EWO??

[CardyMow]

I thought the EWO was automatically contacted by the school/LEA when attendance at school dipped below 85%? I was getting concerned by DS2's attendance as he's just got over his 4th Chest infection of this winter, so I checked at the school office. DS2's attendance is at 81% as of today . I've heard nothing from the EWO. OR the school. I know, I know, it's not as if it's a BAD thing that the EWO hasn't been in touch, but I'm finding it a little...err...ODD. When I pulled DD out of her first primary school (for 2 weeks before the Easter hols, about 7 years ago, moved her to new school after hols so she only missed 2 weeks), they were on my doorstep within 3 days. So where ARE they????

The school will make referrals to the EWO who will then deal with cases as necessry.
There are a few reasons why the EWO has not been in touch

1. The school are aware of the situation and know it is out of the ordinary and feel EWO is unnecessry at this point.
2. The EWO is very overworked and your case is not priority. If the school has very poor attendance as a whole they may be only dealing with children with lower attendance than this.
3. how much EWo time a school has depends on many things and if the school generally has very good attendance they may be very short of EWo hours meaning they have to prioritise cases.
4. Could be something basic such as EWO off sick or left and not yet replaced.

I wouldn't worry. The school should make first contact before referring to the EWO and they are obviouslt not concerned.

We don't offically refer to the EWO until the attendance is below 80% unless the child is in yr6 or there are other issues alongside. She'd be swamped otherwise. If a child has a known serious health issue we wouldn't necessarily refer even then - it depends whether the parent needed support or access to other agencies as the EWS can often get that sorted quicker than anyone.

lol loudlass i have had 3 of mine out of school since xmas have begged Ewo to get involved with getting schools sorted knew ds3 would take time but ds2 and dd are straightforward but they do not want to know .Ds2 wont get school placement to April at least he is Y8 .

so you cna imagine what my answer is going to be if they ever bother me again

Cheers. The school does have mostly very good attendance, in fact I don't know of anyone who has ever had the EWO out. It isn't unusual for DS2 to be ill as often as this, he's in Y1, but he had a particularly 'well' winter last year when he was in reception, in as much as he only had one week off school, as his other chest infections were in the October half term in Reception (and he wasn't quite 5 the anyway) and he had one over the Christmas holidays and one in the February half term of reception, so last year all bar a week was in school holidays.

This year he has had all his chest infections in school time. The school were aware that this COULD be a problem before he started there though, as it was discussed in the meetings we had before he started there.

The 'attendance officer' for the school is one of the ladies that works in the office, and when I phoned to let the school know he was off on Thursday last week, she did say 'his attendance is getting a bit low, are you sure it's necessary to keep him off?'. I think the most likely answer is that the school doesn't have an attendance issue generally so probably doesn't get that much time from the EWO. DD's school where they were called in 3 days DID have a massive issue with attendance...