What if parents refuse to sign contracts or pledges to support certain school policies? United Learning wants kids to attend even when unwell

[ParentOfOne]

I am talking about state-funded schools. Especially academies, where the tendency towards authoritarian policies is striking (e.g. as discussed in https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/secondary/5168466-how-common-are-detentions-at-secondary or also in this article https://thelead.uk/rise-authoritarian-schools )

More recently, academies of the United Learning group (which, let's not forget, are funded entirely by the State) asked parents to sign a "pledge" committing to send pupils to school even when they feel unwell, because there are first-aiders in school. There was a discussion on twitter , with the exact wording https://x.com/AdamHighcliffe/status/1840040564105867522
What the censored ?

I am all for punishing lateness and avoiding holidays during term time. I appreciate that some kids will try to 'pull a sickie' from time to time. But a blanket policy of always sending them to school even when unwell? That's insane.

I suspect that these academies don't care about the pupils. They care only about being measured against a certain set of criteria, scoring well against those, and therefore get more funding. Attendance is one such criterion, so this explains the policy.

The classism of the school is also evident in the wording of "journey to university". Not all kids will go to university. This academy seems to imply that they don't want the poor plebs who won't go to uni.

United is one group of academies that came up with the concept of a "grammar stream". I had asked about it here https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/secondary/5172138-grammar-stream-just-a-marketing-buzzword-any-different-from-being-in-the-top-set but it seems like a marketing buzzword meant to trigger a pavlovian response in the parents who hear the word 'grammar'.

I have found a Department of Education document https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/66bf300da44f1c4c23e5bd1b/Working_together_to_improve_school_attendance_-_August_2024.pdf stating that

An attendance contract is not legally binding [...]. Parents cannot be compelled to enter an attendance contract, and they cannot be agreed in a parent’s absence

For the record, I am all for punishing lateness and disruptive behaviour.
I strongly support that attendance is crucial, and that taking term holidays is disruptive not just for the child going away but for the entire class. But a "contract" committing to send to school children who are unwell is bonkers.

So they want kids with chicken pox, measles etc in school?

This is unenforceable, and likely disability discrimination. I wouldn’t be signing the top two boxes.

Our school encouraged them to attend with minor coughs and colds, and to be honest even covid now, but wouldnt suggest that they attend with more serious conditions like measles

@Saschka @Tiredalwaystired Exactly! They could have reworded it to say something along the lines of sending them to school when they are generally indisposed but there is reason to believe they might get better during the day, etc

I imagine it's unenforceable. But my main concern is that this would be a red flag, a signal that something else may be wrong with the school.

Why the hell can't we, as a country, ever find a reasonable balance, but keep going from one extreme to the other? We went from corporal punishments to inclusive comprehensive with no discipline, to now overly strict academies which are state-funded but virtually unaccountable to anyone.

I wouldn’t trust any school that pushed that to actually send my child home if they felt really unwell.

I agree with the policy of attending whenever possible so would sign the greenest. I also know that my decision on whether or not my child is well enough to attend school is the only decision that matters, so whether school and the LA like it or not, if I decide she's too ill then she won't be going in. If that means we have a discussion about it after the fact then so be it, but it really doesn't factor into my thought process.

I have never signed any home-school agreement. The school/s would follow up and ask me to sign, but my argument was that I do not need to sign any kind of contract to be a decent parent. I managed to be a decent parent before my children attended this setting, without signing any kind of contract, and I don't need to now.

As for my children's sickness, I am the parent. The decision and the responsibility rest on me when they are in my care. The schools' attendance figures are not my problem.

Are staff supposed to come in when unwell too?

It’s irresponsible to have this policy when secondary school kids generally travel to school without an adult so if they fall ill between home and school then it could be very serious.

My son spent a lot of secondary school with long term health issues. I would have been livid about him being discriminated against for something that is not his fault. NHS waiting lists meant that the process of getting to see a specialist and the testing needed for diagnosis has taken multiple years.

Is the school taking extra hygiene precautions and investing more in cleaning so kids don’t get sick ? Schools are full of germs and my kids say that the toilets are often in an appalling state.

@aparecium, does your child attend an academy? Do they chase you for signing or do they give up once you explain your reasons?

Of course the decision to send my child or not is ours (I mean, the parents'). It's not that I would ever feel compelled to do something just because a stupid school policy says so. It's that I see it as a red flag and I wonder: what else could be wrong with that school?

Most schools just link to the NHS “is my child too sick to go to school” guide and tell parents to follow that. So send in with a cough or cold, keep off with a fever, D&V, or anything else contagious.

The fact they haven’t linked to it and just have a blanket “come in regardless of how sick you are” rule suggests that either: whoever wrote this is an idiot who hasn’t done any benchmarking or worked anywhere else recently, and probably shouldn’t be working in the senior leadership team; or they do indeed want children in who would meet the “stay at home” criteria, ie children with food poisoning, fevers, chicken pox or other contagious illnesses.

It’s not an enforceable contract, and they can’t remove your child’ from the roll if you don’t sign it. So I’d ignore it, and keep my child off as I saw fit.

DS has a 100% attendance record as he rarely gets viruses, and I’m the kind of unsympathetic medical mum who would encourage him to “walk off” a broken leg, and I still think this is entirely unreasonable of the school.

Not a chance. I am the resident parent and I will decide when/if my child is too sick for school. Generally I keep my child home .....

if he has a temperature of 37.5C or higher
If he tested positive for Covid (as he did two weeks ago).
If he has something obviously contagious like chickenpox.

He had 4 days off with Covid in early September. He had one day off in year 9. He had a week off with d&v in year 3. Ten days in 12 years. He's hardly a hypochondriac.

So it's my decision, not theirs.

The wording is clumsy. What they mean is send your children in when they have a light cold for instance. It's aimed at the parents who keep children off for the slightest thing.

This is the NHS guidance. Just tell them you will be following that, thank you very much.

One decent Norovirus outbreak should be enough to get this torn up.

it would be interesting to see the insurance for the first aiders...
Wonder if it cover diagnosis of undifferentiated conditions?
Wouldn't want to be the first aider who dismissed early signs of sepsis or meningitis as just a sniffle...
Children and teenagers do try it on, do have minor ailments and just sometimes do have something serious and fast moving.
Not to mention the public health implications of lots of communicable diseases in a confined space.
Perhaps the recent witnesses for the Covid inquiry should be compelled CPD for the academies leaders...🤔

Both I and DS have signed a home-school agreement but it relates to dress code, general behaviour, anti-bullying and homework.

All sane and reasonable policies, not an academy though.

I’d sign the agreement chuckling the whole time as it is not legally enforceable and isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. I always let my DC stay home when they feel unwell physically or mentally.

I agree they should not be allowed to ask parents to sign these things as it is a form of psychological coercion.

There's no consequences to not signing one. I remember my mum refusing to sign my one from secondary school because she thought it was bollocks and didn't appreciate the tone of it.

She was a secondary school teacher at another school so was generally extremely supportive of schools. She just had no time for signing something with some patronising crap on it instructing her on how the school thought a good parent should behave.

If they actually cared about kids, they'd put air purifiers in classrooms and improve ventilation to avoid sickness in the first place.

This policy is about control. I really don't like the whiff of profit about MATs, nor their lack of accountability.

I completely ignore the 'agreements' our school sends home for parents to sign

I'm a school trained first aider. From many different training providers in different schools across different counties, there's never been anything about recognising common illnesses or whether children are well enough to be in school.

Both academy and not, and one that became an academy. They never chased me more than once a year, generally in the autumn term.

TBH I never felt hounded by the schools, nor put under pressure over attendance. But IMO e werea good parent-school partnership, and I think the schools recognised that and ultimately accepted our choice not to sign. For example, although our dcs' attendance was always poor in the first half of the autumn term (for legitimate reasons), it was good the rest of the year. Their behaviour was almost always good, and we supported the schools when our children were disciplined for poor behaviour. And so on. Essentially, we generally followed the commitments of the agreement that we refused to sign.

@ParentOfOne I wouldn't be happy with this either, but your post is dripping with hyperbole and you have lost your sense of perspective. This is one academy chain. It says nothing about other academy chains or schools generally.

What the fuck does teachers pay negotiations and industrial action have to do with sending an infectious child into a building to infect 100’s of others therefore ensuring your kids have a winter of shitty absence of teachers to deal with, temp teachers or no teachers. Get it?!!

I also know that my decision on whether or not my child is well enough to attend school is the only decision that matters, so whether school and the LA like it or not, if I decide she's too ill then she won't be going in. If that means we have a discussion about it after the fact then so be it, but it really doesn't factor into my thought process.

This would be my position too.

For an easy life I’d sign the form and carry on as I normally do.

If I was angry enough I’d copy it to my MP and doctor to get their views, and challenge it.

My DS was at a United Learning Academy. They nearly destroyed him with their stupid rules. Authoritarian doesn't even describe it. Dickensian maybe, and in my opinion abusive. The grammar stream thing is to get all the kids competing against each other in a state of high stress and anxiety throughout the year. DS missed the mid term tests due to chronic illness. Had I kept him at the school, they would have moved him from the grammar stream to the second lowest, based not on his academic ability but his scores in tests he wasn't well enough to sit! The place seemed designed to make everyone miserable. And yeah, they bang on about university and ask Year 7's which university they want to go to. How are they supposed to know??

@ParentOfOne yes it does come across a but classist. But it also seemed to me there was a general assumption that we parents don't have this aspiration for our children and that we somehow need the school to instill this idea into our children. Whenever DS was asked which uni he wanted to go to, he'd write 'the one my mum went to' 😂

DS has just started year 7 and we have been told as long as he is well enough to get himself to and from school by himself then he is well enough to attend school. That includes vomiting, fever etc.

For him that is a 25 min walk to the station then the tube 4 stops. Seems fair enough to me.