Sixth Form Attendance importance?

[Jaxx]

Obviously it is important to attend lessons to maximise learning, but my son’s attendance will probably be below the school’s target by the end of year (some will be authorised though, work experience, open days etc).

Lockdown showed his is very capable at working from home, so I have not sent him in on tube strike days unless he has an early finish and also on teacher strike days when he will have no teacher led lessons. Unfortunately there has been a few of those this year!

He has his end of Y12 exams after half-term and they have suspended lessons for 10 days. They are however insisting students get registered in the morning and are then free to leave or study in school. I don’t mind sending him in for the mornings when he has an afternoon exam, but won’t send him in on the 3 days he has no exams at all. I just don’t see the point - his journey takes 40 minutes each way and costs £3.10. He will be much better off studying at home and having a bit of a lie in. It is much quieter and I can supervise if necessary.

Other than impacting school attendance stats are there any other possible consequences? His academic performance has been excellent so far and 🤞🏻that will continue.

My daughter has had a low attendance rate (year 12) due to anxiety issues since autumn (not school related). She has, however, kept up with all the academic work & volunteering & is heading for high grades.

The school have been brilliant & not insisted she goes in for form times etc & I've stopped worrying about her attendance record - at the end of the day universities are interested in grades & extra curricular activities.

I certainly wouldn't want send your ds in with the circumstances you've described - pointless!

School governor here. The school will be judged (by DfE/Ofsted) on its overall attendance stats, including the sixth form. Even if your own son's results are good, if overall results are mediocre, the powers that be will look at things like attendance and infer that the management team are not doing enough to keep students in school. That is why it is important to the school - so I suppose it's a test of your empathy and loyalty whether you care enough to encourage your son to attend.

For younger year groups the school can use Local Authority welfare officers to help enforce attendance, but they aren't interested in sixth formers because they're above compulsory school age.

Thank you both for your replies.

Given the fuss and complete lack of empathy SMT made about putting in place a really easy reasonable adjustment - I’ll keep doing what I am doing with a very clear conscience. Empathy and loyalty are a two way street.

Talk to the school about it - or get him to - he should be quite capable of making the case for it himself. They may be able to mark his attendance for those days as "study leave".

DD had a strike day when she was supposed to go in for a single lesson. She was going to ask her teacher whether she could skip it and do the work from home, on the grounds that it was going to take her three hours to attend a fifty minute lesson. In the end, the teacher and students agreed to have an extra lesson on a different day instead.

@Jaxx you can perhaps quote this document to the school and ask them to grant your son study leave.

... Hiwever, the Year 12 exams obviously aren't public exams, unless some year 12 students are doing exams a year early.

.... But as year 12 are above compulsory school age they should be able to have study leave at the school's discretion. I'm pretty sure my son got it in year 12.

Is your son at a school sixth form or a sixth form college?

He is at a school sixth form.

Students have raised the need to go in as there are quite a few of them now who don’t live locally - but have basically been told tough. On strike days, the Head frequently asserted that students worked better in school under supervision than at home - which may be true in general, but not for my son as evidenced during lockdowns and isolations. This however is worse - they are not going to be supervised - they aren’t even required to stay in school. It seems they want the convenience of freeing up teacher time for marking (Years 7-10 are sitting exams this week), without taking the attendance hit.