Please help me with attendence letter

[Miracle29]

Hi everyone, I hope I've put this in the right area. I really need advice. My dd was diagnosed with asthma early last year due to a stay in hospital. Her triggers are illnesses mainly. Back last year my dd had covid, chickenpox and asthma attack which warranted a stay in hospital so was off school for around 4 weeks on and off not altogether. So obviously I got a letter from the school followed by a second when she was in hospital. Her attendence was at 84% in june. Recently there has been a bug circulating my dd caught and she was throwing up Monday night so this means 48 hours off school. Wednesday she started to wheeze really badly, nasty cough and needed her inhaler regularly. She's now on antibiotics for an infection and steroids for asthma. She's had 5 days off with it. I've now recieved a letter saying my childs attendence is at 78! Threatening me woth welfare. I've tried ring school and welfare but they're shut so I now have this on my mind all weekend as well as a poorly dd I've been sleeping on sofa with every night. Doesn't the new school year (september) mean the attendence goes back to 100% therefore how can hers be 78%. Have I got this wrong? Ontop of that, when my dd first fell ill with asthma, before she was diagnosed, I went to get her from school and she looked ill, pale, blue lips etc. The teacher said she was fine just a cough but another teacher said she wanted to send her home because she looked so ill. That day she came home fell asleep then woke struggling to breathe, rushed in hospital in a ventilator and all sorts and stayed for 4 days before diagnosis. She was so poorly. I was so scared it was happening again. I kept her home because she was clearly unwell, needing inhaler alot, needing medication and she would not have coped at school. I'm scared ill now get welfare out, a fine or worse! Please help me out I'm going out of my mind.

Ignore it, kids get ill I got one because they had covid 🙄

just ignore it. easier said than done but your kid is unwell and educational welfare are not abundant with resources so the threat is pretty empty!

If your child has been poorly you can prove to the school via medical records. In the worse case scenarios they will ask for access to her medical records.
The percentage is so low because the term has just started. Don't worry if it's all genuine - there needs to be processes and procedures to track those that aren't or child at risk.

It does reset to 100% each September.
But we've only been back 5 weeks.
5 days off in that brings you to 80%.

Keep anything from the hospital that shows when she was in.
Ask for an appointment letter for any doctor's appointments. You are doing the right thing for your daughter. Some kids with attendance at that level need support from school /welfare. Your daughter needs rest. Please don't spend the weekend panicking.

As a PP said the attendance is so low due to them only being there a few weeks. My DS was just under an hour late arriving at school this week (missed 40 minutes of first period) as he had a dentist appt and his attendance is 97.8 just because of that hour!

Her lips were blue and rather than send her home they said she was ok? When are schools going to stop risking the health of kids over fucking attendance targets? I would raise this with the school. They cannot take a chance with your kid like that.
There are reasons for absence - what can they do? It makes me really angry how many kids are forced to get ill because of school policies. Why don't they at least put some hepa filters in the classrooms so that kids aren't exposed to such high levels of viruses - they help with asthma too. So sorry that you're having to put up with this absolute bollocks OP.

@NotReadyForAutumnYet

👏 absolutely! I completely agree. Yes her lips were blue and she said she felt sick. I rushed her home where she was sick but said she felt a little better. She then fell asleep but looked ok. 15 mins later shes awake struggling to breathe. I did ring the school the next day and went absolutely mental. I am absolutely positive if I sent her school this week, the same thing would happen.

Thankyou so much for your replies. It annoys me because they know how sick she has been over the past year and how any bug kicks off her asthma but they just don't support it at all. They don't care as long as the attendence is up its ridiculous. I've sent them a sarcastic email with proof of doctors appointment and medication on as they requested. I'm so annoyed. That attendence just seems so so low. I will not send her school like that.

It could simply be a standard letter that they need to send. Please relax and take care of your DD.

I honestly don't think you need to worry about the letter.

My DD had a year of illness that the school knew about (they were very good). We still got an attendance letter as the school said they are generated automatically. I spoke to someone nice at the school and she said "you've spoken to me so just put it in the bin".

We got one the next term as well so I just sent a nice email saying "we've had a letter, as you know DD has been poorly with xyz, let me know if you'd like to discuss anything". They never got back to me so I assume they were happy!

Honestly I would either ignore it or just send a polite email explaining why she's been off.

Loads of kids will be at 80% or so right now as we've only been back 5 weeks and there have been loads of bugs going round!

Schools have to show they are doing all they can to ensure maximum attendance. If your child is too Unwell to attend school then they don’t go in.
It isn’t personal OP. Just keep a record of time off and why.

It's a standard letter and they have to send it to anyone and everyone who's attendance falls below a certain percent. It's an automated letter. The school are not deliberately sending it to you because they are unsympathetic. They have to send it to you.

Don't worry about it.

You honestly don’t need to stress OP. It’s a routine letter that has to be sent when attendance drops to a certain level (I’m sure you are aware of the concerns over low school attendance).
Is it asking you to respond? If not ignore it. If it is then reply explaining she was if due to being ill - you don’t need great detail.

Put it in writing as a follow up to this attendance letter. State the importance of not taking chances and that last time it ended in hospitalisation. Ask school to ensure staff are equipped to know what to look for. Ask them if the health of their students matters much less than attendance and give some examples of how this seems lacking.

Schools are stuck between a rock and a hard place with respect to attendance. Because attendance at school is a legal requirement (obv opting for home educating is the alternative option), schools are required to pass on to EW details of children with low attendance, even if they know that it is down to illness. You will have plenty of evidence of hospitalisations, appointments, treatments etc so there will be nothing that the EWO can do.

They have to investigate because of the possibility, like in the case of Daniel Pelka, that parents might be engaged in a complex series of lies in order to hide maltreatment or other issues. Obviously not in your case, but they can't know that unless someone checks!

Why did you send a sarcastic email? Poor teachers who are just fulfilling their safeguarding responsibilities having to put up with emails like that. I doubt the school even sent it - it was likely automated from the LA.
OP you must realise the reasons for concerns over low school attendance - it’s a safeguarding issue and also results on the child under achieving. Schools have to flag it and rightly so. No need to have a go at the school for doing exactly what is required of them.

Please don't panic. It will be a standard letter they have to send when attendance falls below a certain percentage. Whilst your daughter's absences can be easily explained and justified, persistent absence is a real issue in schools since Covid and something Ofsted will look into if the school's overall attendance stats are too low. The school have to be seen to be doing something about it by drawing parents' attention to the current percentage, if it falls below a certain level (usually below 90% I think), and reminding them that the children should only be absent in genuine cases of illness.

The mention of welfare officers will be for those with unauthorised absences or cases where there is reasonable doubt as to how genuine the persistent illnesses are. From what you've said, you really have nothing to worry about but if you are concerned I advise arranging a meeting with the school (our deputy head handles attendance issues but all schools are different) and explain your concerns. Hopefully they'll be able to reassure you that the letter is a blanket letter triggered by the percentage (which sounds about right to me for a whole week off at this early stage of tge school year), rather than being specific to your daughter's circumstances. Any absence at this early stage of the year puts a massive dent in their overall attendance percentage, as each day is still worth so much, so a whole week off can make it dip alarmingly low. It will soon even out to a higher percentage again once she returns, as each passing day is worth less in terms of overall percentage the further into the school year we get, if that makes sense? For example, a child who is absent on day 2 of the school year will only have an attendance of 50% at that stage. A child who misses one day of the first week will only have 80% attendance at that stage despite only missing one day and so on.

I do hope your daughter is better soon and you can push this to the back of your mind to enjoy a restful weekend.

Thanks again for your messages I feel much better and will no longer worry about it. I think it got to me more because im tired, qorried about dd and now the school on my back. The letter states for me to send in any proof. I've sent proof of the doctors appointment but can't prove she's thrown up which is how this started so that's only my word. I completely get the whole safeguarding but what annoys me most is one of the ladies who safeguards, told 2 parents a few months ago that it's ok for them to go on holiday and it can go down as sick...these parents she knows well and I did say that's unfair because when my dd was in hospital last year I received letters but your telling that parent to go enjoy their holiday as the child's attendance is good and they can put it down as a sickness. My childs attendance is bad because she gets sick easily. Now I'm not saying they didn't receive a letter at some point but my dd is genuinely ill and I get a letter straight away. It was the actual attendance that threw me. I always try to get my dd in school and give them medicine where I can but there's no way she could have gone in like this. I had 2 letters last year then 1 now. I know it's their job but there is a sick bug going around and covid too again so surley they could give us some slack. We can't win. We send them in sick and they get sent home, don't send them in and we get letters.

The letter did mention a visit from welfare if the attendance doesn't change. When I received the first letter last year, the receptionist at the school said they can only authorise a certain number of absences then they can authorise anymore after that. So when my dd had chickenpox that was authorised, scarlet fever was authorised but covid wasn't because she had already had time off so they couldn't authorise any more and couldn't authorise her hospital stay either. They just wrote a note on her record with hospital letter and doctors note but I still recieved a second letter.

Absence for illness is authorised, it would only be unauthorised if the school didn't accept or believe that the child was actually ill.

The attendance numbers game is a nightmare OP. And it stressful to get those letters.

Basically attendance scores are done on 2 points a day am/pm registration and calculated as a percentage of the possible attendance so far that school year.

So in week 1 if they had the Friday off it would be 1 in 5 so only 80% attendance. As we've only some about 4-5 weeks back the 10 sessions (5 days) out in a possible 40/50 sessions leads to 75-80% attendance. I think anything below 90% triggers such a letter- no matter whether the school knows nothing or every tiny detail.

Its likely this will now be her benchmark and you will receive another letter if she drops below that 78% so say she needs another 5 days 2 weeks after she goes back.

Eventually the EWO will be intouch but given the child is hospitalised /under medical supervision they will just do the standard checks. I'd rather they do this and it inconvenience my day slightly than not do it an miss another horrific abuse case...

Sorry going off tangent, illness is a prime reason of absence. This is bizarrely rarely mentioned by govt bodies as part of the reasons why absence figures are so high, but is shown in official figures. I wonder if unauthorised, (but clearly legit) absence due to illness is then actually recorded as illness in official figures.