Secondary school attendance levels - sickness

[TigerCameForTea]

Just wondering if anyone has been through this at all..
DD (14) has had really bad luck with three separate illnesses since going back in September. After the second one I was called in for a meeting and an 'action plan' was put in place for her as her attendance was down to 86%. Her HoH and assistant HoH weren't overly sympathetic even though I stressed I don't keep her off for the sake of it or a simple cold.
She has been poorly since last Saturday. I've had two phone consultations with our GP. They haven't wanted to see her but said they're happy to speak to her school to confirm she's ill.
Does anyone have experience of what comes next? Am I about to be fined? Or sent to prison?!
Thanks in advance..

No, you're not going to prison and should definitely not be fined, however you may have to deal with a eager attendance officer for a while. As I'm sure you know, shools have a duty to do this especially as by the sounds of it your daughter hasn't got a specific diagnosis and the percentage of attendance is very low.
Some schools are crazy about this though. Our local primary schools have countless complaints from parents every winter about threatening attendance officers etc when their kids have valid bouts of sickness. Be prepared for some grief but don't stress or pay it much bother. Hopefully she will be much better next term and it'll even out.

They won't fine you if absences are genuine.
If You give school permission to speak to GP that sorts the problem.

86% attendance is a lot of missed time - is there an underlying reason why she keeps getting ill? If there isn't I would be talking to the GP to see if they can find anything out.

If it is just a run of bad luck after previously good attendance, I'd expect the school to be more 'checking up she's OK' rather than getting cross.

I hope so anyway. DD2 is y10 and has hardly had 2 consecutive full days in together this month. She has had more time off this term than in y7-9 put together (and quite probably more than in the whole of her primary career too).

It they have no more time off this academic year their attendance will be about 95%
I think schools should look at the last 12 months to work out the percentages as if you are ill early in the year the percentage drops quickly due to how many school days are making up 100%

86% isn't a crazily low percentage particularly for this term when there are loads of bugs going around. Two bad bugs and you've missed two weeks of school.

They're not going to fine you at 86% and if your GP can provide a note they should accept that even if it's lower. The attendance officer simply has a duty to harass you and be aware of what is going on. Just go through the motions and really do try get her into school as often as possible also making sure she is on time.

As part of the attendance office the ones I fine are normally the ones who turn up to school two hours late reguarly.

my daughter was bedridden for a couple of months in 2017 and the school ignored medical evidence and harassed me repeatedly about attendance. the true attendance was 66% but by end of year they fudged the books for report saying 'educated off site' instead of ill...... still doing battle with school three years later as this summer they gave a wrong gcse exam paper to my child, and the exam board just noted it as missing and gave her an X. so having to do formal complaints for the last 3 years of school failings including their ridiculous failings in attendance, care for a child with special needs, not correctly following SENCO procedures or applying special considerations, and finally losing an exam paper. what joy. the one tip i can give is to get professional support from council/SEN etc and have everything in writing. don't let them get away by insisting on doing everything verbally or over the phone. you need a paper trail to complain.

Thank you for the replies all!
I've been in touch with school today by email, they have reffered us to the education welfare officer. I've given permission for them to speak to our GP.
Unfortunately, she's just had a really rough time and caught one thing after another.
I completely understand why they have to follow it up, I've no complaints, just wasn't sure what happened next.

@cckm oh no, hopefully you get it all sorted. That sounds a bit of a nightmare!