School attendance dropped from 100% to 98% after early morning GP appointment, is this normal?

[monywilliams]

Just looking for some thoughts from other parents.

My son is in Y2 and had 100% attendance until last week, when he had a GP appointment first thing in the morning. I let the school know beforehand, he came in straight after, but because he missed the register, they’ve dropped his attendance from 100% to 98%, even though he was in for most of the day.

I asked the school about it, and they said that’s just how the system works. If a pupil misses the morning registration, even by a few minutes, it is recorded as an authorised absence for that session, which counts as half a day absent and affects the overall percentage.

What’s a bit frustrating is that last year I picked him up an hour before the end of the day for a GP appointment, and it didn’t affect his attendance at all. So leaving early is fine, but arriving late (even for a medical appointment) isn’t?

He never misses school or arrives late, so it feels a bit unfair to have that drop on his record. Has anyone else had this happen?

Completely normal, you miss the register you're marked as absent.

School attendance is based on the register being taken twice a day. If your present for the register then leave you still have your mark. It’s also worked out cumulatively. So missing a session at the start of the year has a much bigger impact. Ie. If you miss a session in the first day of school you’ve missed 1 out of a possible 2 sessions (so your attendance is 50%) . If you miss one on the very last day you’ve miss 1 session out of a possible 380ish. I wouldn’t worry, at time goes on his % will improve x

Hopefully all over the certificate; that would be very apt indeed! 😂

Any system in which being 5 minutes late in the morning matters more than leaving at 1:05pm and taking the rest of the day off isn't worth the paper it's written on. I used to be a very good rule follower about it all but since we had an 'intervention' meeting about my daughter's percentage when she was in the hospital having surgery I couldn't give a flying monkey's rectum.

She was also excluded from the class party at the end of the year because her percentage wasn't high enough, even though she went in that day, surgical dressings still on. So now we send them in for Monday register and collect them at 9:30 to go away for the week. 9 sessions, no fine, lovely holiday.

My DC's school told me that children should 'make better choices to stay healthy' if they wanted to go to the 100% attendance treat.

But they couldn't tell me which healthy choices to make to avoid the chicken pox that DS caught from his classmate at school

They haven't picked and allocated a number at random. Absent 1 morning of the total so far is mathematically less than 100% present.

I’m baffled why the op is so bothered about this?

And mine.