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?

DD gets one. She doesn’t care, neither do we.

Personally think it’s also unfair on parents who take a ‘cheaper’ holiday. Bloody extortionate during half term etc.

Is anyone keeping a child in school just to get a certificate?

All awards encourage negative behaviours, positive behaviours and make bugger all difference, in each case depending on the person concerned. There is no such thing as an award that doesn’t upset some people and make no positive difference to others. My personal opinion is that attendance awards make no particular difference overall except to highlight the Government’s opinion that no amount of time off school is good and that far more people than necessary take time off school when they did not have to, both of which are true. The Government is obsessed with statistics and lots of people take their children out of school unnecessarily. In reality, doing this isn’t going to do any genuine harm to the education of a lot of the people who do it, but the exercise of discretion is not possible in a self-centred, covetous society where nothing is fair unless it suits the individual who is whining about the unfairness of something, so everyone gets treated as though they are the same, even though they aren’t.

Everyone has different luck in different things.

Are maths exams unfair to people who are naturally worse at maths? Are the sports teams unfair to people who are uncoordinated? (hello, it's me)

I don't think it's reasonable to expect schools to celebrate only things that every kid can get. Otherwise, they'd have to abandon all celebration of academic or sporting achievements.

Harrison Bergeron was meant to be a dystopia, not a guidebook. Kyrie Eliason

Crazy that 73% of voters think this is unfair.

What a soft society we have become.

Yanbu. My son will never get an attendance award as he has a number of medical conditions. He also has physical and learning disabilities so will never get academic or sports awards either. He did manage to get lots of school values certificates at primary school though.

I know for some children the 100% attendance award is the only one they get. But surely every child has achieved something at school they could give out a certificate for that isn't just that they turned up. At my dc secondary school they get house points and badges for things like attending clubs so that children who are enthusiastic but not physically/academically able can be recognised.

Since a far too sizeable proportion of people do not actually make much effort to turn up to school every day, the award is just as legitimate as all the other awards most people stand no chance of achieving. It isn’t actually the same thing as an award for being alive, or even for being healthy, although both are a necessary element in its achievement, along with good luck (like the majority of awards, tbh). Sour grapes are sour grapes, whoever is expressing their negative opinion. A 100% attendance award may be as ineffective as the other awards doled out, but the people who send their children in when they should be off sick at home are almost always doing it for economic reasons, I really do not believe they do it or allow it so their child can win a poxy 100% attendance award, especially since the school will probably send the child home again, anyway, if they are too ill for school. The same people pretend their children have a stomach bug when they are going on a cheap holiday. People should focus more on just doing what they think is the right thing and less time complaining about how hard done by they are due to the existence of something so incredibly trivial.

The problem is that a lot of children have little control over attendance and turning up to school on time.
One of DDs friends lived 1 minute walk away from school but was late most days because of her mum.

Life isn't' fair'.

And 'fair' depends on society at the time. Which makes the concept even more pointless.

Pretending life is 'fair' isn't realistic.