Primary school end of year attendance 'medals': is it just me?

[BubblegumFactory]

Last day of term, just picked DS up from his really great primary school.
'Nice day?'
'Yes, nice day, apart from really stupid assembly where about 1/4 of the children got medals just for being at school'
'How do you mean?'
'If you had 100% attendance or missed no more than 1/2 a day, you got a medal. It's so stupid, children can't help being ill or having to go to their cousin's funeral AND that money could have been spent on something useful for the children'
'Yep' I have to agree'
It feels wrong but my 9 year old seems to have more common sense than the school ...
Or am I being precious?
Perhaps this year hurts more than usual ...
I'm all for praise and celebration but the attendance one really bothers me.

Last primary school use to give the class a non uniform day if the had a week were no one was off.

There were 2 classes in a year and they were encouraged to be competitive with each other over everything, including getting non uniform days. It was awful because if one child was Ill/off they had to face a very unhappy classmates when they went back.

Secondary school does end of year trips to theme parks for high attendance.

Thanks for all your comments, it's been interesting to read actually.
I am a secondary teacher, and we don't do this attendance reward thing per se, pretty sure that non-attendance is targeted by HOY and Deputy Head etc as that is high up on the Ofsted list, as some pps point out.
Secondary school pupils would cringe at an attendance medal!
Normally I'm not bothered about these things but this year my nephew died and we took the children out of school for the funeral. The worst day I have experienced. It just feels like DS has been 'punished' for attending a funeral. It doesn't make sense on his head or mine.
If a child is ill, no-one surely is going to send them into school so they can get a laminated piece of paper / cheapo plastic medal at the end of year are they?!?!? It's not an incentive. Just a reward for being lucky.
I also think it's sad that some children only get this as their recognition from school each year. Can't the school be a little more inventive / creative?
If all this is a response to Ofsted's obsession with attendance, that's depressing.

The idea was very common in secondary schools at one time along with expensive rewards for 100% attendance (game consoles and mountain bikes).

Yanbu and I say that although we got the 100% certificate.

My kids both got this award which baffled me as we took two days for a family holiday...

It might depend where they set the bar Ssymonds. Not all schools use 100%. Some reward attendance above 97/98%. It gives a small amount of leeway for illness.

I'd be very surprised if these were 'proven' to work in any meaningful use of the word 'proven'.

That made me laugh SSYMONDS

It was really funny. It was explicitly given for '100 per cent attendance'. I have no idea how that worked.

As a teacher in a school that gives out attendance and timekeeping awards, I struggle with the concept. When I taught a P7, all my kids walked to school (very small school serving one main housing estate) and it was a good motivator to get them to crawl up the road at 8:55 a little faster! However last year I had a p1 who was in tears as she had never received a timekeeping award because "mummy won't wake up, she says it's ok if I'm late". It seemed unfair when she is too little to bring herself and I always told her not to worry. I wouldn't give these things too much thought, usually it's a box ticking exercise to show your LA that you are trying to fight lateness and absence.