87% attendance- nothing to do?

[damsey]

Hello,

SD attendance was 87% last year. 79% the year before. We live a very large distance away from her so only see her in school holidays. This was agreed upon in mediations.

So far this year we know of 5 days off.

Partner has spoken to mum about this in mediation- she said it was due to anxiety. When partner has asked if she's taken her to GP she didn't respond.

We know it's not anxiety unfortunately. We did have a little look (SD is 10) on SD phone and have seen she asks her mum for these days off and mum allows them. She calls her in sick to school. We then found out that her mum went away for a week for work in March and didn't sort out childcare so SD went to stay with her grandparents who do not live local. We weren't informed of this.

Partner called the school last school year and they said because it had increased from 79% they weren't going to do anything.

But we are both concerned for SD education? What can we do?

Partner and his ex are due to go to court for child arrangements soon so things are icy between them currently.

Should he speak to school again and tell them what he knows? Surely if she was off so much with sickness they should be speaking to mum and asking what is wrong?

I'm posting here for my partner; for advice. I don't tend to get involved too much but I know education is important!

I have one dc who had 100% attendance from year 3 upwards, one who had years of 99 or 100% and years of 75% often due to anxiety and one who normally hovers around 90%, but did have a year at about 60%.

You don't really know what's going on. The text "I want today off" or whatever you're seeing on the phone you're not there to see the reality. Mum is there. It may look like she's choosing a day off but the reality may be that she isn't in a fit state to go in. Anxiety can be debilitating, as I found with my middle one. It can take the form of migraines, excruciating stomach pain (the GP sent her to be scanned for appendicitis on more than one occasion), and vomiting as a start off.

All of those can be incompatible with going to school.

My youngest when ill, is ill. No particular health conditions, but just always gets hit by everything hard.
He sometimes fancies an extra day when he's on the mend, but when he's off you really don't want him in school because he's liable to vomit/collapse/develop a very high temperature all of which tends to not be popular at school. School normally questions a little bit when his attendance is dipping, but they've never, even in the year when it was about 60%, said anything other than get better.
He's 16yo, and just had a fortnight off. We had parents' evening towards the end, and his teacher was expressing concern about what he's missed. I said he was going to try and get in for the rest of the week, but please be aware that he was on a drip in hospital only 4 days previously and today was the first day he was sitting up... they promptly said to keep him off for the rest of the week, and they'd email work over for him, if he was up to it.

For both the younger two we have worked with the schools and they have never had a problem because they know it isn't just being mardy. We've only once had an attendance letter, for example (and it wasn't the 60% year) and we had a follow up email apologising and saying to ignore it because they knew he was doing his best to get in.

You can ask how they're working with school to catch up. You could offer to pay for tutors to catch up if you think that would be helpful (with anxiety it may not be).
But implying that she's not really ill may be simply you're not seeing the reality of the situation. And don't say that she doesn't have it with you, because if the anxiety is round school then she won't.