School fines for being ill or late

foolofbeans

pinkshoes wrote: »

As a form tutor, I have to monitor lateness and illness very carefully - it is a slippery slope to doing badly in school later on. We find lots of children who are "ill" are perhaps milking it and not ill enough to be off school! A little sniffle does not require a day off school!!
I am known to be unsympathetic and so I would not usually let any of my children off unless I genuinely thought they were ill.
It is your DUTY as a parent to make sure your child turns up to school on time, and 3 lates for a child in reception is pretty poor!!

I know.

iammumtoone wrote: »

I totally understand lateness should not be tolerated but do not feel it should not be given the same 'punishment' as an absence, surely it is better to turn up 5 minutes late than not at all? Maybe a system of 3 lates = one absence or something like that would be fairer.
Also I think the reception children should be given more leeway, it is difficult to get a child to school in that first year (i remember it well, sometimes having to carry him kicking and screaming in) Once they start KS2 then lateness should not be tolerated at all (unless there is a genuine reason).

I too feel lateness marked as absence is ridiculous and agree with a PP who suggested if you are going to be late maybe it's better to phone in "sick" Although I'm not sure if being sick can be classed as an authorised absence.
I was a bit soft last year as my child had a few times when they were very unhappy at going to school due to some boys being rough. My child was very young in some ways and not used to play fighting etc. I did talk it over with the school and they were supportive but did say I had to get child to school even if they were only dressed in their undies! I do admit I was a soft touch to start with when child didn't want to go to school but then I made a stand and enforced school whether they were crying, screaming, kicking or whatever. After child turned 5 they always went no matter what they said about not wanting to go. Days were only missed if they were ill and some times I took them in even though they were ill (and got told child wasn't their usual chirpy self!)

moomoomama27

It is your responsibility to make sure that your child attends school regularly. Unless there is a true medical concern, then a child should be reaching the recommended % of attendance over an academic year!
Lates will be recorded as absenes, as they are absent for regisatraion, and you will get monitored by the EWO.

So many parents don't send their child in because of a few sniffles, or because they can't be bothered to take them as they don;t feel great! Its not hard to get yourself moving and in to school for 8.45-9am! Just a bit of organisation he night before!

It is so detrimental to a childs education to have tardy parent(s).

FBaby

You'll be fine. It's a standard letter because they will need to be seen to monitor attendance. Rightly so when absences get to that level, but you admit that this needs to change this year, so there seem to be no reason why with efforts to make sure you are there on time, that you don't agree to your child staying home because they don't want to go to school, and keeping them in only if they are really poorly, your dd's attendance goes up to where there will no concerns flagged.

carmina_piranha

Lateness only counts for the morning though, whereas a day off sick would be a whole day's absence.

The attendance record only takes seconds to print, I've asked for it before for my youngest. It won't be a massive nuisance for the secretary, don't worry.

For each day it will show two marks - one for morning and one for afternoon.

carmina_piranha

My eldest who usually had 100% attendance got two illnesses both within the first half term of the year, so we got a letter because his attendance had fallen below a certain threshold.

It was a standard letter sent out to everyone with attendance below a certain level, and school said not to worry because they knew his average attendance would improve, and it did.

My youngest is a different matter though, I'll keep an eye out for my letter! We were really pleased to get his attendance up to 85% last year!

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

One of mine never missed a day of school from Nursery and all through Reception. However, she found year 1 difficult (in part due to being tiny/young and on the receiving end of a lot of roughness plus 'you can't do anything because you're little' from the September born kids who were easily eight inches taller and weighed 5-6 stone compared to her 2-and-a-bit-with-wet-hair-and-three-jumpers). That and she would freak out because her school socks and school jumper 'felt horrid', what with them being cheap and nasty synthetics that felt crispy from the moment they came out of the packet that never softened up, despite loads of fabric softener, no fabric softener, extra fabric softener, bashing them about with tumble dryer balls in the washing machine and every variation thereof.

This meant that, despite leaving a good thirty minutes before we actually needed to, she invariably had the screaming abdabs somewhere along the quarter mile walk to the school - the Head would frequently smile at us and say good morning as I marched into the playground with a screaming child over my shoulder, silently wishing I could be on the bus to work when I was supposed to be, rather than dealing with the grief every morning and then potentially being late for work.

I still got the snotty letter threatening contact from the EWO. I went in to the office and very politely asked them to convey to the EWO that unless she was prepared to stick offspring in a sack and bundle her into a car and drive her in, there was nothing I could do about it - and even then, the ensuing meltdown in the car park would still make the child late, but at least the older one would be in on time, as she was perfectly capable of walking down the road with me without complaint (I'd had a patronising letter about neglecting her safety by leaving her to walk to school alone at the age of 10 on the day I'd let the older one walk in through the school gates without me as offspring Mk. 2 had hurled herself onto the pavement right outside them and wrapped her arms through the bars).

The Head was fine about it and told me not to worry, he could see that I was trying to get her in on time (and I suspect quite a few people had seen her flipping out at me every morning).


DD then went on to never miss more than a day (when she was sent home following being punched in the eye by one of those larger children) throughout primary.


The next time we got a letter like it was in secondary (year 7) when she had hospital appointments following a dislocated knee and chest pains/diagnosed with scoliosis. Despite sending in the appointment letters every time, it was worded as though I was deliberately keeping her off school. I didn't even dignify that letter with a response. They never got in touch again.



The trouble is that the letters are automatically sent in response to the information stored on computer - SIMS printouts don't actually include the comments you can add to the code for a Late or Absence or the provision of a genuine medical certificate or appointment letter.


Shrug it off and just try to get her there on time from now on, as the lates add up very quickly, leaving the letters to come for genuine absences instead.

Tigsteroonie

We were given our son's attendance record at the end of each year, so we could see when he had been marked absent.

On the 'sniffles' argument, I try to send our son in regardless of how bad his cold/cough, only to have him sent home again and be asked to keep him off for a couple of days to improve. He's at an SEN school but presumably they get fed up of constantly wiping his nose for him.

SeduLOUs

Genuine illness is fine, obviously, but 88% attendance rate does seem pretty low. It's (slightly more than) one day off in every two weeks which sounds pretty high.

You'd certainly be on a disciplinary path with a sickness/lateness level like that in pretty much any workplace...

carmina_piranha

I'd add that while reception is quite informal, year 1 will be more structured and being late will have an impact on your child as they will miss instructions, messages, etc. at the start of the day so it's worth trying to get there on time this year

DevilsAdvocate1

The thing is, with the September term in particular, they haven't been there much, so if they're off due to illness the percentages look worse that they will at the end of the year.

My friend's son had swine flu really bad. In fact, he ended up in intensive care and at one point they really weren't sure if he would pull through. They kept the school informed throughout.

However, J. was still in hospital when his parents received one of these letters. It really upset them. What were they supposed to do, take him to school complete with his drip!

When he did return to school he had had around 6 weeks off. He then did half days for another month as he just didn't have the strength to do a full day.

There should be some discretion as its a waste time and is upsetting to receive a letter when your son is ill and in hospital.