Can the school ask for this much medical info?

[Verbena37]

Going to try not to make this too outing and have mentioned DD’s med issues in another thread but now she is recovered, I’m hoping to ask a quick question.

So her current attendance is 77%, having had it down at low 60’s before Christmas....when she had been long term poorly with pretty much in’own illness since last summer.
Now, with only a couple of months left until after GCSEs, she will only be able to make it to around 85% if she attends every day.

However, following a meeting with school, they’ve said that even if she is off for one single day, I have to take her to the GP for a doctors note/evidence she is ill.

At no time have the school not authorised her absences and I’ve sent in three hospital consultant letters (not the result letters) showing our concern regarding dd’s health. DD is a really conscientious student, predicted high 8’s for GCSEs. Since her pre-Christmas mocks, where she didn’t do as well as she hoped (but didn’t fail any), she has already in the last set of mocks just completed, gone up 2 grades in maths, 3 grades in French, still got a 7 for biology and a 6 for physics compared to the 5 before xmas.

At the school attendance meeting, I was asked straight away to give details of dd’s illness and I told them much more medical information than I believed I had to. Obviously, they wanted to outline what I should do if DD was too ill to come in for any actual GCSE exams and of course, if she was too ill to get out of bed, I’d have to go and get a GP note on the day.

Other than that though, now she is better from the block of long illness before Christmas and the Feb half term illness (that was totally unrelated), I don’t feel that if she was ill between now and the exams that I would need to take her to the GP for example one 12 hour vomiting bug. They are saying I would. Just because she has low attendance from previous illness, is it fair of them to clump future illness together in that and demand a gp note?

School said if it was a staff member with that much sickness they’d have to explain.
However, at no time, has DD been off for more than a few consecutive days and only twice was off for 5 in a row (after which you would then need a GP note).

You can see there position a bit can’t you op? I mean it sounds odd. Your dd has missed on average over 1.5 days of school per week and you will only tell them about symptoms and, from what I’ve read here, can’t point to anything saying what’s wrong with her and won’t give them any details about her illness apart from broad brush and can’t say how it’s going to be managed. You can see why they’d regard that with suspicion.

Also the text you quote above is about retrospective medical letters. Your school is asking for evidence at the time of illness. As in she wakes up and is ill so you take her to drs then and there. Nothing retrospective about it.

The school at clearly regarding it as on ongoing condition, you seem to be suggesting there can be no paper trail as it’s not ongoing (ie every trip to the drs would be unrelated to the last) but also saying she’s seeing consultants.

I can see why they are seeking clarity on what’s going on.

The law is a very low bar. They can request info they think it’s pertinent to their safeguarding policies. You can refuse but they may escalate to children’s services depending on how they assess the level of risk. That might be helpful or it might not be.

Nosey - stop scaremongering - they are not going to 'escalate to childrens services' for a 16 year old with a medical condition and low attendance are they?
no. How silly.

Loads of schools do this. It really isn’t due to safeguarding or whatever, it’s just a policy rolled out whenever a kid looks like they’re having too many days off sick and they want to pressure the parent to send the kid in instead.

See this thread here, for example: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3030135-To-be-angry-at-Children-Sick-Notes

Not that you asked for diagnosis but did they consider abdominal migraines?

It's very doubtful she will achieve the 8's she's been predicted with such poor attendance.

Christ. I missed a lot of school due to pelvic pain. I wasn’t diagnosed with anything until I was 22, and certainly wasn’t seen by a gynaecologist until I was past 18. GPs kept fobbing me off telling me it was normal.

Years on, it took a similar amount of time to get a diagnosis of ME.

It’s not at all uncommon to have debilitating health issues and no formal diagnosis for a long time, if ever.

Are school children covered by the Equality Act? If so, ask if they have an Occupational Health doctor they want her to see, who can confirm that she would be covered. Absences related to disability (or rather disability for the purposes of the Act) should not be included in general sickness procedures such as demanding certification, if I remember correctly.

This is nothing to do with safeguarding and is not a safeguarding issue, if they have an issues they can refer to their own missing form education policy and follow that.you have provided evidence and you daughter is approaching then end of her school career.
I would be clear and tell them I have advised them of the conditions and already provided medical letters so they will not be receiving 'proof' of any further illness. To his this behind safeguarding is ridiculous.

If they have safeguarding concerns it need to be based on more that a teenagers low attendance following medical letters having been provided.

Blimey some people get half a days 'safeguarding' training and think they know it all but seriously!
Let's just take a step back an assess the 'risk' here. There isn't any

nosey sorry but you’ve misunderstood.
I said before upthread that I have told them everything about the autumn illness that they to know.

There was no official diagnosis other than an immune issue (don’t want to elaborate on here) and it’s that immune issue that could have caused her to have the prolonged illness....or it may not.

I’m sketchy because there wasn’t a diagnosis of the illness made. Both consultants said it could be a condition relating to something in her diet and so we cut that out for 3 months. It doesn’t seem to be that.

If you’ve ever had, or known anybody who has had ME or glandular fever, I guess her symptoms were most like that with the added stomach/nausea issues.

Anyway, she no longer had those symptoms past xmas and her % went up.....then she got a bug the week after Feb half term. Everybody in town had it and school said they knew that.

I’m not going to worry. I’m crossing my fingers she stays well.

My post was more out of interest about the legality of being asked by a school for medical stuff in detail.

Thanks everyone.

Thank you for those last 2 posts. That makes me feel better.
School have never said anything about it being a safeguarding issue because they know it isn’t.

DD hates being off school and when she was ill, she was trying to get out of bed, then going dizzy and having to get back in again. She had regular nightly fevers, felt nauseous/vomited whenever she ate and so lost quite a lot of weight. She cried with guilt for being off and said school would be cross with her. Yet she was just too ill to go in.

The safeguarding thing isn't the time off itself. It's that

A) parents can ask for things like don't feed him (daniel pelka) because of a medical issue - more awareness of the need for professional advice ; this could also apply to things like being made to wear coloured lenses or use certain equipment.

B) time off in a regular pattern can indicate things like abuse being covered up (eg bruising going down) or caring duties that aren't well supported.

I think that's why it's coming up ?