AIBU to think 100% attendance awards are fundamentally unfair?

[Nijiko]

My child has severe asthma and is on immunosuppressants, so occasional school absences are just part of life for us unfortunately. Hospital appointments can only be taken in school hours, and when they catch a bug they don’t easily “bounce back” in a couple of days like many other kids do. Even a simple cold can wipe them out.

So yes, I have to keep them home a bit longer if something nasty is going round. Because they need to recover properly and risk ending up back in hospital.

But what’s upset me is the attendance awards at school.

My child has never had one and realistically never will. Not because they don’t try hard at school or because we don’t value education. But because their body is disadvantaged.

The awards were handed out last week and my child just sat there knowing, yet again, they’d never be one of the children called up. To be honest, they knew that they wouldn't before the school year even started.

And honestly? It is a slap in the face constantly for them due to something they can't control. I find that heartbreaking.

I know schools are under pressure about attendance, but I can’t help feeling these awards mostly reward children for being healthy/lucky enough not to get ill.

And I also think they encourage people to send poorly kids in. We all know families who dose them up with Calpol and hope for the best.

Our school makes us evidence every medical appointment. When I was young, if you were sick your parents were trusted advicate. Sometimes it feels like parents are treated as guilty until proven innocent if they keep an ill child off school - to protect them and other kids from getting sick.

Maybe I’m overthinking it. But I don’t really understand why children should be publicly rewarded for something other children, through absolutely no fault of their own, can literally never achieve. It feels like health discrimination. I would much rather see children rewarded for exceptional efforts in their learning.

AIBU?

I really wish they would. I too would love to see the evidence. Although I would be surprised if they even bothered collecting this evidence.

I worked at an educational setting with very poor attendance. The school didn't do attendance awards because it was pretty pointless but the inspector suggested we implemented attendance awards. What happened is what we said would happen: John, Jane and Sue got attendance awards because they already had close to 100% attendance anyway. Sam, Billy, Tom, Edna, Sally, Jim and Dave's attendance still didn't improve. What did actually work was working closely with addiction services to support Sam and Sally's parents to allow Sam and Sally to attend school, working with SS to provide support for Billy's severely SEN brother in the mornings so Billy could get to school, working closely with Tom's medical team in tamden with Tom's parents so his hospital appointments could where possible be held after school or during school holidays, engaging constantly with Dave's parents to encourage him into school, getting Edna a EHCP which meets her needs, working closely with SS, children's services and school transport to support Jim's parents at home to help them to get Jim ready for school and onto school transport, speaking to transport about arriving on time to Jim's home so he can get on transport to school.

Of course all that extra work needs money, services and time and effort which a bit of paper with 100% attendance doesn't.

That sounds awkward, especially if (as in my child's school) they don't tell you precisely they were invited to the ceremony before the award. It could be incredibly deflating...

And how many of the children being taken on term time holidays will have chosen the date and booked that themselves? We’re already fining parents for unauthorised absence, why are we punishing the child too?

All awards are unfair in some way or another, I don’t think we can ban everything all the time because some find them unfair. My child takes part in sports day knowing they will never win, I don’t make it into a big deal it’s just one of those things. Some children will never get a spelling award no matter how hard they try. Just tell children to take it on the chin, there will be something they will get an award for!

This is a really interesting point.

As a primary teacher (turned home ed parent) it’s interesting to me that primary school in particular has evolved into something very competitive in comparison to when we were kids.

And it begs the question why are schools so obsessed with awards? Star of the Day, Star of the Week, Termly teachers pet, attendance, spelling awards, behaviour and academic awards etc etc.
In my opinion all of this just breeds competition over collaboration between children. Awards are about extrinsic motivation rather than instrinsic so the reward is the goal rather than the progress made to get there. It pits children against each other too which I don’t think is healthy.

It also feels kind of manipulative:/

It’s like dangling a carrot rather than getting children to WANT to do well internally. It makes me wonder if we’re inadvertently setting kids up to expect every effort in adulthood to be rewarded publicly.

In adulthood, recognition is totally different. Some fields are highly competitive, others are collaborative. Some people get frequent praise, others work in silence. Wondering if these constant awards give kids a false sense of how the world works.

It isn't punishing a child to not give them a certificate.

But if the child cares that much they will moan to their parents which might then make them stop the term time holidays.

It’s not remotely an achievement, especially for a primary school aged child. My DD is coming to the end of year 2 and has had 100% attendance since the start of reception. The only achievement is luck.
Luck that she hasn’t caught a standard virus that has kept her off. She had one vomiting bug that started Friday after school, no vomiting on the weekend, fine by Monday.
Luck that she has no longer term health conditions or disabilities that cause issue with school attendance either through frequently being too unwell to attend, having a school that can’t meet her needs, or through needing hospital appointments.
Luck that her parents give a shit and take her in every day.

Some schools have lost their minds over attendance. A friend of mine’s year 1 child was in hospital on oxygen when the school called her to let her know that the absence would affect their education. I don’t care what targets Ofsted sets, no one made them say that.

Agreed. As a former teacher myself, and having worked in schools like that, I know attendance issues are often far more complex than “parents not trying hard enough”.

And to briefly speak for all the “Toms” out there... NHS care doesn’t only operate after school or during holidays. Children with chronic conditions can’t all just pick a more convenient appointment time for school attendance data. A lot of medical absences (especially emergencies) are simply unavoidable.

I said this once to attendance office in primary school who seemed upset DS sisters were sharing their 100 attendance prizes with him - he'd had few days off for illness.

Pointed out they hadn't wanted him ill in school and that it was clearly completely out of my hands - she was trying to say it was something to be proud of for me getting girls in. I pointed out our minimum was attendance at school if well - that was our base expectation for the kids and us.

It got worse though few years later they started pitting the classes against each other - and several clases had chronically ill kids in and there started to be bullying of them becuase they were having time off.

At secondary the prizes got even better - but by then I think the kids were much more cynical about it all.

It is if they’re upset by it. One of mine used to have to miss end of term assembly because she’d be so upset by not getting one, the other three couldn’t give a monkeys.

Parents taking term time holidays know there are consequences. They’re doing it for a reason, their child being left out on assembly isn’t going to influence them. Given that FPNs for term time holidays are at record highs and attendance awards aren’t new…they’re clearly not having the desired effect.

Regardless, I could just about stomach people who’ve been on holiday being left out but that’s not what happens is it. We’re also rewarding kids for not having picked up an illness (or not being born with a chronic one), or not having had an injury that’s prevented them from attending school.

How would you suggest the certificate is going to affect change in those cases? Ensure parents cover up chicken pox spots so they can still get their prize? Ignore needed medical appointments in favour of getting a certificate? It’s utter nonsense.

This falls into the category of parents offloading parenting onto schools.

It's YOUR job as a parent to parent your child. That means explaining to your child that not everyone is eligible for everything, there are winners and losers in everything, that you're proud of them nonetheless (assuming you are), brush it off and move on. Life is different for everyone, most children have something going on that precludes them from something or other at some point in their lives.

My son has a nut allergy so severe that when he was little he couldn't be out of my sight. So many times I had to sit and watch his sad little face as he was left out of stuff. That's life. I made it up to him in other ways. He's older now and moved on.

So many times as a young girl I was left out of stuff because I wasn't tall enough / fast enough / glossy enough etc. That's life. You learn to focus on the things you're good at and make the most of what you have.

It's not the school's job to make every single child feel valued. Utterly wrong approach to schooling. It's YOUR job as the parent to make YOUR child feel valued for the things you think they should be valued for. That's a parenting task, not a schooling task. Just explain to your child that their asthma means they'll never achieve 100% attendance and that that's ok, it's not their fault and nothing they've done wrong. It's just life. And look at all this other stuff that you really are good at - if school doesn't give awards for those things just know that if they did we think you'd be #1. That's it.

Yes, class awards definitely aren't any better and the bullying is real. Those children represent an attendance black hole... and the other kids know it.

I do explain that to my child. But “life isn’t fair” doesn’t mean that schools shouldn’t think about whether a system is disproportionately excluding disabled and chronically ill children from the outset.

That’s a reasonable thing to question.

It was. And it was about as hot as it is today. We (me and daughter) weren't impressed!

So you’ll be ok with schools not banning nuts then and saying to your son ah well the outside world isn’t for you. We can’t all have everything can we.

They're ridiculous and should be scraped

I hate them, I would always try and get one at school but would fail because I got sick and it made me feel terrible. I just don’t think they should exist.

It isn't the school's fault - it is the system's. Schools are judged on attendance so they have to introduce some sort of incentive for students to attend school. I totally agree with your point but for students who are "capable" of 100% attendance, a lot of the time just going to school and education isn't a strong enough draw, whereas a prize draw for an ipad is! Sad reality of how much education isn't valued.

Going in everyday isn’t an achievement when it’s down to luck of not having a disability or long term health condition.

how about rewarding the children that go in as often as they can despite this unluck of the draw.

my ds has neurological condition. 100% - meh. Wasn’t doing to happen.

however he’s also a para athlete and has compete for GBR. Why? Because despite the countries attitude towards disabled people and dismissal of the barriers they face he has got a good ethic. He didn’t need the awards to prove it.

Maybe the truth is that those who don’t have disabilities or long term health conditions actually need the rewards because they aren’t resilient 🤔🤷‍♀️

School in general is a very un fair place. I could literally write a whole thread on it. I do disagree with the attendance awards because it is just luck of the draw if you are ill and you can’t go in or you don’t get ill & can go every day. I find the whole thing about School unfair and it’s usually the same cohort of children that get awarded with everything and now we have a whole cohort of children who get away with everything because of one label or another!

No more unfair than awards for being good at some subjects, or having a sports day with prizes. We could completely do away with all of it, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with acknowledging that some people are (for example) really fast runners. To get 100% attendance you have to be lucky with your immune system AND have good work ethic. One is genetic but the other isn’t. Same for being a fast runner - you need both bits for success.

My dc does have good attendance and gets these awards most terms. I’m very nonplussed about them getting them as I don’t feel it’s really an achievement in the sense that it’s only through sheer luck that they’ve not been unwell and had to miss school. I prefer when they get awards for actual effort, improving in a particular subject that they struggle with, doing well in their hobby/sport or showing positive character traits like kindness, team work or helping others for example. Things that require more than just turning up. Some kids turn up every day but don’t put any effort in or have issues with behaviour and still get awards for attendance at the end of term, I know because my dc has had issues with those things in the past. It’s a very low bar to set and what use is a child going to school every day if they just mess about? It makes the school attendance figures look better but that’s it.

Dc isn’t bothered about them either, once I found an attendance certificate at the bottom of their bag about two weeks after they’d received it, when I asked them about it they were like “oh yeah I forgot I got that”. With other types of awards, they can’t wait to tell me about it, but ones for attendance are pretty much forgotten about as soon as they’ve received them. It’s not because of how I feel about them because I haven’t told them what I think about attendance awards and always make the effort to react positively about them when they receive them regardless of what I think, so it’s not like my feelings are rubbing off on them.

I’d love to know if any studies have been done on these awards and whether they actually encourage attendance or not, because I don’t think they do much to help at all. The parents who don’t care won’t be swayed by a piece of paper, and the ones who do will send their children when they’re really not well enough to be there, possibly spreading it to others in the process.

Yes exactly. You don’t go through life as an adult being patted on the back. There will always be winners and losers; that’s the nature of it. Around the beginning of the 2000s when dc2 was at primary school I was astonished when, on sports day everyone taking part in a race got a medal. Well, hang on surely medals are only given to those that finish in first, second and third place. Another example of no one must be seen to be losing out. It’s not a true representation of life going forward. There’s too much pandering to kids these days and what a mess we’re in

That's a parenting task, not a schooling task. Just explain to your child that their asthma means they'll never achieve 100% attendance and that that's ok, it's not their fault and nothing they've done wrong. It's just life. a

We did that and they quickly didn't value the certifciates at all because they were meaning less - so we all felt it was a waste of everyones time.

Later change of schools and they learnt to sit though assemblies where other kids got prizes for attendance. We all thought it sucked though - even when my DC got quite nice prizes - seriously ill kids getting another kick in the teeth never felt fair - and sadly there were a surpising number in their schools.

Ofsted do not tell heads what to do to improve attendance.

They look at attendance data and want to see attendance improving from a starting position and compare that with relevant national data. It’s still an issue that schools in deprived areas find improvement challenging and the national average somewhat out of reach. However using the blunt tool of treats isn’t in any Ofsted framework.

Each school has the power to decide their own policies but they must be seen to be making a difference in terms of attendance. Attendance data is judged, but not how the school improves attendance. That’s down to SLT. Any head that says Ofsted required certificates and treats is wrong. Evidence based policies should be used but many schools are lazy. Looking at attendance registers is so much easier!