Should DD attend morning registration before hospital appointment?

[LetItGoToRuin]

My DD has a hospital appointment mid-morning. Is there any benefit to her attendance score if she attends school for half an hour (basically just to get a tick in the morning register) before I collect her?

I wouldn't.

When ds broke his big toe he hobbled into his classroom, got his mark and hobbled straight out to me at the office so I could take him to get checked out.
We were there anyway dropping the two dds off and the hslw asked him to.

I usually just ask the office staff and teacher what they'd rather I did. If at all possible I pick up at a break or lunchtime and return to school if possible later in the day - but it depends on the time of the appointment. DD2 though is skirting at a figure where attendance is deemed a "problem" - not via any other reason than hospital and therapy appointments, and she's due surgery soon so will hit that threshold so I try to keep it as high as possible at present. School are very low pressure though about it.

do what is most convenient to you. if going to school before attending the appointment is a rush, then go directly to the appointment.
you can't change school attendance policy and you can't change hospital appointments easily.

When my DCs were small I used to make appointments (when I could) for as early as I could so dentist at 8.30, in school by 9am so didn’t miss any learning just part of morning worship (catholic school). As register was called at 8.50 this means that they were marked absent for whole morning! I didn’t realise how it worked.

NOW I work in a school office. Knowing what I know now I would have done things differently. I would ALWAYS advise parents to get that morning mark if they can. Even with an appointment letter as evidence it is still absence and a few dentist or GP appointments can really bring your percentage down.

It’s awful that schools care more about a fake absence mark ( in and out) that time missed learning.

I wouldn't bother, she's not going to be putting her attending % on her CV

It’s awful that schools care more about a fake absence mark ( in and out) that time missed learning.

It’s not the schools that make those decisions. We would love to mark them present, maybe with a note “came in at 9.00 after dentist appointment” but we aren’t allowed. Equally I’d rather mark someone as absent for the afternoon when mum picks them up at 13.05 (afternoon registration at 13.00) on a Friday so they can get off on their weekend away early but still show as present for the afternoon session but the rule says she was there at 13.00 so is marked in for the whole session.

In my experience Dad was marked as half day absent when she had a medical apt 9-10am. When she came out at 9.30 and went back in at 11 she was marked as present...

It's bullshit, basically. Whether you want to go along with the bullshit is up to you.

I’m with crockof; having good attendance can be useful so I do it.

I always try and put my child in for register before any appointment purely to help the schools attendance figures - they struggle with this and it affects ofsted so any little helps!

I'd take her in for registration (but then my child's school is ridiculous about attendance - he's got three days worth of "unauthorised absences" on his record at the moment because they wouldn't take my word for it that he was vomiting at 30 minute intervals, and I wasn't prepared to subject possibly seriously ill people in the GP's waiting room to my child's D&V bug just to get an appointment card. Next time, I'm taking him into school and they can mop up the sodding vomit...)