Petition to stop SEN pupils being classified as persistently Absent

[romanatonic]

Hello, I hope this is ok to post here. My daughter has a very rare and complex health condition (Klippel Trenaunay Syndrome and Lymphedema) which means that every morning she has to get up and remove six layers of compression bandages from her leg and don two compression garments to control her swelling. After school, she has to rush home and have dinner before having an hour of therapy (manual lymphatic drainage massage, skin care and overnight compression bandages). Without this her swelling would increase and with it her risk of cellulitis and possible sepsis. She also has sensory processing issues and the bandages often become itchy, painful or otherwise uncomfortable for her in the night and have to be removed and a night time garment donned instead but this does not contain the swelling adequately. She is only five years old, despite this she manages to go every single day to school and has only been absent for one week since starting in September with an ear infection and a temperature of 40 degrees.
However, because she is seen by a multidisciplinary team including two specialist hospitals in London aswell as by Orthopaedics and a paediatrician locally, her medical appointments have brought her attendance down to close to the 90% mark and she is on the brink of being classified as persistently absent. All of her absences have been authorised by the school, they have all been medical and related to her condition but the current policy on the persistently absent classification makes no consideration at all for children like my daughter who have no choice but to miss school because of their medical needs. If my daughter did not go to those appointments she would be discharged and not get the care she needs for her condition. For all local appointments we already request that they are after school but this is not always possible and it also means we are unable to carry out her therapy in the evening. Her Lymphedema and disturbed sleep from compression therapy can both make her tired and she needs 11.5 -12 hours sleep a night. It is a tough schedule to work around school and she puts up already with so much because of her conditions.
I have started a government petition to try to change the policy so that children with medical conditions, SEN or disabilities are not classified as persistently absent for authorised medical absences related to their conditions. I've tried to outline the disadvantages of the label in the petition , although this was very limited by word count! but essentially want to highlight what damage this can do to pupils as they get older and begin to apply for jobs and places at educational institutions. The policy is so poorly thought out and although the government says that schools must not discriminate against pupils with disabilities, requiring them to classify pupils in this way is doing just that.
Here is a link to the petition and also instagram page where I plan to post videos from signees saying they support the petition and maybe also their reasons for doing so. If you agree that the policy should be changed and made more inclusionary for children with health conditions please sign and share as widely as you can or if you would like to make a short video for the instagram page to show support please do get in touch! thank you for taking the time to read.

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/658686
https://www.instagram.com/persistently_absent/

The attendance link governor and the governors should be questioning the reasons around absence and if they are valid like illness, no transport arrangements, hospital visits etc as part of safeguarding. They should know the genuine reasons as oppose to the none genuine reasons which also happens with SEND and non SEND children. We refer to fines for those keeping the child deliberately off school, going on holiday without even letting us know, etc We understand that some children have very poor attendance but for very good reasons beyond their control. It is up to each school to deal with the situation based on the particular information. But even in special schools we have issues with non-attendance for no reason. There is no one size fits all and we still need to do home visits when children don't materialise at school. Speak to your school and ensure they have all the information and are coding absences correctly.

Signed for you op. 💐 for you and 🍭 for your DD. I am disabled and my kids both have SEN so I get it.

You can't exclude groups, as they are measures set by government.

However, if they're looking to get more detailed information as above, I think it is possible that next could be 'persistently absent due to I? Is this due to disability? Can we find a different way to record it - that makes us look not quite as bad and utterly ineffective/can claim that we've reduced persistent absence?

Reporting in real time to the dfe could also help.

So you can't get away from attendance being less than 90% , but it is introducing a change in language that is interesting.

Thanks for message, the school know the absences are pre authorised and we have always sent appointment letters but my issue is not with the school but at government level with the policy itself. Essentially holding children with disabilities, SEN and medical conditions to the same standards as those without is ableist. There should be a dispensation because it is not possible for a large percentage of those children to reach or exceed the 90% attendance mark. We should definitely not be using perjorative language to describe vulnerable children when they fail to meet an expectation that is designed for pupils with none of the barriers they have.

It's not enough. The change in language that needs to happen is labelling children with authorised absences (therefore the reasons have satisfied the school already) as "failing to turn up"/ "persistently" absent. Essentially they are currently labelled as truants and this gives a very unfair and inaccurate picture of those pupils.

@romanatonic I agree that children with medical issues/SEN/disabilities are stigmatised as truants at the moment. I also think the whole culture around attendance is absurd. I had a newsletter informing me that dentist, dr, optician etc appointments should be out of school time (good luck with that one, you take the appointment you are given as anyone with any sense knows) or if that really isn't possible (so acknowledging reality) you should bring your child into school for their attendance marks around the appointment. So I go at 8:45, send DS in for registration and then take him straight back out? It's ridiculous. He's no more there than if he'd had a lie in! We'd be better off cutting the faff, getting to the appointment and then coming in after.

Illness and medical appointments are specifically authorised absences.

The reverse of the newest guidance restating that all children should have access to and attend fulltime education is that nobody cares about the disabled kids because their attendance doesn’t matter, it's all authorised without question - which also creates space for safeguarding failures and lack of efforts to address barriers to education.

It's authorised yes, but that is irrelevant, they will still be classified as persistently absent in the same way as someone with unauthorised absences. That's the problem. I don't think all absences for SEND and children with medical conditions should be authorised without question but I think the medical absences (which already require letters etc as proof) related to their conditions shouldn't be counted in the data for persistent absence because it is not as the government defines the term, "failing to turn up". If they made that change at least the playing field on attendance for those kids wouldn't be so unlevel.

Then one should be established, and to argue otherwise is, in my view, insensitive at best and callous at worst. Why should children be held to a higher standard than adults, it should be the other way round, to force a child to get up and go to school when they genuinely feel ill is extremely cruel. They won’t be able to learn or retain information effectively anyway. Our society just doesn’t seem to care about the feelings of children, it’s all about how difficult it is for adults to put suitable systems into place.

Thank you everyone that supported this petition by signing and sharing. It has had to move platforms due to the election and is now at www.change.org/PersistentlyAbsent Your comments were really helpful in rewording the petition (minus editing from HoC Petitions team this time). Please re-sign, re-share the petition. You can also support and see updates by following on instagram https://www.instagram.com/persistentlyabsent. Thank you again!