How bad does attendance at Sixth Form College ave to be to ask a student to leave?

[PrinceHaz]

My DD has attendance in low 60s% due to very poor mental health - depression, anxiety, severe PMT. She is autistic and an EHCP application is in progress.
Does anyone have experience of a student being asked to leave college for attendance reasons? The thought of this possibility is making me anxious. That said, if she can't manage, then it is what it is.

Sorry to hear your DD is struggling.

How is your DD doing in her courses, that will be probably impact whether they will allow DD to stay. An option could be if DD doesn’t pass this year then you could request restarting in September when hopefully your DD will have support via an EHCP.
Would it be worth your DD taking the rest of the year off to have some recovery time?

Can you speak to them? There is no one answer here op, every institution is different, in theory it should be the same as school attendance , but she’s unwell so this skews it.

for me the key question would be is she able to do her a levels? As in is she doing enough self study and catch up at home that it’s feasible? Also which year is she in, AS or final, as depending on performance there may come a stage it’s not going to be worth while attending, there is no point , but if she’s doing well academically then it will be fine.

Thanks for replies so far. She is lower VI. Attendance for A levels is better than for form time/library study time. Her work in lessons is excellent but she's too mentally exhausted to do much at home.
She doesn't want to take the rest of the year off. I think it would make her more anxious to know she is doing something unusual.
College are supportive.

I too would think the crux is whether she is keeping up.
My DD too suffers from depression and anxiety, and got an Ehcp at the start of 2022. Last year she had 75% attendance at college but it was well within her capability and she kept up. This year she was at 90 but is now at 82...
Do you think more support with the ehcp will help attendance?

My son has recently dropped out of sixth form ( Y12). His attendance was appalling and he wasn't coping with A level study. The head of year was very supportive and said they wouldn't throw him out but made it clear he would fail or get EEE in his A levels. He has applied for college for a vocational course for September, is working with a careers adviser to find part time work or short courses to keep him engaged until his course starts in September. I am feeling hopeful that this will work for him and we are no longer in conflict about his attendance.

Is she getting medical help, therapy?

The thin g is if she is only there 60% of the time there is no way she is going to pass maybe better off getting out

It does depend how it's calculated though. My DD only gets 1 attendance mark for a 3hr practical. She also gets 1 attendance mark for a 1hr Englush lesson. But missing the practical is a big thing. Missing English has zero impact on her passing her vocational course.

It is more of an issue that the DD can't do extra work, as for A levels you need avout1hr self study for every taught hour.

Are they aware of her situation at college? If they're any good, they'll be bending over backwards to keep her there and support her. I know we do where I am. It's in nobody's interests to kick her out. If they're not aware of her problems, they can't help her.

Make sure your GP is aware and involved. Triggering fit notes will give options to redo an academic year and could take the pressure off until the ehcp is in place.

Has she been referred to the PMT Climic at the Hospital? If not, can you ask for this? It really, really helped me.

It depends on the student and the courses they are studying- so for example on a BTEC course where there is an expectation to submit assignments throughout the year, this might be more of a problem than on an A-level course, provided she can pull it out of the bag during exams.

I'm assuming she's done some assessments this term? Do you know what sort of grades she has been getting. At this stage, if it's above a D, then they'll probably be happy to continue to support her. Does she know what she needs to achieve at the end of this year to progress to the next year?

Most colleges won't ask students to leave solely due to attendance- and generally, if they look like they are going to fail a course, instead of being asked to leave, the college will try to find other suitable courses for them. So if she gets to the end of this year, and doesn't hit the grades needed to progress, she may be asked to repeat, or start a different course- if you don't want this to happen and it's a possibility, then you probably need to start pushing for some extra support now.

Are resources available online for her to study at home if she's too unwell to go in? Is she able to catch up on what she's missing?

What sort of support do you want put in place on the ECHP? Could the college put any of it in place now, or would it require extra funding?

TBF, it depends on the student- and in the first term of college, you don't have to miss that much to drop down to 60%- it's probably about 3 weeks of absence, maybe a little more now.

A bright student (depending on the courses) can miss that sort of amount of college and still pass, albeit perhaps not with the grades they would have otherwise achieved.

No, if the absence is for medical reasons, especially disability (as is with your DD), they cannot ask her to leave due to low attendance. They would have to show they had put in reasonable accommodations and despite this your DD is failing her courses.

My DD is in a similar situation although her disability is physical not mental. Her disability also causes brain fog and fatigue. Her attendance is at less than 50% (her modified schedule is for her to attend 50% of the time, but I know she has missed several days on top of that).

She has no EHCP as we were told this is of no use if your child is getting decent grades and that the diagnoses and consultant letters are more than sufficient for all her accommodations of which a modified schedule, home learning and exam accommodations are the primary ones. She also has things like a lift key, access to a rest/nap room, a parking permit so DH can drive right up to the front doors of the sixth form, access to teachers class notes, etc.

She is in Yr13 and is A* on all four of her A levels. She currently has 3 Uni offers and an interview lined up with Cambridge.

How is she doing, OP?