Any education welfare officers out there ?

[loumum3]

If so, please could you answer me this question...At what stage does your LA threaten parents with fines/legal proceedings when a child has been absent from school due to illness ?

Thanks

Anyone ?

If your child's been out due to illness and you have seen your GP then you should not be getting fined. Parent not EWO answering.

If your child is genuinely ill and you have medical evidence to say that the time taken is legitimate, the answer to your question is "never".

Thanks for replies...seeker are you an EWO ?

You may get a letter/ phone call at around 75% but that may depend on why the child had been off ( as in long illness/ lots of odd days) and if the ewo had spoken to the school over if they had concerns. Sometimes they do just look at the data before sending a letter but they should be in regular contact with the school who would have more info about why a child had been absent.

No, but I am a very experienced parent and a school governor who has been involved in stuff around school attendance.

Good morning Nymphadora and seeker...I only ask as at 90% we started getting threatening letters saying we could be fined or prosecuted, I immediately called the school and the council just to check they both realised this was due to illness and the school said yes but the council said no (even though they had a copy of his attendance) the council insist I can be prosecuted because he has been ill and keep quoting the education act at me.

What sort of documentation do you have to cover the illnesses?

Were the letters from the school "personalized" ones or were they standard letters?

I don't have any documentation and to start with they never wanted any, funnily enough they only wanted "proof" once I questioned why they felt the need to include threats of legal action in all letters ! The first letter was a standard one but the last few are personalised ones but they still finish with a threat. I have never had this before and he has been at school for 11 years. He has had several illnesses this winter but they couldn't be helped, I understand they have targets but real life doesn't take targets into consideration does it ?

HAve you got medical evidence e.g. letter from the doctor/specialist saying your child cannot be in school?

How much school has he missed?

Don't have "proof" as even though he was so poorly he was in bed, it was only flu so he didn't go to the doctors. Another time he had norovirus and again he was really ill but no need to see a doctor and another time was a really heavy cold/virus. All you can do is have plenty of bed rest and perhaps paracetamol and we didn't really need a doctor to tell us that so we have no "proof" He has missed 2 weeks.

Two weeks over how long? I'm a bit puzzled that you have had a lot of letters about 2 weeks - did you send notes in with him when he went back?

2 weeks since September 2009 and yes always phoned on first day of absence and sent him back in with a covering letter.

We start proceedings at less than 80% attendance but preceding that there would be;

Letters advising of your child's percentage
Letters advising of an increase in absence and enquiring wrt to underlying illness, offering help and contact with school nurse/community paed
Request to attend attendance meeting/possible home visit depending on no show at meetings or lack of contact
Penalty warning notice ; basically a legal notice to improve usually requiring full attendance during the next 20 days.

School is unlikely (unable really) to go to the fine stage if you can evidence illness.

In your situation any letter you have received is basically a standard advisory letter. School have to let you know your child's attendance if it is below certain levels. They have to challenge parents with regard to falling attendance because it's the only way to sort the parents that condone poor attendance from those that don't. They have to tell you the consequences of poor attendance otherwise any subsequent court proceedings (which won't happen in your case) would fall down as parents will claim that they were not advised what would happen if the attendance didn't improve.

If you child doesn't have a history of poor attendance with no good reason you have northing to worry about. Honest

Ime the standard letter (or even the personalised-but-still-standard-letter) with the threat will go out a long time before you are actually at risk of fines or prosecution. We have had alot of attendance problems over the year, with the added bonus for several years of a ghastly headteacher who refused to accept letters from paediatrician and hospital as evidence that dd could not help her absences. And even so, we have never been prosecuted or paid a fine.

Basically, the EWO will only prosecute as a last resort, after they have exhausted more civilised options. So as long as you can show them that you are taking attendance seriously, that you are willing to work with them and discuss any ways to improve the situation- you'll be fine.

The letters sound a lot scarier than they are.

I agree cory. TBH that's the point of the letters; to get you to sit up and take notice. The problem is that the parents who do sit up and take notice or get worried about them aren't the ones the school/EWO has an issue with. Some parents are unreachable frankly

"The problem is that the parents who do sit up and take notice or get worried about them aren't the ones the school/EWO has an issue with."

That does depend on the individual school or EWO though,saggermaker. From dd's headteacher we had such wonderful comments as "yes, we do realise Corydd is ill, but you can't expect us to be happy about it. He tried hard to bully us into changing schools, even suggesting that dd ought to attend a special school (only special schools around here cater for children with severe learning difficulties: dd is g&t, but has a bad back). His sole motivation was to get shot of a child who was pulling his attendance record down as he had set his heart on an Outstanding at the next Ofsted and the school's attendance wasn't good enough. He bullied all families with medical problems/long hospital stays. Most EWOs were fine and stood up to him, but the last one we saw was very inexperienced and basically did whatever he told her.

So I would definitely say that school had an issue with even very conscientious parents. Still, there was no prosecution- and if there had been, we had quite enough paperwork to impress the court; in fact, we did at one point threaten to sue the school and would have done so had the head not been due to retire.

But I don't think ours is a typical case, and even in our case the EWOs were far saner and more understanding than the school.

Oh absolutely cory.

I do have to say that in the last couple of years OFSTED have got to grips with the fact that schools need to challenge and support so whilst a poor attendance record will prevent an 'outstanding' the judgement isn't limited to just the figures; the safeguardingpastoral aspect is considered too.

My current bugbear is that my hugely multicultural school with children who rightly take time off for religious festivals can in no way compete in the attendance stakes with the school up the road who have a wholly white Britsh intake. Absences on religious groundsaren't disregarded by the DCFS and we have to carry it. We cannot, due to our multicultural intake, meet their required attendance standard. It's a bit rubbish really.

Our problem seems to be the LA and the EWO's not the school... I just don't seem to be able to get through to them that I will not send a sick child to school.

Seriously lou - if it's just been 10 school days since September I wouldn't give it another thought. And the Education Act says you can't be guilty of an offence if your child is prevented from attending school due to illness.

The Educational Welfare officer should be trying to find solutions to problems, but they seem very selective in choosing which children to help and support.

In my opinion, it is EWOs who should all be sacked by local authorities trying to cut their budgets.

What legal authority would a LEA have to fine a parent for a child being ill?

None. It would have to go to court, and the LEA would have to produce evidence.

Greetings,

I am originally from Canada and have grown up in a school environment where the parents told the school when the child would be there and when the child would not be there. In this Country, I've come to realize that you have to 'ask' permission.

I found this out the hard way. We took my daughter out of reception for 1 week more during easter holidays to go on holidays. I notified the school by letter that we would be doing so but only found out upon our return that we would not have authorized absence from the school for doing so.

Each week since the holiday, we received threatening letters from the school stating that they were going to contact the Educational Welfare Officer to discuss attendance issues.

What is wrong with this system? Firstly, the school never once picked up the phone on a personal level to discuss this. Secondly, my daughter was 4 years old. It's not going to affect her in any way. In fact, she will learn more from experiencing another part of the world.

I've come to realize that my daughter represents only a number and status for the school and that the school misleads parents into thinking they actually 'care' about the child but never once sit down to talk to you about it but try to make you think you're a bad parent by threatening you.

I've never heard of anything so ridiculous in all my life. My daughter is healthy, happy, and leagues ahead of her classmates (not that it's a competition). But you can't write a letter telling me she's falling behind because of attendance when she is so far ahead. It only tells me that they don't even know her and that the attendance is not even about her.

Nevertheless, I endured endless letters and the year finally ended. Thankfully.

A new year now and I've again received another letter. This time, they will contact the Educational Welfare Officer. My daughter has been on/off ill since September and has missed 6 days of school (so they say). This doesn't seem like a lot to me considering all the flu bugs going around. I am thankful it's not been more than that.

I am tormented by these letters. It drives me crazy knowing that they don't even give a toss and treat me like I'm a careless parent.

It's annoying and totally disappointing to me that my daughter is part of a system that doesn't really care. It's just about numbers.

As it turns out, I have to take my daughter out of school for 2 weeks as my mother is unwell and I have to go home to Canada to see her. I don't know how to approach the school about this.

Any help guidance would be very much appreciated.

Thanks.