How do I cope with DS missing so much school - TA reduced me to tears today

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Long - sorry.

How do you cope with a child who is not well enough to attend school much of the time? Is there any sort of halfway house between school and homeschooling, but without pre arranging the dates that he will attend?

DS2's (5) attendance at school last half term was a little above 50%. He has long term problems with his immune system, his ears and recurrent croup which has been life threatening on a number of occassions, although thankfully not in the last couple of years. He has also been recently diagnosed as dyspraxic although both his teacher and I think that's a little off the mark.

We were up from midnight - 3am with a croup attack last night. Ummed and ahhhed whether to send him in this morning, but he woke up of his own accord, and seemed bright enough so I took him in. Warned TA about the croup as he had also had a croup attack at school on Wednesday and she said maybe he shouldn't be coming to school, but said they would take him, keep an eye on him and call me if he seems to tired / is coughing.

So I just sat in the car and had a good cry. If he didn't go to school on the days like today where its a bit unsure if its the right thing for him to do, then I honestly think his attendance would be nearer the 30% mark.

I work from home for myself, so I can be flexible but I do still need around 20 hours per week child free time to maintain the income we need. I amaveraging about 10 hours a week at the moment and am getting really stressed by it. \when he misses school I try to give him attention in the morning, then set him up with a DVD at lunch time so I can get an hour or so done before picking up DS1. But I don't really know what I should be doing with him in the morning. His teacher described him in a referal form as 'unable to access the curriculum'- so it's not like when I was helping his older brother when he was that age with Gold Star books, flash cards and reading books.

I think I would feel so much better about this if I wasn't constantly worried about the HT or LEA getting involved because of his poor attendance. And if I had a plan of what work I should be doing with him at home. So I could almost decide every morning if it was a going to school, or being schooled at home day.

I can't talk to any of my friends, or post on the school forum board because I am so fed up of people's suggestions of how to boost his immune system, or should I really be letting him miss so much school, or my absolute favourite - boasts about 100% attendance because their kids are so bloody healthy and eat a good diet blah blah blah. Ds2's health is better than was predicted by paeds when he was a baby, and he is definitely getting stronger.

Sorry for rambling. Thanks for reading. I'm so tired, and worried.

have you contacted education welfare officer? they can help even if it's getting a tutor if needed, when dd was at school a boy was ill from week to week and sometimes only made one day in school, ewo visited parents and the school was forced to send a teacher to his home if he wasn't well enough to attend school. hth

I haven't contact them no. I think that is the man who came to give us a talk at the start of the school year -he used to teach at the local secondary school and he did not make a good impression on me. He went on and on about how they expected a miniumum of 90% attendance but even that was not great because it meant that over the year a child would miss xx days of education which added up to almost millions of lost educational hours in their childhood and so they would almost certainly grow up to be a moron. It didn't seem to occur to him that some children get ill. I will check the LEA website to see if his name is there.

Also the school has just switched to Academy status. Not sure how this affects things with the LEA but it has certainly got me worried that they will be wanting to rapidly improve the school's poor attendance statistics.

contact ewo before school does, this way your covering your back iyswim. not forced to be the same guy who gave you a talk, it could be someone more understanding of situation. they might just make sure your ds has work to do at home so he don't get behind.

We've been in this situation and the worry is awful but given that neither you nor your child can help being ill, you mustn't add feeling guilty or being worried about being prosecuted to your troubles.
The EWO may be a useful first point of contact but alert them from the beginning to the fact that this is a medical issue and ask them to refer you to their service for children who are out of school with medical needs. Every local authority will have this service although they may have different names - for some it will come under the inclusion service, for others it may be called AlCHoos or CHOOS (alternatives for children out of school).

Your ds will be entitled to home tuition for the periods when he is unable to attend. If he were off full-time the minimum entitlement is 5 hours per week, but his core entitlement enshrined in law is the right to a full-time education of a similar quality to that received by children in full-time school based education. To be treated as eligible for the home tuition support, you will need a referral letter from a consultant who has treated your ds stating that he is unable to attend school full-time because of his medical needs. It is quite possible to agree a flexi-school set up where he spends some days in school and some at home with support from a tutor.

From the directgov website:

"If your child can?t attend school: the role of your local authority
If your child is too sick to go to school, your local authority will look to provide them with as normal an education as an illness allows.
This may mean, for example, arranging access to home teaching, a hospital school or hospital teaching service or an integrated hospital/home education service.
Local authorities should have a senior officer in charge of overseeing the arrangements. They should also have a written policy setting out how they will go about meeting their responsibilities.
The local authority is responsible for ensuring that pupils:
are not at home without access to education for more than 15 working days
have access to education from the start, if it?s clear that they will be away from school for long and recurring periods
receive an education of similar quality to that available in school
get their minimum entitlement of five hours teaching per week if they?re educated at home because of illness, as long as their health permits it
Standards for the education of children with medical needs
There are national minimum standards of education for children who cannot attend school because they are ill or injured, outlined in guidance called 'Access to education for children and young people with medical needs'."

link here to the key document:

www.education.gov.uk/publications/standard/publicationDetail/Page1/DFES%200732/2001

we contacted our EWO before the school did and they were absolutely useless.
You could ask your GP for a letter which states that ds misses school due to his medical condition. That helped us when our ds couldn't attend school and he was then referred to the home tuition service.

Useful info in this report too.
This sets put what the Ombudsman expects of councils and means if they don't do it you can complain and get compensation.

I think you need to put in writing formally to the LEA the medical problems, be honest about the amount of time he is missing and say you want arrangements to be made to provide home tuition part of the week / when too unwell to go to school

I think you are entitled to a Carers Assessment by social services which should include support to allow you to stay in work see also here. It might include an entitlement to direct payments e.g. to buy in help at home so you can work. But needless to say social care budgets are strapped and getting money out of them is tough. You should ask for an assessment though and if it comes to nothing complain / appeal or involve your councillor / MP. Don't let them tell you that you are not entitled to an assessment, you are, whether that leads to services being provided is another matter.

Been there, done that. Dd has a chronic pain disorder which means her attendance has been like this since Yr 3 or thereabouts; she is now in Yr 10. Her junior school were grim, in fact she was so damaged by her experience there that she is now school refusing from her lovely and supportive secondary.

Looking back on previous experience (and wishing I had my life again) this is what I would do in your position:

keep a record of absolutely everything with dates, neatly organised

and by everything I mean every illness, every doctor's appointment, every unhelpful remark made by a member of school, every letter you have ever sent the school

get a doctor on your side, either a GP or a paediatric consultant, somebody who is prepared to either write a letter or visit the school to explain that your son's poor attendance is caused by circumstances beyond your control

ring the Education Welfare Officer and ask him to visit to discuss how you can help your ds to access his education
(when he does, on no account act defensive, make him a cup of tea and look at him with big puppy eyes as if you had finally found the kindly big brother who was going to help you out of the wood)

don't be too sure that an EWO is going to be useless even if he has once given a speech that was unhelpful from your pov- even EWOs are human, some of them can learn
(have just seen dd's paed who doubted us at first and then came round to being very supportive)

make it clear to the EWO that what you are asking is how the LEA will support your son under these circumstances, i.e. this is not the kind of case that they are normally dealing with, he will have to think out of the box

when all this has been done, call the school and ask them to arrange a meeting with the SENCO and the teacher

always pull them up straightaway on any dim or unhelpful remark (a phrase I wish I had used more often is "excuse me, could you just repeat that")

make it clear that you are taking notes

and best of luck to you!

Wow - been out all day and come home to heaps of helpful responses. Thanks very much.

I had a good chat with teacher today and he is not concerned and is understanding that ds has a whole heap of little problems that add up to a complicated case. And he said that despite those problems he is still making progress.

I will wade through all the links and advice over the weekend - thanks a lot for the support and so relieved not even one person telling me to give him fresh fruit and exercise to boost his immune system :D