Attendance/marking absence

[tangeriiinedrream]

My daughter was off school 2 weeks ago due to vomiting and a fever. Year 2 state primary.

I rang the absence line before morning registration and left a voicemail explaining the nature of the illness and that she was too unwell to go to school.

I could see it was marked as unauthorised on their school app.

I emailed to query it on the day and it was if ignored. No reply. No change to the record.

I emailed yesterday reminding them I'd not had a reply, and asked again why it was recorded as an unauthorised absence. It was an illness they do not permit children to attend school with, she was absolutely too unwell in any event and I followed absence procedure.

In addition their policy states illness absence will be authorised unless school doubts the authenticity of the illness.

She has had medical appointments marked as unauthorised but changed to authorised once I have asked them to. (Letter and plenty of notice always given).

So far I've had two emails ignored and the record has remained the same.

I'm now wondering if they are sitting on it and if I'm going to get some snotty reply about policies and procedures that I'm not aware of.

How do your kids schools record this kind of absence?

She has almost perfect attendance, occasional appointments related to her disability that I always provide letters for and her last significant absence was 18 months ago when she had covid and was legally expected to isolate for ten days. And again was not permitted to be in school.

I did get a letter about this period of absence asking me to improve her attendance, but I ignored it seeing as it was probably generic, and absolute nonsense given the nature of the absence, but now I feel in principle this unauthorised absence issue needs explaining?!

Had I not pulled them about appointments being misreported she would have had 4 unauthorised absences in the last year plus this period of illness too which is getting close to the fixed notice territory. All it would take is another sickness bug to potentially start being threatened with a fine?!

I'm a school secretary. That is quite ridiculous, assuming they use SIMS they need to code it 'I' for illness. Can you see what actual code they have used? Illness is authorised (unless persistent offender who has been asked to provide proof). I would phone them.

Phone/go in rather than email. I'd wonder wether the emails were being received.

Also school admin and attendance here. Totally ridiculous and should be coded I for illness. They don't want a vomiting child in school for sure. Keep on at them, there's no reason this would be unauthorised.

I spoke to the school and they confirmed it was unauthorised and will remain unauthorised because of my child's high level of absence in the previous school year. Apparently it is their way of monitoring and preventing unnecessary time off.

The most ridiculous part is that the 'high level of absence' is due to a two week covid absence when it was illegal to leave the house nevermind attend school 😶🔫

Honestly never heard anything so stupid.

Absolutely ridiculous. If your child is on medical evidence then we do have to ask for some sort of proof, which we know is hard if you haven't seen a dr etc. But assuming your child isn't then there are no grounds at all for marking as unauthorised. Keep fighting it, it's unfair.