when a child is off sick from school ?

susieanne

If a child is off ill from school can a parent get into trouble with there local authority for the amount of time that child is being off school ill ? As a parent i always follow the right procedure if my child is ill i would phone school and tell them that they wont be in school then i write a letter when they return to school .

Basically my son has had 11 days off school this term in total due to illness ( bad colds , sickness bugs )
The 11 days wernt altogether he was ill for 5 days with a bad cold/flu then he had a sickness bug was off for 3 days then got the sickness bug and temp again on another occasion so off school again .

The school are now threatening me saying if they are off again i will be reported and talking about i may end up in court .
I just want to add even though i would like to know my rights these threats do not scare me i will be quite happy to talk to anyone from the education board . just like to know where i stand so i can be ready with what ever they throw at me

maman

susieanne wrote: »

Basically my son has had 11 days off school this term in total due to illness ( bad colds , sickness bugs )
The 11 days wernt altogether he was ill for 5 days with a bad cold/flu then he had a sickness bug was off for 3 days then got the sickness bug and temp again on another occasion so off school again .

The school are now threatening me saying if they are off again i will be reported and talking about i may end up in court .
I just want to add even though i would like to know my rights these threats do not scare me i will be quite happy to talk to anyone from the education board . just like to know where i stand so i can be ready with what ever they throw at me

I'm surprised the school is taking such an aggressive stance to sickness absence. I can understand their concern but threatening you with court is hardly likely to get you working together to get your child ito attend school regularly. All schools monitor absences so that's why your boy's been flagged up.

If it happens again they'll probably refer you to Education Welfare who will talk to you about why. If you explain it was 11 days with minor childhood illnesses they'll probably ask if he saw a doctor as it is reasonable to assume if a child was off over two school weeks you might be worried enough to take him to a doctor. That would be an end of it as for a 'first offence' they'd accept your word but continue monitoring his absence to make sure he either didn't have a persistent health problem/a mother who let him stay off school too readily.

The persistent unexplained absence could (long term) end up in court the other would obviously be a health issue.

quantumleap

I do think that any talk of court at this stage is a little harsh from the school's point of view.

However I do personally think that 11 days this term is quite a lot of absence for what appear to be minor problems.

I think the school are more than likely really concerned about the impact that this is having on your son (I don't know what stage he is at school so difficult to assess the impact!). As such perhaps it is not unreasonable of them to report this to a service that can speak with you in order to determine what is going on. However as I said court is a little harsh I believe.

Have you spoken to the school regularly about the absences in order to understand the impact it may have and to ensure you do everything you can at home to help while your son is off.

**Patty**

Our school , well it's blanket for the LEA actually, have a policy whereby a child is not allowed back into school for 48 hours following either sickness or diarhorrea.....to prevent the spread of infection.

So you do end up with situations where a child is sick on say a wednesday evening.....and yet can't return to school until monday the following week.

I would check whether your child's school has the same policy & be pointing this out.

Are you sure it's the school threatening & not education welfare?

sassyblue

susieanne wrote: »

Basically my son has had 11 days off school this term in total due to illness ( bad colds , sickness bugs )
The 11 days wernt altogether he was ill for 5 days with a bad cold/flu then he had a sickness bug was off for 3 days then got the sickness bug and temp again on another occasion so off school again .

The school are now threatening me saying if they are off again i will be reported and talking about i may end up in court .
I just want to add even though i would like to know my rights these threats do not scare me i will be quite happy to talk to anyone from the education board . just like to know where i stand so i can be ready with what ever they throw at me

Cheeky!!! :mad:

If l were you l'd reply exactly how you have here, explaining what the absence was for and that you'd be more than happy to speak to the education board if the school sees fit to report genuine sickness.

Schools DO know what sort of bugs are going round all the time, we've got chicken pox, colds and the dreaded sickness bugs at ours.

daska

I had this with DSD a few years ago when she got an injury a couple of days after she moved up from a very small primary to a very large secondary school.

The school were actually very apologetic about calling us in and explained that this is always worse in the Autumn term because 11 days over half a term means the official attendance rate falls below the cut-off where the LA policy dictated that they had to take action.

I think DSD had something daft like a 4% attendance rate as a result of the timing of her accident. No question that anyone thought we were bad parents or she was faking it, it was all due to red tape.

Carl31

11 days since september does sound an awful lot, thats. more than a day a week isnt it?

Mado

I have to say that it sounds very heavy handed from the school.
But, they may have serious concerns on how it is affecting your child's education and we all know of some parents taking the mick.
On the other hand, they also have a huge resposnibility these days with spotting abuse (not making any accusation here) and for them, a pattern of repeated absences may be raising alarm bells.

Kayalana99

11 days is alot, as you've pointed out. But you can't help being ill, imagine my surprize after being off for 8days with Swine Flu (first time I had been off in 2 years) that my attendant percentage was to low at work and I had to becareful not to have more time off or I would recieve a displine...

Me: I had swine flu?
Manager: Its not about the illness its about the percentage of the year as a whole, Im not saying your in trouble now its just procedure to noticfy you that you could be...

Thanks for that....

LunaLady

My DS1 has Shingles a few year ago and was off for three weeks. We had a visit from someone at the LA because it was such a long period of time. Its the only time he has had more than 1 day off school.

When he went back we had a rather patronising meeting about making sure he is in school unless he is really ill, to which I pointed out he had been, and that I was told at the beginning that he wasnt allowed back into school until he had been cleared an non-infectious.

tyllwyd

How has the school contacted you? It might be just a standard letter because your son's attendance has fallen below a certain percentage (maybe 90%) and meant as a gentle prod to you to make sure he goes into school - although it might talk about going to court, I'm sure that would be a long way off, and unless there is something else going on, it isn't meant as a serious threat at the moment.

Does the school have anyone in a pastoral manager role for your son, or maybe a form tutor? You could always ring them up to discuss the situation. When my DD was off school for two weeks (with flu), the pastoral manager rang me to find out what the situation was and if she could help, but her concern was getting my DD back into school, she wasn't aggressive towards me at all.