primary school attendance letter

[goodbyemrschips]

Hi has anyone else recieved a letter recently regarding their childs attendance?

I am wondering if it it a national thing or just my sons school doing their own thing.

Several children have received one if their attendance is below 95%.

Hhhhm embarrassing typos sorry

We had one last week which annoyed me mightily at first. I then sat down to work out the % and it is correct for the 3 days sick leave my DD had. She caught a vomiting bug, had the required 48 hours off school and spread it around the family and guests all over Christmas.

I think I will just e-mail school to confirm the reason is the sickness and ensure it's marked as such. I know the reason is solely because the school's absenteeism records are a bit higher than average. I also know 2 offending families have now left the school so hopefully they'll ease up a bit.

If you work at school, they may have presumed that you know it's just a thing school had to do?

I have a ds with chronic illness who will never get 100% attendance due to regular hospital appointments, which sometime take whole day to attend. So few extra sickness results in low attendance. I always provide the school with copies of appointment letter, card, prescription, etc, before even been asked.
Never had problem with school even he had days off school without going to gp(like had a high temp, etc.)

Hope so too gallicgirl and hope no more bugs this term! Our school so bad that for one week we had half attendance in some classes

"It wa from the school office in a handwritten envelope" yes? The EWO comes into school ...gets head to sign and send home.

mrz I didn't know that - why would I when the school have not explained this to me as a parent nor as a member of staff. It is particularly galling when your child has health issues which the school are aware of and still they SIGN THE LETTER AND HAND IT I OVER. Anyway I will speak to the head tomorrow.
irvineoneohone I hope your DS health issues resolve themselves soon. It is impossible to change consultant appointments/scans to after school

My head was called into the LA to explain why we hadn't prosecuted parents over absence ...heads hands are tied!

miaow the poor surgery! Exactly it is ridiculous. If it's true that the school can do nothing about it then why the phonecall to one mother?

Yikes - loads of absences at our school are due to term time holidays which everybody is aware of. First week back after Christmas some families took 3 days off to make up the week and went on holiday!

The guidance I posted explains "evidence" of illness doesn't require a doctors note schools are misinterpreting this.

^Code I: Illness (not medical or dental appointments)
Schools should advise parents to notify the school as soon as possible when a child is ill. If the authenticity of illness is in doubt, schools can request parents to provide medical evidence to support illness. Schools can record the absence as unauthorised if not satisfied of the seriousness of the illness but should advise parents of their intention. Schools are advised not to request medical certificates unnecessarily (particularly retrospective certificates), especially if the illness was not treated by a doctor at the time. Medical evidence can take the form of prescriptions, appointment cards, etc. rather than doctors’ notes.^

We had an attendance letter but ds had been off due to having an operation, had time off afterwards to recuperate. Never had any attendance issues previous and all hospital appointments verified. Surely it should be down to common sense where these letters get sent out. If you have hospital apts etc then what's the issue? If there's no back up evidence then fair enough, look into it in more depth. Crazy.