Is this common now, having to get some kind of evidence your child has been ill?

[Deux]

This is a new one for me. DS has been ill and off school since Thursday last week. At first it seemed to be a flu type thing then morphed into a cold then into a sore throat and swollen glands.

I took him to the GP today and he has viral tonsillitis and will be off school till Thursday or Friday.

Anyway, the school have asked now for some evidence of illness either from a photocopy of prescribed medicine (none) or an appointment card.

Is this commonplace now? I wish I'd know beforehand as I could have picked up this evidence whilst I was there.

Is this admin/tick box gone mad?

Ah well super answer. Dear head, here's a copy of the dofe guidance and guidance issued to GPs. If you wish to pursue your request I'll assume you are calling me a liar and as you clearly have zero respect for me, you won't mind me cancelling the standing order to your special fund that the chairs of governors keeps writing to me about.

They really don't think do they. I think sometimes they forget that parents aren't 12, hold down professional jobs, and it might be good if they, teachers, tried to foster mutually respectful relationships.

How pathetic of the school. I echo what the last few posters have said.

I can understand why they are asking because of the growing number of parents who have no qualms at pretending their child is ill when in fact on holiday to avoid paying fines.

However, not all parents feel the need to take themselves or their kids to a doctor. I had the flu, the real one last week and I didn't bother to see the doctor because I knew exactly what it was and that there is nothing they could have done but to tell me to take paracetamol/ibuprofen and rest (which is what I did).

DS came down with a fever and complained of sore throat/aching on Thursday, so I assumed he too had the flu. As it is, I think it is just a case of tonsillitis, but again, doesn't justify a visit to the doctor who will do nothing but provide the same recommendations. I'm not sure when he'll be back, but if they were to ask for evidence, the only thing I could show is the receipt for liquid ibuprofen because his throat was too sore to swallow tablets.

Load of crap. Even as employees most of us have to self-certify for the first few days and a GP wouldn't be prepared to write a sick note during this period.

I really think the issue of school attendance and how it's policed is a mini time-bomb waiting to go off. Things are beyond ridiculous, and I say this as a teacher.

Nobody is assuming you are a liar.

It's true there are some parents who take their kids on holiday and pretend they are ill. And there are others who pretend their kids are ill when they need help at home or can't be bothered to get them up, or who are too hungover or high on drugs to care.

Poor attendance triggers ofsted and ofsted demand to see attendance trends and data and what exactly schools have "done" about those whose attendance is low. Schools are most "on the case" of those with lots of "broken weeks" - where the child has one or two days off every week.

Schools aren't really interested in the "medical evidence" apart from to prove to ofsted they are trying to manage it. Don't have a go at schools - direct your annoyance to the government.

I will have a go at my DS's school because that is who my contact is with. I don't have any direct contact with the government. I really don't care about the school's Ofsted or how my DS being off ill for 5 days affects their figures. Since DS was off there are tonnes of kids off. Some classes only at 75%.

Plus, see D of E guidance up thread which the school have ignored.

Should I be in this situation again, I will not be providing evidence but will offer for any member of staff to come to our home and check on DS.

Whilst I realise it's the lowest common denominator at play here, I fail to see why schools can't look at an individual level.

My DS ticks all of the following boxes: never been late, never had detention, has credits and merits coming out of his ears, hitherto full attendance, in top sets, all teachers say he's a joy to teach. His parents have paid every single voluntary contribution that has been requested. Sounds good on the whole Home/school agreement, right?

But it's just left a bad taste. I'm seriously contemplating cancelling my annual Direct Debit to the school.

Finally, anyone see the press release from (I think) Public Health England. Advises parents to keep children at home for a week if they have flu.

Requesting medical evidence is at a school's discretion. Usually, it will be due to a drop in attendance or a high level of absence and it is to encourage attendance which is strongly linked to achievement.

It will depend on your school's attendance policy, but it may be that once they have asked you to provide medical evidence to authorise absence, from then on any absences without will remain unauthorised. You can then receive a penalty notice, depending on your LA this could be for as little as 4 days unauthorised absence. Before refusing to provide it, I would check this with your school.

I've had this. Our doctors receptionists will write out an appointment card when you turn up for your appointment. It can be because their overall absence rate has got too high.

Slight tangent, but I was talking about this today to my DM - my DD isn't yet school age, so no direct experience.

What do schools do when you have an 'unauthorised absence' - whether holiday (breaking the stupid rules) or illness where you can't/don't want to provide evidence?

I know there's talk of 'fines', but who enforces? If you just send back a fine letter and say 'tough titties, I'm not paying because you're not my parents and I don't get treated like a six year old losing pocket money'? Is it legally enforceable? Has anyone ever gone balls out and refused to play by the ridiculous rules? I'm horrified/fascinated!

Ridiculous this will just force parents to seek unnecessary gp appointments in order to validate their dc's illnesses. People need to be encouraged to manage illness such as d and v and colds themselves without gp intervention this silly rule goes against what the NHS are trying to do.

My eldest needed to miss some scheduled lab sessions at university in order to attend a family funeral. There's a from to fill in, which was fine, but he was also asked for "evidence", their suggestion, a copy of the death certificate! Err no, I won't be asking my grieving cousins to supply this. DS had to put his foot down to stop me calling the university for a rant :) They accepted an email from me in the end along the lines of " please excuse DS from games " etc with the announcement from the paper attached. I can't imagine any circumstances when someone would actually produce a death certificate but it's their new stricter policy. Ridiculous.
They have also started asking for GP sick notes for a days absence. The university practice are taking great delight in telling them to jog on.

HumptyDumptyBumpty - they are issued by Education Welfare Service by your local authority. By law you must ensure you child attends school regularly. It is definitely legally enforceable, people often refuse to pay and end up being prosecuted.

You can choose to stick two fingers up and refuse to provide medical evidence, but you'll just end up with a large fine!

There is a huge amount of pressure on schools so blame needs to be aimed high up.

Thanks apple - that's horrifying. I've just googled it more, and I want to scream! How the fuckity ducking fuck does the government get to dictate like this? I am beyond flabbergasted. And foresee a custodial sentence in my future, as no fucking way on earth will I ever pay this bullshit fine!

Anyway, derailment over, apologies and thanks.

I'd be tempted to tell the school that there is no way I'm gong to haul my child back to a germ-laden doctors' waiting room, and if they want proof they are more than welcome to pay for the doctor to visit and provide a letter.

The thing is you are pretty backed into a corner. If you choose not to provide evidence you're likely to be fined.

If it is the odd sickness then you should be fine, as their attendance shouldn't warrant the school to ask for evidence. If there are ongoing health problems then you should be able to provide evidence to support it.

I appreciate that it's a pita to have to provide evidence of your children's absence and I myself have been on the receiving end of this with my own daughter, but please don't blame the school and in particular the poor attendance officer who has to make this calls to you.

They are simply following instructions from a much higher body, (Mr Gove, who we all know has so much experience of working in a school!) Ofsted require evidence of when and why kids are off school. If the schools can't prove that these children are off for legitimate reasons, then they are penalised. Ultimately leading to your children's schools possibly not even reaching a satisfactory assessment from Ofsted. And of course, parents won't want their children going to a less than good school and everyone will moan about that!

If you could see just a small part of the time and effort that a school HAS to put in to showing their attendance, then maybe you'd be a bit kinder about the people that have to ask for proof.

They don't want to bother you anymore that you are bothered, but it's their job. The attendance officer is taking instruction from the Head Teacher, Governors and Ofsted. They have no choice.

By all means question if its really necessary, but if you have a child who usually has good attendance, a more pleasant approach would certainly get you much further, rather than immediately being defensive. Like others have said, if your child has really been ill, what's the problem? Surely that's what the school/home relationship is about. Working together.

Never heard of this and never had an appointment card. Sometimes you give them a day or two off for say vomiting and don't need to go to the doctor, other times if you're that worried it'll be an emergency appointment so you'll phone up.

My DD has had time off this year for scheduled hospital appointments, an operation and twice has had to be released from school for emergency hospital appointments - on these occasions she phones me and when I've got the emergency hospital appointment I just phone and ask them to release her straight away. The school has never queried any of this, haven't even asked what her operation was for.

I'd be screwed if school asked us for this no you wouldn't, who cares?

I think it's high time parents stood up to schools asking for this sort of rubbish and knocked it on it's head.

you just don't get it, you are not "standing up to schools" by refusing, nobody cares at the school . Ofsted cares. A school can fail its ofsted if you don't , that all, but most parents realise ofsted reports are meaningless anyway

ZOMBIE THREAD

Just say no. Unauthorised absence isn't an issue for you, it's an issue for the school. So they can either accept your word (and I'd be having words about being accused of lying too) or increase their unauth absence stats.

I'd also be having words about expecting people to waste appointments with already overloaded GPs.

Oh - didn't notice the dates. Oh well.