Government cracking down on school non-attenders. What happens in practice.

Playing devil's advocate here, how many times have children been injured or killed because no one checked on their welfare. This does seem heavy handed MOnica but on balance better to have too many checks than not enough.

DGS suffers from bouts of extreme fatigue and or fainting. Sending him to school is a non-starter. He has to walk over a mile or take a bus, and he wouldn't manage it as far as the bus stop.

As I said the school has been in the loop for at least a year.

It sounds like a lack of communication within the school.

Advert for post of School Attendance Officer:

The post will be based at home or County Hall

This post is not within a school.
What I was told was that when pupils are absent, this will appear on the school report and trigger an alert to the School Attendance Officers.
It seems as if they attended without consulting the Head Teacher at your DGS's school to find out if they knew of any reasons for his non-attendance.

Fancy that yes!

Not schools fault once again but unless it is vomiting or a high temperature, we have to allow them in... Conjunctivitis, scarlet fever, impetigo, head lice, throat or chest infection, all sorts of very awful or very contagious illness allowed to school now unless it reaches a certain level and even then it has to be diagnosed to count

On the other side there are a lot more working families now who can't afford time off and yes too much sick time may now mean a home visit

It's a lot to juggle for everyone involved but too many children have been harmed by abuse

Sorry M0nica I didn't mean to imply that your GS would be able to attend school.And I wasn't very clear. Once the box was ticked that a visit had been made and the matter dealt with the relevant standard will have been met.
It's possibly a case of two lots of records and neither system informing the other. The school had the details, Possibly the attendance staff saw them (maybe not) but they would see his past attendance and know his ability. So they would realise there was a good possibility the matter would be easily resolved.
I do hope your GS is OK. There used to be teachers who visited children who were ill and helped them, liasing with the school and bringing work to them.
I also wonder would he be entitled to claim he needs transport to get him to school?
So many things have been cut I don't know what remains.

As an education welfare officer I was based in the local education office and was allocated ( too many) schools which I had to visit every week. I saw the head teacher at each school and was asked to visit children who were not attending school at all or those who were missing too much school.
After visiting the homes I had to report back to the various head teachers.
Have realised that astonishingly, this was 50 odd years ago….and is certainly irrelevant now.
Feeling very old

Gloryanny On most days he can walk the one and half miles to school. On ordinary days he is fine, but other days he is just - fatigued.

We live 200 miles away so do not see how day to day living goes, but I think his parents do not want to ramp the illness up too much. Most of the time he will be fine and, like all boys his age is racing around, enjoys school, has lots of outside interests

He just needs understanding from the school when he has bad times and acceptance that he is prone to infection and most infections will be followed by a fatigue episode.

It is just at a time when school resources of all kinds are strteched, this seemed such a waste of resources, when it was a case where the school was well briefed and already knew all the circumstances around the child's absence and parents had stuck to all school protocols.

Silverlining, sorry to read about the assault you were subjected to. It’s essential sw visit in pairs, especially to unknown or families known to be hostile.
The general public have little understanding of the extent of drug/alcohol dependence or the volatile behaviour sw face

Thanks Iam , it was a terrible experience. He was violent and awaiting trial for rape . My request for two of us to go was refused and if I didn’t like it ….! can’t believe I didn’t just refuse point blank. It took a terrible toll on me and my family.

You shouldn’t have been expected to home visit him. If he refused to come into an office interview. 2 police officers should have been with you ‘to prevent a breach of the peace’

We were expected to do some dangerous things and I suspect it’s worse now

I am so sorry to hear of this experience Silverlining, terrifying for you. Hindsight is a wonderful thing because yes, you should have said “no”, it’s outrageous that you felt you couldn’t. DH was a front line social worker for many years and faced many difficult and dangerous situations. Fortunately he had an excellent working relationship with the local police and was able to call on them if needed. I think the school welfare officers should work in pairs but I think the main problem in this case was a total breakdown in communication between them and the school. It could, and should, have been handled better.

Damask Rose - my team also worked well with our police. They responded so well to our need for support
Working Together the orange book from Blair’s early period emphasised the need for multi agency work. That wheel needs reinventing

I think Callistemon has it right. The attendance officers were prob based with the education authority not members of the school staff and they were working down a list with no knowledge of individual families. In these circs they would def have to ask routine questions.
Certainly sounds as though their manner was abrupt but surely no great harm done.

I think it is probably better that several families are offended than another child is missed and ends up suffering abuse, neglect, or worse, dead.

But as I keep saying, in this case the school was completely up to date with the child's medical problems, absences etc. They already had all the information they required and knew he was only absent when obviously ill. He had been the subject of amicable face to face as well as electronic ongoing discussion between school and family for at least 2 terms. There was a planned parents evening a week later which the parents were known to always attend.

School Attendance officials should use their intelligence, both in their heads and in their files to target those families that are known to be struggling or where they have good reason to believe there are problems, not the families they see and talk to frequently and have a fully dossier of medical reports.
They are short of money and resources, why on earth target a family where their visit could add nothing to the files that was not already known and not get a child back in school.

Perhaps they didn't have full disclosure of all the medical information, just the reports of absences which they were duty bound to follow up?

Does the school itself, employ the School Attendance officials?
If I was the parents, I would be straight around to the school, to work out where things have gone amiss. As well as contacting School Governors.

Callistemon21 Read the post I wrote that is just above yours. As I have said several times, parent and school had been working together for at least 2 terms on DGS's problems and they had been given all the relevant medical information including the consultants letter's.

Home schooling which is a different subject to Monica’s post is in some cases a cover up for ‘I can’t be bothered to fight them going to school they ll be ok’
The family that used to live next to me were all ‘home schooled’ while the overweight ‘ill’ mum was out on her mobility scooter The kids were playing computer games I could hear them, plus loud music and playing football in the alley way
One boy works and one girl has taken herself to college(/I admire her must have been hard to concentrate) The other 6 are on benefits ( mental illness) and the girls are procreating from age 16 also on single mum benefits
This is NOT to knock many kids that are successfully home schooled although personally I think the need to know how to socially fit in is more difficult to achieve when alone at home and I believe they miss out BUT I do think it needs much much more supervision
I think Monica’s case was badly organised and I d have been put out too

Unfortunately, MOnica your family are an easy target as is my daughter. our families are the ones who answer the phone and go to meetings. Our families give them another ticked box.

The schools are under pressure from OfSted to whom they must justify their attendance record. The schools know why children are away in the main, and also the futility of trying to deal with it. They cannot stop bugs going round school - and on the one hand they do not want germy children in school spreading the love, but have to get them back in asap to keep OfSted happy. It's all crazy.

One unhealthy spin off of it all is the utter nonsense of prizes for good attendance - bit of a bugger for those children with medical conditions who will not win the prize ever. And I object to prizes that require no effort from the child.

The prizes for good attendance has been going on for 30 years.
At least it has, around here.

Agree with the rest of your post.

A parent does everything they can, and while they have a sick child two demanding people turn up at the door, I would be put out.
These people could have contacted the School, they would have known then the parent was ringing in everyday, and had a note from a consultant, yet still they asked for a private letter sent to the pupil from one of his medical team.
I had a situation where my son done something quite serious to his knee, I had to take three weeks of work as he was off School and needed help. I contacted the School and that was enough.
If those two turned up at my door I would refuse to engage, and they would have been told to clear off. They could have taken it further but what a what a waste of time and money. All they would have found was a responsible parent with a son on crutches who found it hard even to use the loo.
I am not buying into they do not have the time to contact the School for further information, if these people are overworked or lazy that is the fault of the system, not responsible parents.

One unhealthy spin off of it all is the utter nonsense of prizes for good attendance - bit of a bugger for those children with medical conditions who will not win the prize ever.

This is a bone of contention here too.
A child I know is disabled and has lots of medical appointments, needless to say in school time.
The child is being discriminated against because of their disability, and is understandably getting upset by knowing they'll never achieve an attendance prize because of this. How is that an acceptable system?
Parents have complained strongly to school.