School attendance and private company handling attendance

[AfroPunk]

We received a letter on Thursday detailing that the school are now working in partnership with a Ltd company to deal with atrendance. The new threshold is now 95% (other was 90%). Our 4yo dd has has 94% attendance so far and we received a letter over the weekend. As an aside, she has 4 unauthorised absences, which is fucking news to me (sorry about my language. I'm fuming).

So what's the deal with a private company handling absences? And what the fuck is going on when a child can no longer take the time off they need to recover from bugs? I'm fucking livid! I am disheartened, feel that this is an Ofsted appeasing load of shite.

I have another question please.

My ds' attendance was low, but it was always backed up by the evidence.(doctor's letter, appointment letter, discharge letter from hospital, etc.)
I've just checked past attendance sheet and it's marked either Hospital Appointment or Medical reason/Illness. So, it means authorised absence, not unauthorised I believe?
But is it still possible to get fined if it doesn't reach school's target attendance% ?

We are already making best effort to make appointments during holidays and half terms when possible. I don't know what else we can do to bring up his attendance any more.
I'm really worried as I have a child with chronic illness, who would never achieve 100% attendance.

Irine..My DS went back to school after the summer holidays and was admitted to hospital that night by the end of that week his attendance for that year was 25%

I don't know the official answer but my DS was having 3 separate medical appointments in the summer term last year. he still got his 100% attendance certificate which I promptly popped in the bin.

admission, is this your line of work?

From what I have seen, Attendance companies (and schools!) generally target those who aren't yet below 90%, to stop them dropping. They don't tend to target the 'worst offenders', although often legal action is the only route and the case will either be handed to Education Welfare for potential legal action (or managed in-school).

I've just checked past attendance sheet and it's marked either Hospital Appointment or Medical reason/Illness. So, it means authorised absence, not unauthorised I believe? But is it still possible to get fined if it doesn't reach school's target attendance%?

No. Penalty notices can only be issued for unauthorised absences. If you have provided medical evidence, the absence will be recorded as authorised (usually coded as M in this case). Your LA will set the criteria for PNs, for e.g. In our LA it is 8 sessions (so 4 full days) in 10 school weeks.

But is it still possible to get fined if it doesn't reach school's target attendance%

You cannot be fined for authorised absences. Fines are only for unauthorised absence.

admission - I have been searching on Google. A number of LAs appear to be offering school attendance services on a commercial basis. Look at www.myschoolservices.co.uk/Services/1072 for an example.

I have only found one company offering these services so far - CAWS who claim over 40 schools are using their services. They operate in Leicestershire, apparently being formed when the council withdrew it's service.

It certainly looks like schools think these services are worthwhile. No idea what they cost, though.

any absence by the child who is below CSA should be marked with Code X. it doesnt sound as if the school is aware of that.

Thank you, Starlight, Merlin and prh47.

Merlin, I suppose in a round about way it is my work. I am a governor at schools but I also inspect schools.
I can tell you that on attendance the first question I am asking is who are your worst attenders and what are you doing to improve their attendance. It could well be that the answer is that they cannot improve their attendance because of the medical needs of the pupil or it could be we have tried everything up to and including legal action but ignoring the worst offenders is definitely the wrong answer in my opinion.

Oh definitely, in that sense, but I mean the packages these companies sell/use are usually aimed at the 'not so bad' and pulling those up. Obviously we have to know every tricky case inside out - I could recite the details of every below 90 case I have (many are medical) and what actions we've taken (inc multiple PNs, PCAs and prosecutions), but we're told the preventative work - stopping them before they get that low - is paramount.

Lots of LAs are cutting these services. In some LAs schools historically received cluster funding to pay for attendance workers and with budget changes from April that is also being cut and the staff being made redundant. I know a number of cases where people who previously worked for the LA now offer their services privately.

School cant buy LA services that are no longer available and so they have to buy them from other sources, same for HR, governance, school improvement.

If you think that using private companies in education is wrong then petition your MP to re-instate LA budgets but I suspect that is rather fruitless.

Slightly off subject of most other PPs but as mega said yes it would be good to get an FOI to see how much of the schools budget is being spent on this private company (that some of the teachers might have preferred to be spent on resources or, oh I dunno, another teacher maybe).Also the Governors meeting minutes should be published on the school website so you can see when it was discussed/agreed. Is your school an Academy? Does one of the Trustees happen to run a company that provides this kind of attendance monitoring service I wonder......

It depends on the contract amount. It may well be under the level for anything other that the HT delegated discretionary spending/and or require only 1 quote. The contract value may be very small indeed depending on the level of service

I am sure that most teachers don't want to handle attendance. Going round to homes to check where children are isn't what most people get into teaching for. Most teachers are paid much more that attendance officers- so getting an additional teacher to do this would-be an own goal.

Why would you want to waste the school resources in providing information that you don't want or need? To do an FOI is just pathetic. It also takes up governor time and they are volunteers.

You have my wholehearted sympathies, OP. This attendance thing absolutely does my head in. If my child is too ill to be in school, then they will be kept at home. Going on about the fact that some parents keep their kids off for spurious reasons makes not one jot of difference to me. And, I suspect, will make no difference to those parents either, because the kind of parents who can't be arsed to send their child to school are not going to be remotely interested in attendance certificates or letters with percentages on.

I send my children to school (when they aren't ill) to get an education, not in order to make the school attendance figures look good for Ofsted. And I'm a teacher.

There are often threads on here where parents are worried that they've had a letter about their child's attendance, and posters pile in with "Well no, that percentage isn't really very good you know". It's not a question of 'good' or 'bad'! The child was either unwell enough to be kept off school or they weren't. And only the parents can really know that.

Apologies for the rant, but the 'every child is a statistic for Ofsted' thing gives me the absolute rage!

It could well be a company made up of ex LEA employees doing exactly what they did for the LEA but privately. Because the LEA can no longer afford them.

So in effect nothing has changed. Instead of buying EWO services from the LEA school is buying the same services, by the same people, through a new company.