Apparently I am a dinosaur!

eazybee

Schools get blamed for poor attendance, which is actually the responsibility of parents.

Easy does it!

If schools do not report absentism to parents, parents have no earthly chance of doing anything about it, once their children are old enough to go and come home from school alone!

On one occasion, I phoned a parent to inquire whether his daughter was ill, and how much longer she would be off school?

Perplexed silence at the other end of the line. Then "Excuse me, are you saying my daughter has not been at school at all this week?"

(This was a Thursday afternoon.) "Yes, sir, that is exactly what I am saying"

"My daughter and I are going to have a serious conversation when she comes home, because I know nothing about this, and I am glad you phoned."

It transpired that my pupil and a girlfriend from the school she had previously attended, had spent the first four days of that week window-shopping in the city centre instead of going to school!

Teenagers are a joy, ain't they?

Sadgrandma

DGD is going on a Brownie weekend from Friday to Sunday so will have to ask to leave school early on the Friday. I innocently asked if mummy or the guider was going to send a letter to the school. “Letter!” Was the reply, “this isn’t the olden days Grandma , we use emails these days!” Of course I’m too ancient to know that. Sigh!

They’ll be telling us next that our horseless carriages are old hat, and as for my sedan chair…

PaperMonster2

Whilst parents may be responsible for getting their offspring in to school, attendance percentages are a school admin issue that parents don’t need to see on such a regular basis. I’d rather receive more meaningful information regularly about my child than an attendance figure that is meaningless to us - if my child is ill, she won’t be in school, so that’s out of our control. Parents who regularly take their children out of school for spurious reasons probably don’t even bother looking at the app.

As my children are now 45 and 48 respectively and my grandchildren live in Japan I had no knowledge of this info. What a difference it might have made knowing my youngest’s attendance info back when they were at school . Unknown to me he used to ‘bunk off ‘ regularly as I often was away on work and a friend moved into the house to look after my sons when I had to be away and had a car sharing arrangement to take them both to school. I would take them myself most days but even then he would sneak off once dropped off! I was only told of a few missed days eventually by the school but an attendance report etc would have been great and very helpful.
He was eventually ‘sorted out’. But such info earlier would have been so useful. Don’t diss it!

Dylis

Carrier pigeon here!

Gosh. That's very modern and high tec.
I just send a runner...

I often call DH a dinosaur, the things he says at times!

13 years ago, I collected my g.daughter from school (new year 7), and she told me she was very hungry as her Mum had not put any money on her finger so she had not had anything to eat at lunchtime.

Back then, it sounded like a foreign language - 'money on her finger!!!'.... When my daughter came to collect her all was explained to me. GD also told that if that ever happened in future, she should tell them at school and they would ensure she would get something to eat at lunchtime.

Not all parents are bothered about school non- attendance though and some actually encourage it.
I used to work at a college and one day I was concerned because a student hadn’t turned up and they had an exam that afternoon, I phoned her mother to be told “Oh I’m sorry she’s really poorly in bed” but, just as we were speaking the girl walked through the door!