Thoughts on Attendance Certificates etc for kids...

[expansivegirth]

Our school has just started giving out attendance prizes for children. This is an infants school. The children are 4, 5, 6. and 7. The attendance prizes - certificates or a pencil... - are given both to individuals and to classes.

I'd like to hear your thoughts. This policy is seriously arsing me off.

I feel it's deeply unfair to hold children accountable for the fact that heir parents choose not to bring them to school or struggle to get them to school on time...

I feel it fosters feelings of failure and resentment among the class. Thus those kids who care about attendance end up feeling cross with the children who, for whatever reason, don't turn up at all and bring down the class average.

Also the school does not discriminate between absences. A sick child, a child with feckless parents, a child on authorised holiday - they all count equally towards absence figures. A child who is ill ends up not getting a certificate - or worse - getting told off for low attendance - even though she's been throwing up all night.

These are VERY YOUNG KIDS. Anyone able to defend this policy please?

(Other than a Govian attempt to train obedient workers who are able to adjust early to unfair employment laws).

[expansivegirth]

The main thing to take away from this discussion, I feel is:

Whether or not you think attendance awards are a good idea the Equality Commission has said it is discriminatory to dock children's attendance if they have a disability (please see TiggyTapes post upthread around page 3 or 4 i think). EVERYONE on this thread with a child in this position - a disability or a chronic health problem - should be following this up, printing out this advice, and taking it to their headteacher. And, if they feel so inclined, then sending it on to their local authority so that the local authority can start implementing a fairer programme At least this is a start towards fairness.

If anyone has it I would also like to see the evidence that attendance awards have a positive impact on attendance. Does this evidence exist and if so can anyone point me towards it.
Furthermore, even if it does have an impact on overall attendance does it have an impact on the attendance of those people who are most at risk from the negative effects of absenteeism ie those parents who allow their child to be persistantly absent because they can't be bothered/don't prioritise school/are drunk in bed? These are presumably the people for whom a correlation between absenteeism and poor educational outcomes later in life hold. For a child with educated motivated parents, the odd duvet day/an opticians appointment/a week long trip to visit a relative overseas is going to have zero long term impact - and in many cases the days off will probably be of educational benefit. In the 70s it was somehow permissable to say there was value to experience that could be has beyond the school gates: my primary school head was delighted when my cousins, age nine and ten were pulled out of school to go and live in an ashram in India for six months - and even held the school places open for them (as was permissable then).

[expansivegirth]

sorry for typos/grammar/repetition etc

[JugglingFromHereToThere]

Not at all expansive, and I think has been a very interesting thread you've started. You saw it made discussions of the day ?

[Toomanyworriedsonhere]

Haven't read all of this, but I've often wondered about the discrimination aspect - very useful to see the advice. I'll think about how to bring it up with the school.

Also recently when I was called by the school to pick DS up because he was unwell I said I couldn't because he wouldn't get his attendance award. The secretary and I laughed about it and I did pick him up, of course, but I'm planning to make the point every time I'm called

[CouthySaysEatChoccyEggs]

But MTSGroupie - what if you SIL's son fell into the won't win ANYTHING category - not able to win any of the other awards AND not able to win an attendance award either?

Would she be so happy then?

Would she be happy with her son coming home for 3 years, every Friday, from assembly, getting more and more despondent that he is literally the ONLY child in the class to not have won a single certificate in that whole time?

If he got to the point where he was sobbing on the bus home because his Dbro had got an award for 100% attendance that he had no hope if ever achieving?

Or seeing his own Dbro win a Maths certificate? And numerous sports certificates? And a literacy certificate? And swimming certificates? And certificates for every god damned thing that he could never hope to achieve, whilst the things HE is good at like History and Geography and the Natural World were never certificated for?

It IS divisive, and I say this as a parent if one DC that wins every certificate going, and another with disabilities that has had just one, not given out in the same way (so DS2 knew it was only because I had complained) in almost 5 years at the school.

I am both a 'winner' and a 'loser' of this arbitrary system - yet I see it as divisive and unfair.

Giving out certificates and prizes for attendance is like trying to use a banana to crack a nut - it doesn't address any of the root causes if persistent non-attendance that is NOT for genuine reasons, because if the parents don't care enough to get their DC's to school, then they aren't going to give a crap that Dwayne didn't get a certificate, are they?! What it does do is penalise those who are genuinely ill, or are having time off for a chronic condition, a disability, or for medical appointments.

If a certificate was going to make my DS2's disabilities and chronic asthma disappear so that he could get 100% attendance, I'd happily have the certificate.

But that's not RL.

[JugglingFromHereToThere]

Excellent post Couthy. I hope some teachers and schools are reading this, or at least enough parents to begin to look at the issues around these bloody things a bit more carefully.

[pumpkinsweetie]

Hi op, i made a very similar thread to this as my child's academy is doing the same and worse. They are even allowing non-uniform days for those that achieve 100 percent attendance each term. All well and good, but if your dc are off ill with norovirus etc etc, i cant see what is right with singling out primary school children!!!

The ones who are left out, it only punishes the child-not the parent!

[JugglingFromHereToThere]

And yes, certificates for History, Geography, and the Natural World would be nice I agree. We (DC) might win some of those too !
Generally there isn't enough praise and encouragement for the less able I feel - those that could really do with some.
Though of course, as has been said here by many, attendance isn't something a primary child can take responsibility for, it's the parents responsibility.
If you're healthy, enjoy school, and are doing well then there's loads of encouragement ! Not fair at all - every child deserves an equally good, and equally encouraging education.

[BoffinMum]

We need to stop giving certificates for so many silly things. It devalues both achievement and attainment, and I am not sure they are the motivational tool some heads think they are.

Anyway, the attendance thing has only come up because Ofsted are having a school level push. There's also lots of policy whittering about children missing 'the equivalent if two weeks of school' or 'a month of school' every year. Not a lot of research into what this actually means for children of different abilities and backgrounds, and it is based on the false assumption of an input/output model as well, whereas a lot of schooling is about growth, maturity and parental encouragement.

[BoffinMum]

If teachers really want to encourage children, marking their books thoughtfully and frequently, and giving masses of carefully targeted verbal feedback, should be the tools of choice.

[Hulababy]

Academic awards in dd's school includes all subjects - humanities, languages, music and drama, dance. Maths, English, technology, art, You name it.

At my school it is up to class teachers what the one award is for - covers anything at all.

[Heinz55]

My childrens school does these and I do not like them - despite the fact that DD ussually has excellent attendance. The odd time she has been sick she's not wanted to miss school because she won't get an award. The school now do them for shorter periods of time (a month) so it is possible for everyone to get one. However it is not aimed at people who generally enable their children to attend regularly but at those parents who could not be bothered whether their children get up in time for school/have homework done, etc. And from that pov I see their aim.

[mintyneb]

The existence of attendance awards has actually encouraged me to take DD out of school for a couple of days!

I am another parent of a child with a chronic health condition who will never get a 100% attendance award due to hospital appts. So knowing that it will make not one jot of difference to gaining this prize I thought I may as well take advantage of an opportunity we had been given and let DD miss school.

I would add that her HT will authorise a limited amount of absence so I'm not breaking the school's rules.

[gabsid]

Well, our school sells to us that attendance is directly related to achievement. I haven't thought about it, but obviously, it's a lot more complex than that. And I think background and parental involement is crucial.

If DS is sick he stays at home. If he says he's not too well and he's tired, he goes to school and I might make the teacher aware if I am not sure or he deteriorates, but normally he is absolutely fine. Otherwise, he goes to school. Simple, no certificate is going to change that.

I think these certificates are a waste of someones time and money. All this printing and writing out names, dates and signatures. We also have certificates for good behaviour and at the end of each 1/2 term all but 1 or 2 per class get such a certificate.

[JugglingFromHereToThere]

Even if attendance is directly related to achievement it may not be a 100% causal relationship. Basically those with better parenting skills and better home environments are broadly speaking more likely to get their children to school more often (obviously where illness has been taken out of the equation - which it clearly can't be completely)

So, attendance rates could be as much a marker as a causal factor in higher achievement in children.

[Fudgemallowdelight]

I kept my daughter out of school in December for 48 hours when she had a vomiting bug. Other kids at the time were throwing up at school and then turning up at school the next day to spread it around. Those kids get rewarded with a certificate, mine doesn't.

[frazzledbutcalm]

Sorry haven't read the whole thread so this may have already been said. I don't like this initiative:-

If children are late, it's usually not their fault, but their parents' fault.
Children who are genuinely ill, cannot attend school.
Children who have hospital appointments which cannot be made out of school hours.

These are all examples of children who will miss out on 'awards' through no fault of their own.

[expansivegirth]

OK. Just to say again - I think it would be so useful if someone who understands the Mumsnet site were to take the information that the poster who questioned the equality commission came back with - and put it in a place where everyone can see it. That is: if your child has a disaility/chronic illness etc the school is acting improperly if they allow this to be counted against the chlid's attendance in relation to attendance certificates etc.

However, for me this isn't the main point, which is: I am still unable to locate any evidence that such schemes increase attendance amongst those children with chronic absenteeism due to truancy/bad parenting (as opposed to children with committed and involved parents who allow occasional days off). Given that these persistant truants are the only children for whom there is likely to exist any meaningful correlation between attendance and later educational outcomes - it's surely crucial to demonstrate this link before allowing Ofsted to give weight to attendance figures.

(And there's my last question: how much weight does Ofsted give to attendance? How much weight does it given to attendance over something like pastoral care?).

[Jellykitten1]

MTSgroupie (if you are still reading) to answer your question "Jelly - why would an award for 'great listening', for example, be more meaningful?"

It's because it is something that would be down to him and him alone, not because your SIL (or whoever takes him) got him to school on time every day/he didn't happen to catch novovirus last winter. That is why it's more meaningful. Great listening is a real skill that even adults don't do well most of the time. Whereas good attendance for a young child is attributed to not happening to be ill AND having a parent/carer who cares to get them to school.

[Fudgemallowdelight]

OP. My understanding it that without good attendance and/or the school doing initiatives like attendance certs to increase attendance, then the school can't get an outstanding ofsted. So i suppose it is ofsted we should really be annoyed with

[JugglingFromHereToThere]

YY, good point expansive - I think Ofsted probably does give too much weight to attendance figures. Maybe if they had a better sense of perspective about it schools would focus on other important aspects of learning and children's well-being more as well ?

[Dinkysmummy]

I haven't read the whole thread but this is my take...

My dd is 5, in her previous school we were living in a hostel which was the other side of our large town. I got her to school (despite her undx'd sn which she has just been granted DLA for) every day on time despite having to leave at 7.15am ... No certificates for attendance or prizes, she didn't know any different. She already knows she has to go to school. I didn't expect a thank you or a well done or her to get a prize... I just had to get her to school as by law if your not HE, and they are not sick they have to go.
New school new place 10 minutes down the road - dinky comming up to having appointments and assessments for her sn, means she won't be able to attend the bouncy castle day for the end of this term attendance prize which all the other kids will be talking about! That she will know about, but I have to try to explain why she can't go.

I much prefer no prize. If we had missed one day in previous school it would not have mattered at all, she would be none the wiser.
I haven't turned into a feckless parent who can't be bothered to get their kid to school, my dd has SN.

[tethersend]

Oh, Dinkysmummy, that is just ridiculous. Not much makes me angry on here, but that does.

Make them tell a 5yo little girl that she can't go on the bouncy castle as she has SN. Then ask them how that relates to the Equality Act. I'd go to the papers with that, actually. It epitomises everything that's wrong with attendance awards for young children.

[missorinoco]

We get them. I find them pointless,DS has no interest in them at all. I should be getting the certificate though, not him. If it were up to him he would be watching Cbeebies all day long in his pyjamas.

And I should get double points for pushing a double buggy to get DS there in the snow.

[Dinkysmummy]

The thing is I will have to be very careful how I tell her because what are my chances of getting her to the appointments if she knows she will miss out on the bouncy castle because she has appointments? Or next year when she remembers why she missed the bouncy castle?

I have been thinking about approaching SENco about this.