (several times) afterwards to see if he was OK and explained that his absence would be entered as 'Educated off site' (Code B) on his attendance record. They expected, I think, his absence to be a day or two. I don't know why they offered to do this; I'm assuming it would be so that the LA attendance officer would not be on our case.

However, over the weekend and probably as a result of the wound not being properly cleaned during the gluing process in A&E, infection set in and his face swelled. He had cellulitis, a serious complication. He's on strong antibiotics and is completely wiped out.

The long and short of it is that the total of his absence for the accident will probably be 9 days off school (a fortnight of illness in total). Is that a lot of 'Educated off site'? What implications, if any, might this have for his school record? Will it look as though he's been excluded for that time or something? If so, and a straight medical absence looks better, I'll have them change it and the attendance officer can get involved; I have all the paperwork, photos, evidence etc to prove the absence.

If you've read this far, TIA.

I should also add, so as not to drip feed, that he's in Year 1 and has SN.

imo They shouldn't use educated offsite unless your child is being educated offsite.

Surely he is ill. They should use the sickness code. They should not be fiddling the registers.

I wondered that too. I wondered if they used it to cover that he was in a fairly serious accident while in the care of the school. Maybe I'm being unfair.

He is generally well in himself now but can't return to school because the wound is not entirely healed and I'm worried that if the scab were to get knocked or something we'd be back at square one. He needs quite a lot of rest too as the antibiotics are taking it out of him.

We have a huge pack of work that we're getting through. I think, ironically, that perhaps he's learning as much at home as he would have been at school. But I know that's not the point.

Under those circumstances, he should be entered as ill - authorised absence for illness, code I, though there is an argument that if the A&E attendance was during school hours (and not during the visit, code V), then that specific session should be M (medical / dental appointment).

I cannot imagine why the school would want to put him down as any other code, unless they have a lot of "illness" [for which read 'phoned in sick but actually on holiday'] and the amount of absence authorised in this way is beginning to be suspiciously large so they are anxious to vary the codes a little ... are they due Ofsted, or do they have generally poor attendance?

I would ring them and ask, quite bluntly, why they have chosen that code rather than simply coding him as ill.

Ofsted have just visited (it was 'good' with outstanding features so nothing to worry about there). Their attendance is generally good.

I have no real idea why they've done this either! All rather odd. I'll ask the head when I drop the older ones off tomorrow.

It should be marked as illness, but I've known schools to use B for longer term absences - I can see the point - once attendance drops below a certain point, the attendance panel would get involved which isn't needed in this case, so B prevents it happening - maybe that is why they are using it.

It won't look like an exclusion, that has an entirely different code although I can't remember what letter it is.

My DS was off school for several months last year with whooping cough. He was mainly recorded as code B because the school was sending work home for him to do (he actually went up a whole maths level while off and while his performance in everything else wasn't as stunning he didn't lose ground in anything). But he was definitely sick though - they wouldn't let him through the doors because he was still whooping and doing the post whoop spew, despite not being infectious any more.

Of course it was a situation of bolting the stable door since DS and several other kids caught WC as a direct result of an older boy with WC not being off school and not being sent home when he was in the infectious phase.

Tricky one - he clearly is unwell, but you also say he is doing school work at home and plenty of it, so both code I and code B would fit.

I work closely with our EWO but I'm not sure what happens when there are two codes that could be applicable. Good idea to phone the school and check.

Yes, he's doing a fair bit at home. I saw the Head of School (not the 'executive head' who is the main one) at the end of last week and she said that they'd given him a Code B as he was not ill but not able to come into school. It is a medical absence though so I'm not sure how it all fits. His attendance since last January has been 100% except for appointments for his disabilities too.

Your poor DS Metebilis3. Good on him for making all that progress though!

Think we MIGHT be back in on Monday. Fingers crossed!

A B should only be given if the school can prove the child was educated off-site, being supervised by an appropriate person and doing set work.

Technically an EWO could be able to call by the place the child should be at any point during the school day and see the person supervising is there and the set work is being done.

He's ill

Unless they have sent a teacher /LSA to you to go through lessons for at least 4 hours he's not educated offsite

They are fiddling the stats

The question is does it bother you or matter ?