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

better safe than sorry!

I agree grandtante

And Teachers are not social workers although they often end up taking on many of the responsibilities. And they are very often blamed when an absent child comes to harm.

If the visiting officials were a bit too official, I suspect that they never quite know what kind of reception they will get and perhaps and are therefore wary

I agree with this too, rowyn.

VioletSky

Children have a right to an education.

Unfortunately there are parents who don't send their children to school enough for various reasons, some not good at all

In reality, this is just checking that children are at home for good reason and are safe

I think it would be hard to exempt some families, even those with long term illness problems, to protect children

And teachers have a right to teach.
{m with you VioletSky.
It may be viable in a primary school where the school has a good idea which child is truly unwell and which family is neglecting their child's education.. with less children and most of the teaching being done tby the same person, but FAR more complicated in a large secondary school where nearly every subject is taught by a different teacher.

And Teachers are not social workers although they often end up taking on many of the responsibilities. And they are very often blamed when an absent child comes to harm.

If the visiting officials were a bit too official, I suspect that they never quite know what kind of reception they will get and perhaps and are therefore wary .

It's a terrible pity that nobody cared when my grandson missed a lot of school when he was in the juniors.

As a retired teacher, I fully approve of Attendence officers or whatever they call themselves these days checking up.

In most countries, a doctor's note is required if children are off school for more than a length of time that varies from three days to a week.

In this case, it does sound, however, as if there has been a failure of communication between school and attendence officers, as the parents of the sick child had been in regular communication with the school.

That said, I would much rather that schools enquire unnecessarily than that they do nothing and later discover that a child has been playing truant, as a 14 year old girl I taught regularly did on Wednesdays until I phoned her father. He was shocked to hear that his dear daughter had not been at school and swiftly put paid to her window-shopping Wednesdays.

Worse was the case of the Pakistani girl who never returned to school, or even to this country, after a summer holiday. We never found out what had happened to her.

A 17 year old boy and his entire family likewise disappeared without trace, owing the school a term's fees, and we never found out where they had gone either.

There are so many tragic cases of abused, murdered children or youngsters forced into marriages they do not themselves desire (although this last is rare compared to the abused children) as well as those playing truant, some of whom get into criminal company, that I say: better safe than sorry!

I worked at a school where attendance was recorded on the pupil management system every week, and the local authority were known to send attendance officers to visit homes where they considered the attendance percentage was not high enough. The Government set the percentage requirements, not schools. Good attendance was something like 97 - 100%, but anything below that rapidly became 'poor'.

I worked as an attendance officer at a high school. The pressure applied on me to ring every absent student, every day, was phenomenal and virtually impossible to do. I had to mark in every late attender and query the reasons, deal with phone calls and log messages (generally 150 plus waiting messages each morning) on a system that crashed regularly and was incredibly slow, deal with face to face parent queries, AND have called the missing students - all by 10am!

It was impossible to maintain - this was an enormous academy school and at the time where we were just coming out of lockdowns. Covid was rampant. My office was also in the same room as the sick bay where unwell/vomiting students waited to be collected. The school nurse was always off sick, so by default, that job (calling parents to collect and comforting sick students) fell on me, too, all while I was inhaling all the germs.

There were 2 others above me whose job it was to turn up at people's houses to see if parents were telling the truth - they'd pick 1 or 2 to visit a day and then have a meeting about it. They never understood how pressurised my role was and scathing comments were the norm.

I hated it, burned out swiftly and left.

Surely the seemingly lighter touch of a friendly phonecall shouldn't even be necessary if the child has a medical condition and the parent has followed all rules regarding this and his sickness absence.
I would have told the 2 callers this and pointed out to them that demanding a fit note from the doctor doesn't mean that one will be supplied!

Back to the "good old days" when attendance officers did visit unannounced to ensure child was actually at home. Seems very traumatic when there is a longstanding health issue and the school must be aware.

My daughter had 34 stints in hospital (extreme Asthma) ….i would inform the school immediately that she was admitted again …they would give it 2 days for her to be ‘stabilised ‘ then a teacher or office staff member would bring her schoolwork into the hospital and give to her , or the children’s ward schoolteacher . Between the school and teacher at hospital my daughter did very well with 5 A levels eventually.
Point being….they knew she was a genuine case of illness. This is not the case today with parents seeming to allow kids( older mostly) to roam streets! I know this because my now middle aged daughter , works as a schools counsellor for 13+ kids….kids that are persistent truants …some with a ‘nod and wink’ from parents. She says that by then , this behaviour is ingrained and usually hopeless to cure….but if this behaviour can be stemmed in primary schools , all the better……schools have been too lax , for too long in neglecting truancy. It might seem harsh , but something needs to be done.

I am beginning to see why there is so much money and time wasting going on.

So many people think it is all necessary.

DiddyNan

I applaud any authority following this procedure

Really? Even in this "case"?

welbeck

how long since the child had been off sick ?

Does that matter if there is constant liason with the school? [and op mentioned that they want a gp nots after 7 days].

Now I see that you have written the word may.

Callistemon21

The only information they may have is the attendance records of pupils in the County which they have to investigate.

Do you know that for sure?

Quite so, Mauriherb. Who remembers the Victoria Climbie case… And this explains the questions re which the attendance officers have to ask each family. Going through lists and eliminating certain cases would take twice as long as a call to each address, and allow others to say they were being discriminated against.

I can well see why these parents were irate since the requirements of the school hadn't been explained properly. In general, however, part of this process is aimed at finding truants whose parents might not even be aware or abuse or neglect. Obviously, in these latter cases, forewarning would be counter-productive.

keepingquiet

What a mess- education radically needs a overhaul. It is not providing for the needs of children anymore and is all about numbers and making the academy groups look good. What a complete shambles and what problems we are storing up for the future.

Definitely!!! They forget that children are individuals, what is good for one is not necessary right for all. The idea that one type of education suits every child is ridiculous, high achievers are held back by less academic pupils. No real provision is made for children with manual skills or less academic traits. No wonder so many kids are playing up in class and getting excluded they are being pushed in a direction that holds no interest for them. As long as they learn basic literacy skills and maths why do they all have to end up with 10 GCSEs and A levels that they are never going to need or use, and if they don't achieve what's expected of them they are branded as failures.

This is safeguarding. Unfortunately not all children in the same family are treated equally. I applaud any authority following this procedure. If something happens to a child from ‘a good family’ and no visits made there would be uproar and yet again ‘lessons will be learned’. I would be happy with this visit and grateful that checks are being made. You cannot choose which children to visit or not. The authority are following procedure not a tick box.

on this occasion, ie not seen in school ?

how long since the child had been off sick ?

I would also have been upset by this, but, whenever I see a tragic story on tv about a child my thought is always "why didnt the school pick this up" . I guess they have to be thorough which seems tough on the decent parents .

So agree with Skyviolet, the checks are very much needed for the benefit of those children that are suffering. You can't assume anything.

*LEA

annsixty

If only all local authorities had this policy though I do agree this was totally heavy handed and unnecessary.
My local authority, Stockport, have no interest at all in attendance when told , blatantly lying, that children are being home schooled .
No checks whatsoever in 3 years.
I am picking up the pieces in this sad situation.

You can’t just tell the school you are homeschooling, it has to be done through the ELA.

Growstuff I’m sure you’re correct about untrained inexperienced attendance officers. Education welfare officers used to be seconded to study for a CQSW, so many were well trained and qualified. The austerity project has so much to answer for