'And will she be in tomorrow'?

aliasojo

How the heck do I know, the child is unwell!

Are school secretaries taking over from medical receptionists in the 'stern/strict/unhelpful' reputation they seem to have?

Daughter has a bug and was off school yesterday. Called in and was asked to call in again today if she was still unwell. She is still unwell so called in again. This time the school seemed less willing to simply accept 'she's ill' and pointedly asked if she would be attending tomorrow.

(I've had 3 kids and I'm officially middle aged btw, I can pick up on 'pointedly' quite easily and am not in the habit of being offended easily. Just in case I get the 'it must have been you' type of replies. It wasn't. )

Anyway, I know daughter is genuinely ill so I'm not in the least bothered but it made me wonder if there is some sort of behind the scenes type school policy where 1 day off is fine, 2 days off is grudingly accepted and 3 days off is into 'don't even think about it territory'?

Or maybe it's more simple than that and I got someone who had a fight with their husband this morning. :rotfl:



Edit: For the record this is not a serious moan.

silvercar

Or it could just be that if you had said she wouldn't be in tomorrow, you would have been told it is not necessary to phone in again.

aliasojo

silvercar wrote: »

Or it could just be that if you had said she wouldn't be in tomorrow, you would have been told it is not necessary to phone in again.

No, you must phone in everyday regardless of whether you have already said in advance.

I think it's to help stop kids from trying to bunk off.

snowdrop1967

I suspect she was probably just not having a good morning, not nice but we all have them. I do the attendance for a high school and the school policy is that parents should ring in every day their child is ill unless it is something serious and they are expected to be off a while after an operation etc. Most high schools now expect medical evidence if children's attendance is poor otherwise it may lead to legal action being taken.

LEJC

At our school they like you not to return your child to school for 24 hours after the bug has passed to avoid further cases of passing it round...so to me it seems a very pointless question for the receptionist to have asked.....

I guess you should have replied....Well if shes not in tomorrow i'll ring again and let you know...

Hope she feels better soon

j.e.j.

aliasojo wrote: »

Anyway, I know daughter is genuinely ill so I'm not in the least bothered but it made me wonder if there is some sort of behind the scenes type school policy where 1 day off is fine, 2 days off is grudingly accepted and 3 days off is into 'don't even think about it territory'?

Maybe it goes on their statistics or something, or some pen-pusher has to file a report when the child's been off sick for a certain amount of time. Who knows..

If your daughter's ill, she's ill ! Can't see how getting snotty with the parent is going to help things.

pinkshoes

From a logical point of view, if she's just as ill on day 2 as she was on day 1, then she's unlikely to be in the next day.

However, if she's feeling better than she did on day 1, then her rate of recovery is clearly faster, so she MIGHT therefore be back on day 3.

I think it's quite a logical question really!

JimmyTheWig

I think it is slightly odd for them to even be asking what is wrong over the phone.
I had to phone in for our daughter being off school earlier this week. Lets just say that the initial problem was that she wasn't pooing, which turned into her not being able to stop.

How much detail did the school receptionist want??

Caroline_a

It's a bit like if you want to make an appointment with your GP because you're ill you have to be able to predict the future - 'I can fit you in 3 weeks on Tuesday at 8am..?' Of course I could be dead by then. That'd serve them right!! :T

JimmyTheWig

pinkshoes wrote: »

From a logical point of view, if she's just as ill on day 2 as she was on day 1, then she's unlikely to be in the next day.

I guess on that basis it is something that you may be able to guess at.
In which case school might be able to prepare e.g. send work home, cancel a hot dinner, select a stand-in for a school assembly part, prepare the expectations of a best friend who finds it hard to mix with others, rearrange an advanced maths group of which she is one of two students, etc.
The receptionist isn't going to know what's happening with every child in every class so I guess by them finding out the class teacher can deal with the information as they see fit.

Nicki

JimmyTheWig wrote: »

How much detail did the school receptionist want??

Enough to know whether your child had something infectious, which she might need to warn the class teacher or parents about?

When my eldest was in primary school, we would have got a letter if there had been a case of chicken pox/measles/etc in the class.