Annoyed about a letter

[beautifulswan]

I have just received a letter concerning my childs absence. It states that her absence rate has fallen below the accepted 95% (wow!) and may be a case for the education welfare officer (really??!!) To be frank I'm astounded. She was unwell a couple of times during the winter months and I have been in the heads office and discussed this on numerous occassions with her and this hasn't been a problem.

Now, the bit that really bugs me is it says if this standard of absence continues then she may also be refered to the school nurse. I didn't even know there was a nurse. (In fact I'm sure there isn't)

My instinct is to write back stating that when my child is ill she will go to her family doctor as usual and will not be singled out and humiliated in this way.

Shall I bother? Would I sound silly? I have always got on well with the head and am very annoyed to have got this letter!

If it does go up to 98% won't that make the letters even more ineffective than they are now. It will hardly target those who really need to improve attendance and just wind up the good supportive families who try to send their kids as much as possible. Sometimes people have to have time off for illness and I would much prefer a child is not sent in with an infectious illness.

(8% mean under 4 days off in each school year. Hmm. Not sure any of mine have ever managed that!

98% even

Bless their little hearts, they're just like politicians, aren't they, think if they only say loudly enough that a situation is Unacceptable it will go away and Our Party Will Have Solved the Crisis

Reminds me of dd's headteacher who told me that "Of course we understand that corydd is ill But You Cannot Expect Us To Be Happy About It". He genuinely thought he was doing something to address the problem of an incurable medical condition- "if I only let them know that the school finds it unacceptable surely they will have to do something about it". Iirc he told her Paediatrician something fairly similar. She looked bemused. Come to think of it, he was ex-Ofsted.

Cory - you have to read the Shrinking of Treehorn, the headteacher in the book sounds just like your dd's.

That said, in most cases it is the stupid system not the heads that is at fault. I know our head hates the system as we're an infant school so have more absence than a through primary would.

Our head did not hate the system, MrsDaffodil: he incorporated it! As I say, he was an ex-Ofsted inspector, and he really thought getting an Outstanding for his school was more important than what happened to the actual children in the school. This was the twat who refused to let a wheelchair bound child (my dd again) use the disabled toilet because he wanted to keep it nice for visitors. Outside appearance was everything to him. He came very close to letting slip that what was hoping to achieve was that we would remove dd and improve his statistics.

Dd's current school makes do with a Good Ofsted- but their pastoral support system is outstanding by any definition. They can't get an Outstanding with current attendance figures, but they would never dream of bullying dd over being ill; they are prepared to take any hassle with the authorities for her sake.

Cory, sorry, I linked two separate thoughts - mine/my head's and the head in the Treehorn book. I did understand that the head you were talking about was an idiot of the highest order!

Your current school sounds ideal. Ours is only "good" as well, but I am so proud of some of the children they have fought to keep in the system that i think a lesser (in my eyes) school would have preferred to reject/eject for the good of stats, etc.

I had this problem with mine & it turned out as they are automatically generetated they had forgotten to input any sick days,half days or training days.They never bothered me again when I rang & told them it was ludicrous that my ds should be referred to like this,they were quick to change it but no apology for their error.

98%? In primary school?!?!? Utterly insane....as if children, parents or schools are failing if they don't pretend not to have sickbugs/flu/accidents/chicken pox? [wanders off pulling hair out]

Also, never heard of anyone in dd's year getting one of these automated letters - we certainly haven't, and she had a week off one term for flu/chest infections.
Maybe because our school is small enough (1-form entry) that the admin ladies know exactly who is off and why??

It wouldn't make any difference in my area all attendance records are sent electronically to the LEA and EWOs are informed when attendance drops below a certain point...

98%?? Blimey. That's just a stupid target!

My DD did have a lot of time off during the winter, various chest infections etc (the snow didn't help) but I kept the head up to date and I always went to the school and picked up work/homework, my DD never fell behind in homework and her education hasn't suffered due to her absence (as reassured in parents evening) so the paragraph lecturing me about the importance of education I found extremely patronising!

As for the humiliation bit, it surely would humiliate my daughter if she at some point during the school day had to go and visit the nurse! If they insisted on this I would have to consider changing schools. My DDs responsibility is mine and mine alone.

She has had time off for a holiday too, just a week, again agreed by the head who told me to "have a lovely time and I'll have a word with the EWO"
I just find it funny that everything is OK in person yet I recieve such a patronising/threatening letter! Her attendance is 80% btw. Not great, I know, but she was genuinely ill!