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've never agreed with them. DD has a heart condition which meant a lot of missed school up to year 2.

As a teacher, I used to influence the heads I worked for to understand this. The heads I worked for did, and adapted policy.

As a leader in a primary school, I meet my local authority attendance officer 3 times a year. I've changed our attendance awards to class awards rather than personal awards to the most improved over the term. I remove children from the data that have known conditions. It's a corner of the school newsletter 3 times a year that hopefully no parent reads.

If there was no awards, it would be commented on in the attendance officers termly report.

Ofsted read the termly reports, so we can't not do awards, as you have to be seen doing something to improve attendance.

FWIW, if there were no attendance officers, the LA would have an extra £250k a year (rough estimate).

In the work place absenteeism for chronic conditions or disability is treated differently. Why can schools not do this if school is supposed to be getting them ready for the real world.

I get the reasons behind it but attendance certificates have been a thing for the entire two decades of my parenting (and I assume before that too). They aren't having the desired effect and it genuinely baffles me that schools therefore still see any value in them.

Trips or cash prizes are out of order. But the point of an award is not everyone is going to win it. And attendance is a big deal, and it matters, so a child who has excellent attendance should be recognized for such. This should, obviously, be done in a way that makes clear that nobody expects children to miss funerals or come in if they have chronic or dangerous conditions.

When they get to university, it's already really clear that an expectation and normalization of low attendance is endemic now. And it does nobody any favours. So yeah, give them a little certificate to indicate that attendance is good and deserves recognition.

If it must be done then it could be done in a way that doesn't automatically exclude children who have no chance of getting it through no fault of their own. Such as excluding medical appointments but including general sickness like almost every child gets.

It's even worse at Dd's school. They have bouncy castles in near the end of summer term. Every child gets one go, but those with high attendance get a second go. Youngest Dd absolutely loves school and is actually disappointed when it's the school holidays. When she's too ill she gets doubly upset (because she's unwell and missing school). Unfortunately she is very prone to bad coughs which often come with a fever and vomiting. Then comes the yearly missing of the extra go on the bouncy castle. She always comes home in tears at the unfairness of it. Essentially being punished for being ill. Last year one little lad got to have the extra go even though he was going off on holiday the following day for the rest of term (which the school knew about). I never take them out of school during term time. I have told them this year I will take them out the afternoon of the bouncy castle day for a treat, as I agree with youngest Dd it is very unfair.

Attendance does matter, so the kids making the most effort to attend should be awarded.

Thats not the same as 100% attendance being automatically awarded and nothing else counting.

One of my twin DDs had 100% attendance two years in a row. My other DD had 47% the first year and 82% the second. DD1 herself said at the time that DD2s attendance took far far more effort than hers. She was lucky not to pick up any bugs or coughs during term time. DD2 dragged herself in on crutches and still in significant pain (as she was in pain for months) after being knocked down and having four surgeries over the two years.

Same with a child I worked with. They had full attendance bar one day a month when they had a hospital appointment to monitor their long term (eventually life limiting) condition and two days a year when they had to go to another hospital for the same condition. At that school that meant that child missed out on a trip to the cinema. That kid dragged themselves in on days they were tired, days they were in pain and did so in full knowledge that for their HT that wasn’t worthy of an award.

And school shouldn’t be the place that children learn that discrimination against those with disability and illness is socially acceptable.

DD had extremely good attendance in primary, she used to win these stupid attendance medals all the time (one time they tried to give to her but she was off sick!).
I lost patience as she’d had 100% all year but she’d had a hospital appointment which had gone on from 9am until after 2pm. So we didn’t go to school, we went home and ate! They marked it as unauthorised as we should have come back before 3pm (still eating lunch) they were so inflexible with it that I just stopped caring, DD too, she was so angry she lost out for a hospital appointment as there’d been a special party for those with 100%.

Yes, dragging yourself into work when you’re ill and can’t concentrate and spreading your germs is definitely a valuable habit 🙄

But if those same students who have had attendance awards available to them throughout their school careers are not attending at university then doesn't that prove the point that they don't work?

my DCs school used to do this and my sister pointed out it was now seen as unfair - I’d never considered it and she was totally right. Interestingly the new head got rid of them quietly. I agree with PP regarding lots of things being unfair, but I do think penalising a child because of their medical conditions is a step beyond unfair.

What is a reward for some, feels like a cruel punishment for a child who had to attend a health appointment... and it is quite clear that there was a longer-term impact on you both that actually made the award counter-productive.

Yes it’s pointless pushing them in when they are struggling towards the end of term for them to say ‘what’s the point’. Children are very aware of unfairness I think.
i also got criticised by reception for sending her in when I couldn’t tell if she was unwell or and then getting called to pick her up.

There is a culture of presenteeism in UK though - it’s been shown to cost billions.

I agree that attendance awards are daft because they might encourage attendance while contagious, but I also find it hard to believe they’re that big a motivator. I remember them when I was at school and absolutely no one gave a toss. I don’t think many kids care now, either.

They do mostly reward luck but I agree with PPs that that’s what most awards do. The child who wins a maths award or music award was just lucky to be born with certain talents, then maybe added a bit of effort on top. Same if you’re lucky to be healthy and then you add the effort of not taking a sick day when you’re just a bit tired or under the weather. I wouldn’t say it’s “unfair”.

i think they are a good thing. Not all children are academic so will never achieve certain awards but attendance might be within their reach.
You could argue the same for all awards! The sports awards what about the poor children who just aren’t sporty Through no fault of their own? What about the dyslexic who’s never going to win any handwriting award?

The problem is that some parents want their child to win everything and can’t celebrate others getting something and not their child.

Our school give out awards all over the place and it’s always the same kids, ones that aren’t the best behaved or even nice to other kids (I work in the school so see them daily) they award to try encourage good behaviour while the ones that are well behaved don’t get celebrated. That’s why I don’t take notice of these awards and when my kids come from school and say mum I’ve still no awards I tell them not to worry as they are doing just fine.

Medical appointments don’t affect attendance percentages they are recorded differently!

I have zero sympathy for the attitude that an award for one person equals a punishment for another. The exact same (pathetic) argument could apply to, eg, a spelling award being a punishment for someone who is dyslexic, or a sports award being a punishment for someone who is dyspraxic. People spend far too much time complaining about how hard done by they are compared to others. Primary schools dole out so many awards, everyone gets awarded for something.

They really don’t and even if we took our DC to the same places, it’s not the same as a big school trip with your friends.

In all honesty, my DC flourished during the Covid lockdowns because they were used to doing school work from home and there was no pressure to physically attend when you just didn’t have the energy to. The teachers were also more available to them than ever before because the virtual zoom classes meant questions could be asked and answered in real time,

Attendance awards can encourage kids to go in to school when ill though…when they and everyone else would be better off if they stayed at home.

That isn’t a side-effect of spelling tests!

For people saying it’s a good example for the workplace…it’s not. My work has very strict sickness policies and as a result people will do anything to avoid a sick day. I’ve asked to use AL before to avoid taking one. Most people just go in with the likes of the flu, which resulted in me becoming very unwell whilst I was pregnant.

Also, people won’t take a day or two here and there for short illnesses, but there is a very high rate of people going off for 6 months with mental health and burnout issues. Go figure.

Maybe they could have awards for being white or being sikh or being female. Some entitled parents might take issue with those too, some others might compare them to spelling tests or sport.

Well you can't make an effort to be white, or Sikh, or female, can you: you either are or not. Whereas some people do choose not to attend. It is different.

I do think schools are under pressure with attendance, and I guess there’s the odd child who is focussed on the award and might push themselves to go in when they don’t really want to because of it. But that’s got to be the minority and the ones who really need an intervention around attendance, who are consistently not brought to school it will not make a difference to. In primary schools at least most attendance is down to the parents, it’s not the child’s fault if the parents can’t be bothered to get them in. If they can’t or won’t get them to school, the prospect of the child getting a certificate isn’t going to change that.