Fudging the attendance

[IHaveNC]

NC as possibly outing

So I've returned from Maternity to my post in an amalgamated secondary school to find out that the new head is directing staff to fix the figures! He will not accept an attendance figure under 97% for the year group which each staff member presents to him. Seriously this is illegal?!

They are marking kids in that are off and sending children on 'study leave' that aren't academically smart so their exam figures won't bring the exam grades down (they don't sit their exams because they don't get told when they're on!). I'm just so deflated, I feel like I can't work here anymore it's actually depressing and stressful.

Wwyd?

So you have parents' notes about absence, and the online register says present?

That's a pretty clear evidence trail. I would suggest screenshotting it all, calling Ofsted and explaining the problem, including the issue of confidentiality / reprisals for you.

Thanks keep away forever I never thought of that, I am going to take a while to gather what I need and contact ofsted.

Sorry yes to the above poster we're in UK, England

Yes the marks and changes are easily tracked in SIMS. They'd only be checked if there was a reason to do so. What they are doing is so stupid, dangerous and illegal. The HT will get the sack. Take screenshots or photos of your registers so you have a record of how it differs after they've been tampered with. Report it to ofsted anonymously and see what happens.

Report your concerns to the chair of governors. You can do it completely anonymously, if in doubt check the school's whistleblowing policy.

I've had to come back to this thread as it's making me so angry!!!!!!!

Please report it. I'd do it anonymously. It's such a disgrace.

Doing that is stupid and illegal (and could have massive implications for safeguarding investigations).

I would whistleblow and raise it externally. Don't risk yourself internally. Go to an external agency such as ofsted directly and make it clear why you couldn't follow the internal procedures (I would imagine any school involved in such activity would find a way to dispose of staff who question).

I will report but I will have to gather as much as I can. Thanks for all your advice it has been really helpful and a breath of fresh air to hear you are as outraged as me, some of our staff will do anything he says and don't see that this is so wrong.

I have I’m not there any more. I understand your fear of reprisal, that’s how this game works. I’m happy to PM you to tell you where I was, don’t feel you’ve got to tell me if it’s the same.

This happened to me and weeks later the police wanted to know where a particular child was on a certain date and were told they were in school.
They were subsequently found guilty of robbery on that day at a time when they were marked present at school.
There was all hell to play.
Take photographs of your correct registers.

You could report this as a safeguarding concern - maybe to the LADO?

If you don't know whether a student is attending school or not that's a potential massive safeguarding risk

I think some Heads get sucked into cooking the books because they don't think about the implications. What happens if a student is harmed, or commits an offence, while marked present but actually not on site? What happens if Ofsted look into attendance?

Personally I would ask for a meeting with the Head, set out your concerns and say you are prepared to report to Governors, Ofsted and the LADO if need be but you are hoping that he/she would like to work together to put things right instead. But I appreciate that is not easy to do.

Shitting hell, I'm an attendance officer. I can't imagine ever being told to do this everything about it is wrong.

I feel for you, awful situation

Maintained local authority school or academy?

Report to the LA if the former.

I fully agree with whistle blowing to Ofsted, it may raise a Section 8 one day Safeguarding inspection but.......

It would be interesting to have heard exactly what the Head said about attendance and the 97%. Have they said their expectation is 97% and when lower expected answers or has it been actually said to change the figures to make the % 97%. Who is making the changes, Attendance Officer, Form Tutor, Head of Year?

The same as study leave, it is again such a big no no and not tell the students when the exams are or have they just not entered them- it just seems so bizarre, are the parents not questioning why their children are not taking exams? This would also mean the exams officer is not entering students into exams, who directs this person, Heads of Department? It seems there is far more to this than just marking students present when absent.

The whole situation seems so immoral and unethical. If the direction is coming from the Head and the actions have not been misinterpreted and what is happening is as the Head has instructed, I don't think I would be going to them. I would be protecting myself and looking to leave.

Just thought, what would happen if you changed the marks back to being absent with the corresponding notes?

Screenshot your SIMs every day. REPORT THIS.

A school local to me was doing this; at the GTC hearing the HT was found guilty of instigating/forcing staff to change sims and can no longer teach

I would screenshot your sims daily as well and save it to hour memory stick. Get substantial evidence and report anonymously.

I’d probably delete this thread as well.

Every alteration in sims is noted as being by the person who logged in. So if it’s office staff or teachers or slt it would show. If you print the official register for a month then it shows everything. If you have access to this might be worth printing some off for your evidence.

Good god, that is appalling.

The results massaging that goes on in schools is bad enough, but the safeguarding risks of amending registers are huge. As for not telling children when their exams are, words fail me...

If it's possible and you're seriously concerned about anonymity, photograph SIMS on your screen (e.g. with a camera phone) rather than screenshotting, obviously making sure there's nothing identifying in the background of the photo. Activity is tracked on school computers, and even if IT aren't in on this - and I'd bet decent money they at least have an idea of what's going on, even if they're not actively complicit, as it wouldn't be easy to keep it hidden from them - if SLT ask them to find out who's been taking screenshots then there's not much they can do to protect you without risking their own jobs.

Be mindful of the fact that by doing this you'll be storing potentially sensitive data on a personal device, so make sure that it's properly secured with a passcode and not left lying around anywhere - the last thing you want is the school trying to turn this round on you by claiming you've breached their data protection policy.

But yes, absolutely report it ASAP with whatever evidence you have. I understand how difficult it can be to keep things in perspective when you're in a toxic work environment where this sort of thing is normalised, but you're not overreacting at all. As an extreme example, what if a child were to go missing from education altogether and none of the proper authorities realised because they'd been marked as attending normally? There should and will be hell to pay for the people responsible.