Medical appointments and attendance register

[nothappymummy2014]

Hi,

DD1 has regular medical appointments for a disability, hospital is not local so takes a while to get there and back. If she gets back after afternoon registration eg just after it has been taken should she be marked out as "M" medical appointment all day?

By recording an M and counting as an absence this surely in many cases deters children being returned to school , as they have already been counted as absent.

Twelly - possibly yes. Although it depends when they left/returned. They might leave after AM reg but return before PM reg, and therefore be marked as present. They may leave after AM reg but return after PM reg and be marked absent. Just depends on the timing and what time registers are taken at the school.

Twelly,

The point is that you CAN'T report a child not physically in school at the point the register is taken as present.

So if the child is not in school at e.g. 1.30 pm when the afternoon register closes, then they HAVE to be recorded as absent, regardless of what happens after that point.

'late after registers closed' - U - is an absence code, and if used will result in the student being regarded as absent in the statistics. So is M, but the latter shows an authorised absence for a known reason.

IME, it pretty much balances itself out over the whole school over the whole year - the 'wins', ie the number of times a child is marked present for the register and then leaves e.g. ill or for an appointment pretty much balances out, in act usually exceeds, the 'losses', ie the times a child is absent for the register but then returns to school. In the 'eye of those who look at attendance', all absence is 'bad' but a U is better than an O, with authorised absence codes such as an I, M or P being of somewhat less concern but still very much included in total absence %.

I agree that you can't record a child as present if they aren't physically there, but the system does not encourage pupils back to school as they have already "lost" their attendance mark for that session. It depends as to how parent and child view or value the attendance. Some may well return a child at 1.45 or 9.30, others might take a different view.

In the past, I did return my ds to school if there was more than an hour left, and ds was up for it. Other times, after a lot of testing, he just felt to tired to go back.
But over all, he always wanted to go back.
Didn't even crossed my mind that, since he is absence on register, it didn't matter he returned or not. I just wanted him not to miss school/lesson as much as possible, since those absence cannot be avoided.

In the 'eye of those who look at attendance', all absence is 'bad' but a U is better than an O, with authorised absence codes such as an I, M or P being of somewhat less concern but still very much included in total absence %.
P counts as present

Apologies, I closed the document I was using and was going off recall! Luckily, our electronic register has a useful crib for what to use and under what circumstances!

shouldwe IIRC that's what I did with DS's last allergy appointment, in for morning registration and back for the afternoon. I'm sure he didn't get an absence mark, but I may be wrong.

Lorna the P code records absence for approved sporting activity.

It does not count in total absences though, the same as the V code (school trip).