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Original poster

EWO visit this afternoon! poor attendance due to illness. help!!

12 replies

overthemill · 26/04/2010 11:17

OK, so we have the EWO coming this afternoon. DD has a chronic health condition and is often ill. She has around 68% attendance.

We want the school to work with us to help ie sending work home, allowing her to stay in school sometimes rather than send her home, not panic when she is ill, letting her go to medical room for a while etc etc.

when we have asked for ewo support in the past we have got nowhere but now they have referred us. Spoke to EWO last week about visit an she was a bit aggressive, i felt. They are saying we have a legal responsibility to get dd to attend school on a regular basis (we think she does, it is regular but it ain't every day!) and we agree she should go to school (of course) but we think they don't help us KEEP her in school.
anyway, feeling nervous, anyone had similar issues/ewo visits???

OP posts:
scurryfunge · 26/04/2010 11:22

What is the nature of your DD's condition? What stops her from attending? Does your doctor have any opinion on absences? Sounds like you need some sort of action plan with the school to agree on a strategy for her illness.

Original poster
overthemill · 26/04/2010 11:28

she has asthma. it isn't well controlled. she sees paed and gp almost weekly. she is on a range of drugs. it is worsened by environmental factors and also colds etc and her immune system seems to be dreadful. so she has a cold for a few days then has massive asthma attack then asthma symptoms for around 4 - 5 days resulting in her being too ill for school.

we have just been successful in getting school nurse to do a care plan for school and we have a range of strategies from medics. but school are scared of her having an attack in school and send her home.

hardly filling us with confidence..

OP posts:
scurryfunge · 26/04/2010 11:37

It sounds difficult for you....is the school being explicit about how they intend to deal with any symptoms? Sounds like the school staff don't know how to deal with the symptoms...surely they can't keep sending her home "in case she has an attack"....it sounds like they are discriminating because of a disability (I'm assumimg asthma is a disability)

Original poster
overthemill · 26/04/2010 11:44

i think she does have a disability (but dont acually want her treated like she has iyswim). Asthma uk suggest that kids with chronic asthma who miss a lot of school should be treated as having SEN. trouble is, she is really bright and above average in everything (thank god for that really) but she is still missing out isn't she? Socialisation is most important at her age (11 yr6). and she doesn't make friends easily anyway.I want her at school. She cannot always go to school cos she is ill and when she is a 'bit' ill and i send her in they send her home. her teachers panic if she has an attack (one teacher said to her 'get out of my classroom, i can't stand you coughing like that it's really scarey')

but she also has really bas eczema (ie her skin just disappears sometimes and all she has is red raw weepy skin) and cannot take part in swimming as they 'don't have time' for her to have a shower afterwards which means I cannot allow her to swim at school. But at weekends when she is well she might swim on both days as she can shower and get chlorine off her skin!

OP posts:
scurryfunge · 26/04/2010 11:55

I can understand you wanting her to be in school and to be honest I feel the school should be doing a good deal more....the swimming argument is poor....shower time would not add that much to the lesson and she could get out of the pool first. The comment the teacher made needs to be reported to the headteacher - that is unacceptable and shows how they are unwilling to assist your child

mummytime · 26/04/2010 12:13

I would use this visit as a chance to get your point across. Start off by saying how worried you are that your daughter keeps missing school. If you have any records of all the times the school sends her home, show that. If not make it clear that that is what happens, and ask the EWO advice on what you should do next time.
To be honest what is the worst that could happen? They are not going to take a child into care for missing school, if the school just sends her home all the time. Ask if you can phone her next time the school sends her home as a precaution. Ask her if there is any alternative educational provision which could be made available for your daughter etc. Ask about what will happen in secondary school etc.

Don't panic.
Do let us know how it goes.
Good luck!

Original poster
overthemill · 26/04/2010 22:28

well, she came and was really helpful! she is going to forward our letter to her in which we set out all our 'gripes' about school (some of which may not be their fault but that of the system) to education officer who deals with this stuff. Given hints and tips to handle school too. She seems to be on our side

OP posts:
cory · 27/04/2010 08:53

Excellent, that is half the battle, getting the EWO on your side. Well done! They do have quite a bit of clout with the school if they are good, and her professional angle (children need to attend school) is actually the best way of putting pressure on the school. We found getting EWO and/or (in our case) Social Services on our side was very helpful.

mnistooaddictive · 27/04/2010 08:53

My experience of EWo is generally that they are really helpful - sorry didn't see this thread yesterday or could have offered reassurance. They deal with all the big nonattenders and have a feel for genuine and non genuine cases. Have you asked for home tuition? You will have to get very pushy to get what you want because as long as there is no need to do anything they generally won't as budgets are very tight.

cocco · 06/05/2010 19:09

Hi

I received a letter from the council yesterday saying that my childs attendance was 82.7% and below the average. She is in reception but has been off with school on on a few occasions due to ill health. They have said they will be keeping a eye on her attendance.
I am concerned that if she is ill again before the end of her school year will it effect her place for next year? also they have said that they may do home visits to check up which I think is crazy for a child in reception..its her first year and she is still building her immune system up. Her teacher knows that she suffered a bed spell of illnesses before xmas but I'm just concerned if she is ill again what if anything would happen??

cat64 · 06/05/2010 19:44

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

cory · 06/05/2010 23:26

I have found EWOs to range between extremely helpful to actively stupid ("well, you can't expect me to read difficult things like doctors letters"); seems to be luck of the draw. The worst one lectured me on the importance of education for 10 minutes and then had to have my help filling in her own forms as she couldn't spell and didn't understand the questions on it. Great advertisement for the benefits of education, that one

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