D for Punctuality

[Olena3]

Hello,

My daughter’s school marks students for punctuality as part of the official yearly report. I have a few questions. The marking is completely subjective and arbitrary. There is no set grading policy. It is also not consistent throughout the year groups or the school. I have a son at school as well. Just what the teacher “feels”. Different teachers will give different grades.

Q: How many lates deserve the lowest grade possible? My daughter’s attendance was 95.81% but she got a D for punctuality because she was late 11 times last year. The school says an attendance of 96% “is celebrated and encouraged”.

Q: Should there be a transparent clear grading policy or is punctuality marking usually left to the teacher’s discretion?

Q: Just so I gain prospective, how many time are you guys late per year? Is a D really warranted in my case?

Q: Do all schools have a punctuality mark on the yearly report or does it differ from one school to another

11 times is a lot to be late

I have 2 teens. One was late once due to forgetting pe kit, the other once due to dawdling with friends

I think the D is fair and you need to accept changes need to be made.

Punctuality is important

How does dd get to school? Is the lateness due to transport issues?

Is she young enough to walk alone or do you get her there?

If its the latter, you need to accept responsibility for the D and change things so your daughter is on time.

If its the first, she needs to be encouraged to make the changes eg get up earlier, get her stuff ready night before etc

How old is she?

What are the reasons she is late?

11 lates quite s a lot on any analysis. What do you want? A certificate saying 'well done, you didn't make it to school on time as often as most of the others'.

Is there a reason she's late OP?

There’s a lot of post recently of parents trying to justify their children’s poor performance. Why? Your child was late 11 times. Don’t overthink it, teach her to be on time, it’s an important life lesson.

Being late 11 times is atrocious. Is she dependent on you to get her there or is this her own tardiness?

There's no overall ruling or guide on this, it’s down to the school.

I had three DC go through primary school and none of them was ever late.

It's so so annoying when pupils are late to school – and at primary it’s your fault, not theirs. Is a D warranted? who knows? does it matter what the mark is? Just look at why she is late so much and get them to school on time.

My son was late once in all 7 yrs at primary school

I understand why you've got so many questions OP, they're valid as it does seem arbitrary.

However, I wouldn't give it a second thought to be honest. If they want to 'grade' punctuality, let them - it's nonsense. If there's an obvious thing that's causing the lateness, help your daughter work to correct it, but I wouldn't lose any sleep over it.

Is this report since the beginning of this academic year? So not even a term and a half yet and she’s been late 11 times?

Yes, that’s poor on your part (or whoever takes her to school) and definitely needs to be flagged up to you so that improvements can be made.

Q1 - I have no idea, I would expect them to look at what punctuality is like at the school and grade it accordingly
Q2 yes there absolutely should or what's the point of it? Surely they're doing it to encourage better punctuality but how can you aim for a higher grade if you don't know what you're aiming for?!
Q3 Mine were never late in primary but I am very upright about stuff like this. I'm chronically early to everything
Q4 none of mine ever had grades for punctuality in primary or secondary. Perhaps it's a big issue at your kids school though?

If the time you started this thread is any indication as to what time you’re going to bed @Olena3 no wonder you are regularly late

11 lates would definitely be a call in our school. They're very particular about it . It's not graded on report cards though it's treated separately

A grade for punctuality in primary owners as your child is dependent on you to get them to school. )I assume that they aren’t going to school on their own yet)

11 is a lot. Do you have a complicated journey involving public transport and your bus/train was cancelled or something ?

Hello,

I am writing this after having sent my kids off to school on time for the day.

I really appreciate those of you who genuinely tried to answer my questions and give me prospective. Those who had to be snarky about it, it’s the internet and anonymous rudeness is not sanctioned so I understand. You still took the time to respond so thank you.

My DD is in primary school so it is completely my responsibility to get her there on time. This is from her report for last year not this academic year. The latest are before the register closure.

Questioning the system is actually healthy. What one does with the answers they get is what matters. In my case, your responses have been tremendously helpful. The tardiness has been caused by several factors. Living outside of the catchment area, using public transportation, and most importantly being in the situation of having moved to the UK from Ukraine last academic year, post orientation weeks. I wasn’t clear on the timing for anything frankly. Getting used to a new school/everything else systems in a new country took some time.

That being said, I now realize that being late 11 times is unacceptable regardless of the reasons and I will be working towards keeping it at 1 late this year. (Edited: academic year. We weren’t late in January)

It bugged because my DD was exceeding in everything and that D stood out like a sore thumb. Good to know that it does not matter in the long run, marks wise. and although there is no system and the grading was arbitrary, it was perfectly fair.

You’ve got no idea how your answers have helped with the bigger picture, I appreciate it. I made an account just to post this.

The public transport part makes a lot of sense due to you being allocated a place outside of catchment. Mumsnet is a really supportive place and having more information helps put things into perspective.

For my child's primary, doors opened at 8.50, doors close at 9am sharp and anyone coming into school after that time comes in through the main school office, not directly into a cloakroom for their year group. If they come in after 9.10 then the register is closed and a mark for that is issued. If the school uses a system called SIMS then there are different letters for late before register closes and late after register closes. The school is locked down so all doors between year groups require a key fob which all staff have so someone from the office or a member of staff who is up at the office has to walk the child to their year group otherwise they get stuck at the first door.

From 8.50 they are doing any corrections from the previous day's work and will continue this until after the register is done. Then lessons start at something like 9.02am. There is a lot to get through and the mornings are always core subjects so maths and English. If they come in to my child's school after register closes they have missed part or all of the instruction on what they are doing.

This is why it is important to try to get them into school on time. Usually a school would talk to you about lateness to see if there is anything they can help put in place to support you getting them to school on time rather than a reprimand.

Attendance isn’t punctuality though? She can’t get a high grade for maths because her reading isn’t awful

and a grade in primary really doesn't matter - it’s a pointer - needs to improve , especially by the time the child starts work. Not a label for life

you should never be late

yiu get more slack with attendance as kids do get ill sometimes

it’s important as it disrupts the start of the day for all pupils

and can you imagine turning up for your surgery to be told it’s cancelled as the doctor was late and ca no longer fit you in? Being late is a bad habit !

edit - if I hadn’t taken so long to write this I would have read OPs last post ! Good on you

Public transport is always going to mean an element of unpredictability. We’re never late but we live a few minutes walk away which is completely different. Does she have to be in a school so far away? It sounds difficult.

Your daughter shouldn’t get the D, you should. There’s no excuse for being late like that. Are you not embarrassed.

I really wouldn’t focus on the D. It’s really a grade for you rather than her as you’re the one who gets her to school.

Just make some plans to reduce the number of lates. If things aren’t clear then you can ask the school and do let them know if there are factors outside your control that are contributing. Given that you’ve relocated from Ukraine it sounds as if you’re doing well and your daughter is thriving.

That makes more sense if you're out of the catchment area and have to rely on public transport. I would do what you can to get her there on time (get up earlier, see if there's a quicker/more reliable route, identify anything that slows you down getting out of the house each morning and see if there is anything that could be done the night before or simplified in some way).
I wouldn't worry about the grade. The important thing is to do what you can to help your daughter to be on time.

11 times late is a lot. My kids have been late once in 10 years.

Hey @Olena3 thanks for the update. Sounds as though you have had a lot to deal with and I agree with PPs, the public transport and out of catchment school factors are big issues that you cannot control.

Apologies if I was snarky. When my DC were at primary I regularly used to meet another mum walking her DC to school as I was leaving after dropping mine off – she lived nearer than we did and had about a 7-min walk to school, so for her there was no excuse.

I agree with those who say don’t focus on the D grade; many schools don’t do this tho yours perhaps has an issue with frequent lateness so that may be why (and lateness is a pain for staff and other students whatever some posters here imply). Sounds as tho your DD is doing well and so are you. Yes, please try to get the DC to school on time. It’s great that you have been doing better this term.

Attendance is a government measure and schools have to be strict on it. Low attendance and high lateness are correlated with poorer outcomes. Obviously this doesn't always apply, but schools have to work on averages.

In Reception my DS got a 'requires improvement' for attendance, with a comment that it may affect his academic performance. It was 95.8% but not 96%. All his absences were for illness and several times I sent him back earlier than I really wanted to. The rest of his report was glowing, so clearly wasn't affected by his absences! It annoyed me, but it was just one of those things. Conversely in year 1 his attendance was 100%. We didn't do anything different, we just got luckier with illness (plus he managed to time being unwell with the school holidays!).

I'd say do your best to be on time but don't worry about the occasional lateness due to public transport failures.

My son was late once in 5 years of secondary school. He claims he was in the class but the teacher missed him.

If I was late for work or meetings I'd be in trouble.