100% school attendance now will not be..

JoJoB

It could be worse...
My friend's son had to be taken to hospital after being beaten up by the school bullies.
A few weeks later all the children in his form who had 100% attendance were taken on an outing as reward - you guessed it, my friend's kid had to stay behind at school while the bullies got to go on the school trip!!!

victory

JoJoB wrote: »

It could be worse...
My friend's son had to be taken to hospital after being beaten up by the school bullies.
A few weeks later all the children in his form who had 100% attendance were taken on an outing as reward - you guessed it, my friend's kid had to stay behind at school while the bullies got to go on the school trip!!!

Now that is bad. As the parent I would have so created that my child would have been going also, that is not fair at all.

Person_one

victory wrote: »

I understand your point of view but another way of looking at it if there was any leeway and every child that was in this position could possibly have some extra work or extra hours and it applied all across the board for every reason then it would be fair to all?

Still wouldn't really, what about the child who has to miss weeks and weeks at a time due to conditions that they don't ever recover from? Still not their fault, but no way they could 'make it up'.

JodyBPM

victory wrote: »

I understand your point of view but another way of looking at it if there was any leeway and every child that was in this position could possibly have some extra work or extra hours and it applied all across the board for every reason then it would be fair to all?

Then its not a draw for those with 100% attendance is it? Its a draw for those with nearly 100% attendance, who made some work up. And where do you draw the line, why treat someone with ONE medical appointment differently to someone with two, or three, or who is off school for a few months following a car crash or in hospital for a whole year undergoing chemo...

There has to be a line drawn somewhere, and since its a draw for those with 100% the school had drawn the line at precisely that - 100% attendance. Absolutely correct IMO.

It's a shame for your son, and no doubt dozens of others in the school who also have only had one day of non-attendance, but he won't have 100% attendance, and so isn't entitled to enter the draw. Maybe next year he will have more luck?

Peanuckle

victory wrote: »

The school is generous but you have to have an unbelievable amount of 'points' for attendance, homework, helping the teachers, behaving, helpfulness towards other, politeness etc etc to get the good prizes, there are book tokens, books, sweets, treats, day trips out if your class has performed well, vouchers for game you name it there is there and it really helps them to stay focused and well behaved.:D

Is it just me that thinks how sad it is that children have to bribed into attending and behaving properly at school?

Person_one

Peanuckle wrote: »

Is it just me that thinks how sad it is that children have to bribed into attending and behaving properly at school?

We had 'house points' when I was at school, I don't think its new and I don't think most schools are giving out the level of reward that this one is.

Think back to being a kid though, you had to get up and go and sit in a cold classroom every single day, mostly feeling bored and clockwatching past the age of about 11 with occasional periods of extreme pressure. I don't think a bit of recognition is so bad. When you're an adult you get paid for all that!

whitewing

Why not price the bike and find out the odds of your child winning (see how many people in the school get 100 per cent attendance.

Then offer your son the same odds, and use a random number generator online to see if he wins or not. Of course, you have to be prepared to pay out if he does.

Obviously this means that he can't have any other absences from school this academic year!

minimoneysaver

I hate these attendence figures. My daughter missed her 100% party because she got rushed into hospital after having a convulsion!!!! Makes me so angry!

coolcait

Your son's school is extraordinarily generous in some ways - the chance to win a bike for 100% attendance, vouchers for Game etc (how on earth do they fund all of that?)

Yet extraordinarily mean in other ways - like the hard line on authorised absences.

My children's school doesn't give out cash prizes, or bikes, or Game vouchers (apart from anything else, their budget won't stretch to that!).

They do give certificates for attendance without any unauthorised absences; they give classes the opportunity to watch a DVD occasionally, when they have met 'behavioural' targets, and so on.

Of the advice you've been given, the one I would opt for, for my son, would be to give him a treat after he's been to his appointment.

P.S. An 'authorised absence' means that the parent has informed the school, in advance, that the child has a medical appointment. Or that the parent has informed the school, first thing, if the child is off sick - and follows that up by sending the child in with a note confirming the reason for absence when they go back to school.

You might think that every child would get a certificate of perfect attendance. Sadly not. A lot of parents can't be bothered.

scragend

When I was at school, a medical appointment didn't count as an absence. Being off sick did, it was code "A" in the register (for "authorised absence"), but an appointment was code "M" and these were excluded when calculating your percentage attendance.

For example, if there were 380 possible half days (I think someone earlier in the thread said a school year was 190 days) and you missed registration one morning because of an appointment but otherwise were always there, your attendance was 379/379, so 100%. Makes sense really, because if you had missed the last hour of the school day for an appointment, your attendance record wouldn't be affected because you were there at registration time - why should it be any different because you missed the first hour of the day instead?

It used to wind me up when the form teacher didn't understand the registration system properly and, when I told them that I had been at the doctor's, said "I'll put it down as an A then it won't count as an absence". Of course an A will count as an absence - that's why it's called "authorised absence"! (As opposed to "unauthorised absence, i.e. playing truant.)

One time I actually tippexed out the mark from the A box and put one in M instead while I was taking the register back to the office. Maybe I shouldn't have admitted that

We used to get a printout at the end of the year in our reports, showing the full year's attendance and the final calculation. I got a certificate for 100% in the second year and fourth year, having only missed one day in both the third and fifth years. Only a certificate though - never a bike or even any other kind of prize!