law about childrens attendance at school - is 95% realistic???

[cashgrab21]

Should you be getting a letter for proven illness???? Should the school
be threatening you when your child has only ever been off for illness??? Is this just a cash grab by the local authority by women who feel threatened by the authorities that be, consider the potential £1000 ? Is this discrimination against women?? You all need to ask yourselves this question. We have two choices send our children in ill to school or alternatively get a letter about them being ill. Does this seem like a reasonable ask of parents to you ? Or does it just seem like a way by the local authority to make money from hard working , law abiding , kids and nurturing mothers ???? I would like to know your thought on this attendance law.

Why do travel companies profit on people having to , by law, go outside of term time on holidays. I have proof it costs three times more in holidays.

I think this may be more about money than caring about children's education and welfare as is purported.

We had this when DS had a lot of time off in Reception and Year 1 - a couple of letters and then proof when he did have time off (either of a prescription or a stamped note from the Drs Receptionist) or it went down as unauthorised.

He had one unauthorised time off when he was sick so needed 48 hrs after (they knew he was ill as his sister was off too but couldnt get proof). It never went any further then that.

If there is a medical reason tell the school for their records - my mistake was not doing so when the EWO visited. The next step (we never reached this) would have been a meeting with the EWO.

When ds had an illness that included him missing about 50% of one term we had absolutely no issues at all with the school as we kept a dialogue going.

When dd had cluster migraines that brought her attendance down to around 85% again, we let school (different school) know that this was the issue, and that we were speaking to a doctor about it.

The key is to speak to the school if they're missing a lot of work due to the same illness. If they can see that there is a genuine reason and you are working to try and help they are far more likely to be sympathetic.

23 non-covid related absences in a term is a lot, even if that’s half days. You might sometimes get unlucky with something that’s required more than a couple of days of and then something else later, but I’m not surprised the school might be raising questions about whether all of those days were genuine illness.

This is not about making money. Whilst the fine is a lot to a parent, I doubt it would even cover the cost of the professionals time in pursuing the fine. You also mention holidays. Has your child had time off for holidays? I completely feel your pain on the prices in school holidays, but if you have had a holiday as well as lots of sickness, that won't help your case.

When I was a child no one took holidays in term time. We just have a nation now where cheap holidays are alluring. Try Easter or October.

All the ‘holiday companies profiting’ stuff is irrelevant - it’s supply & demand, people with children go on holiday in school holiday times, so it costs more. That’s all. You can’t go on holiday in
a less popular time, when it’s cheaper to encourage people, because you’re one of the people with children. It’s not “3x as expensive in school holidays” it’s “3x cheaper in school term time (because the holiday companies need to incentivise people)”. If they could, they’d sell ALL the holidays at the school holiday cost.

Sickness absence is different. I’ve no idea if you have a point there or not, except to say that 23 separate absences is a huge amount over a year, let alone a shorter time period.

I think 95% is realistic. In the combined 6 years my kids have been at school only one sick day. They only really get the odd cold and half the year is time off anyway if you include weekends and school holidays.

Saying that I've only had one sick day from work since 2013 so maybe it's in the genes.

Some children have far more illness and genuine medical issues but they will be compared and some kids hardly have any.

I had a from birth condition that meant a lot of appointments and weeks out in childrens hospital.

If a child has a chronic or long term condition then providing evidence for every absence adds load and stress onto an already difficult situation.

Luckily my parents weren't that interested and it was years ago so they didn't have to do that.

But for a parent/s who is going through that sort of thing it's an unwelcome piece of beurocracy.

Anyway.

I think the OPs point about sexism and fines etc is reasonable. As the vast majority of single parents are women and there are a lot. So the thing on paper looks fine but in practice it penalises women more. That's called indirect discrimination.

"I think the OPs point about sexism and fines etc is reasonable."
The same rules would apply to a single father and in the case of fines, separated parents or two parents living together would each receive a fine so effectively the system is prejudiced against two parents families.

If a child has a chronic long term condition the school would be aware of it and medical professionals would be involved.

@NoSquirrels

All the ‘holiday companies profiting’ stuff is irrelevant - it’s supply & demand, people with children go on holiday in school holiday times, so it costs more. That’s all. You can’t go on holiday in a less popular time, when it’s cheaper to encourage people, because you’re one of the people with children. It’s not “3x as expensive in school holidays” it’s “3x cheaper in school term time (because the holiday companies need to incentivise people)”. If they could, they’d sell ALL the holidays at the school holiday cost.

Sickness absence is different. I’ve no idea if you have a point there or not, except to say that 23 separate absences is a huge amount over a year, let alone a shorter time period.

This. They're not evil holiday companies/ airlines trying to screw parents over. They're trying to run a business. They have (roughly) the same number of seats/hotel rooms to sell year round. They charge less outside of peak times because (above rock bottom pricing) it's better to have the seat/room full than it go empty and they can't sell at the peak price all year round because there isn't the demand. If they were forced to keep the same price regardless of season the result would be higher prices for everyone or airlines/hotels going out of business.

I love it when people truncate what you write in order to disagree!

I think the OPs point about sexism and fines etc is reasonable. As the vast majority of single parents are women and there are a lot. So the thing on paper looks fine but in practice it penalises women more. That's called indirect discrimination.

Whilst it is true that the vast majority of single parent families are women, they are less than 15% of families. Further, even when the child is in a single parent family, the father will often also be fined if he has PR. And, of course, the vast majority of families don't face penalties at all as their children have adequate attendance.

Even if it was indirect discrimination (I'm not convinced), the question is whether this is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. The aim is to reduce persistent absenteeism in schools, which is clearly legitimate. I would expect the courts to find that the current approach is proportionate if anyone takes action against the government over this.

"Anyway.

I think the OPs point about sexism and fines etc is reasonable. As the vast majority of single parents are women and there are a lot. So the thing on paper looks fine but in practice it penalises women more. That's called indirect discrimination."

The OPs point about sexism is unreasonable regardless of the ratio of single female to male parents The rule is there to ensure children's education and apply equally to single fathers. in the case of fines, separated parents or two parents living together would each receive a fine so effectively the system is prejudiced against two parents families not single women.

If a child has 23 days absence I would be more concerned if the school ignored it.

It works out to be 11.5 days . They count mornings and afternoons as two sessions.

My daughter was ill for these days.

I don't have the fine yet they want me to sign some contract which I refuse to sign as these days were justified as she was sick. She was also scared about COVID which to be honest has not been handled well by the government. They are pretty poor at decision making and when they make a decision they get it wrong.

I have not done anything wrong. My daughter was sick but I am being branded as the bad person here although we all really know who the bad people are.

You will only get a big fine if they take you to court.

Refusing to sign the parenting contract will not help you. The contract doesn't allocate blame and there is no liability for breaching it. It simply sets out what you are expected to do and what the school/authorities should do to help you. If you continue to refuse to sign it makes legal action more likely. The LA could apply to the courts for a Parenting Order against you on the basis of your refusal to sign. Unlike a parenting contract, you will be liable for any breach of a Parenting Order.

You say you haven't done anything wrong. By your own admission, you have. You kept your daughter off school when she had colds. That was wrong. A cold is not a good reason to keep a child off school.

Your daughter's absence is high. Instead of lashing out at everyone, you need to address this.

With a run of bad luck, a child could easily have that much time off.
In one term, my youngest DD once had
5 days AUTHORISED holiday (discount this for this discussion)
2 days off for Scarlet Fever
1 day off with a bad cold
7 school days off with an extreme stomach bug

Her sister only had the holiday and the Scarlet Fever.
In the rest of the year, youngest added Impetigo (3 days) and another stomach bug (3 days).

Luckily they had chicken pox before starting school... That was 10 days off preschool...

It can add up.

It’s 95% and above when the school feels like implementing it though, same goes for the local authority.

Rules to suit!

Ds was made to have a part time timetable for over 2 years which the LA were also aware of. This has only just been resolved (last week! despite it starting in 2018) I made multiple complaints and it’s taken me seeking & threatening legal action to get my 7 year old SEN child into full time education.

They would also ask me to keep him home for the day for (insert any excuse under the sun)

It’s ok for a school to do this but not for the parent?! Bloody cheek.

The education my son has missed out on is shocking.

That's exactly what I am saying. It's ok for them to blame us as parents for something which is not our fault but not the other way around . When it's entirely appropriate. To be honest I have years of the governments screw ups on record and county councils . Should I get them to sign a contract and sue them for gross negligence and incompetence ???
It seems a bit like do as I say not as I do to me . Any other parent agree?

Think about who pays a judges salary ? There is something very very wrong here.

There is also a reason why they stopped legal aid. Think about what's really happening in this country. Does it remind you a bit of a regime that was in power during the second world war? It's starting to look a bit nationalistic , fascist and to be honest is not a place I want to live anymore. What happens when no one stands up to the powers that be ? They decide to do whatever they want. A massive recession is about to take place so they have to have control over the people again another parallel to something that happened just before the second world war.

I am concerned that people have not learned from mistakes of the past.Vilifying people who are innocent for their own benefit and gain. It's time someone vilified them in just the same way.

OP 11.5 days is a lot in one year, half a year in fact. If they were genuinely illness you wouldn't be getting fined, have you been to a doctor if she's been ill that much you might want to check all is ok and get a letter to the school. You must realise that's not an appropriate level of absence? How many separate occurrences was it?

95% would be a day off every fortnight. That's a lot of missed learning and as a teacher I see the kids who have this much time off (except those with serious illnesses in hospital etc) are generally the disengaged, slightly lost children who aren't as happy.
Sometimes it is a parent at home wanting to keep them off for comfort or allowing them to stay at home if they just say they are tired, have a headache, are sad etc so the children learn to play their parent. We all get tired or fed up occasionally but a key life skill is keeping going and pushing ourselves rather than opting out.

@DinoDisco There are 10 school days in a fortnight. So 1 day off a fortnight is 90% attendance, not 95%.

True - sorry - rushed maths!! One day every 4 weeks is still high!