School Policy causing attendance issues

[Greg F]

Hi all

 

At the start of this school year my youngest daughter caught impetigo and as kids do she passed it on to her big brother. Said big brother had to stay off school until the infection cleared up as per school policy. My policy tends to be more along the lines of "stick a plaster on it and stop him kissing people" but the school were adamant that he was not getting near the place until all traces were gone.

 

He got over the infection after about 8 days but caught it again shortly afterwards leading to another inevitable visit to the doctor's and more time off school.

 

On Friday I got a nice letter in the post with "URGENT ATTENTION OF THE PARENTS OF " said son and a lovely letter threatening hellfire and damnation if I did not attend an urgent meeting with the school headteacher.

 

The third paragraph goes as follows (sorry for shouting, I am typing it as it is written, caps, spelling mistakes and all):

SINCE YOUR CHILD IS IN RED GROUP FOR ATTENDANCE, AN APPOINTEMENT HAS BEEN ARRANGED FOR YOU TO COME TO AN ATTENDANCE MEETING AT SCHOOL.

 

I read the entire letter (which was a barely concealed accusation that I was purposefully withholding my child from school) and got steadily more angry as I got further down the page.

 

I wanted to go into school on Friday when I got the letter and do certain things with said letter which should only be attempted with medical advice and in the case of medical conditions which are precluded from oral intake. Luckily I have a loving wife that can rein me in and she was in two minds as to whether to actually stop me once she saw it.

 

The last paragraph of the letter states "Failure to attend this meeting will trigger Education Welfare Office Intervention".

 

So Monday (today) arrives and my wife and I go to the meeting. In attendance were the headteacher, deputy head, Educational Welfare Officer and someone else that apparently I already know but neither my wife or myself have ever set eyes on.

 

The meeting starts and the headteacher immediately tells us that my son's attendance is very poor and that we should not have let it get this bad, and brings out a new publication that the school has just been given (she stated last Friday) which has the new guidelines on attendance with regard to illness.

 

I stopped her right there telling her that if she has just received the guideline that it has absolutely nothing to do with the matter at hand as the policy is not retroactive. I was going at this meeting with both guns blazing and nothing was going to stop me.

 

I told her (and everyone present) that I was following the existing school policy which specifically precluded his return to school and therefore this meeting was completely unwarranted.

 

She again referred to the publication quoting "Impetigo: Until lesions are crusted and healed, or 48 hours after commencing antibiotic treatment"

 

I told her that it was her own school that had prevented me from allowing my son to return rather than as was being implied I was purposefully keeping my son off. I was lucky in that on a number of occasions I had visited the school with my son to collect my daughter so the teachers (and indeed the deputy head) could see firsthand that his condition was real and that the infection was passing. The deputy head actually stated in the meeting that she had indeed seen my son herself during the times he was missing school and that the infection was visible.

 

When I got home I spent quite some time trying to track down the "brand new" "hot off the press" government guidelines "Guidance on infection control in schools and other childcare settings"

 

I found it not long ago and the first thing I noticed was the date of publication - April 2010. Hot off the press? *insert Ricky Tomlinsonism*

 

Aaaanyway, got it off my chest and even got to tell the headteacher that the tone and layout of her letter very nearly compelled me to file it where the sun refuses to shine. She told me that I was the only person to have taken the tone of the letter negatively and not one single parent had even commented on it.

 

I told her that CAPS is both difficult to read as well as considered shouting and that the letter should be revisited to be less confrontational as well as to spellcheck letters being sent out to parents.

 

When we left my wife stated that she felt that nobody won in the meeting, we had to justify ourselves for following the school's own illness policy and the school was trying to exonerate itself of responsibility by retroactively changing the policy, an act which we definitively refused to accept.

 

 

The school should know by now that my position is definitely not going to be parallel to theirs unless we actually agree on something, or I can be convinced that my view is incorrect. If I am right I will not alter my position as countless meetings and reviews should have told them. To quote myself in an early meeting "I don't care how many people are in my son's class or whether his behaviour affects them, they have their own parents to deal with problems. My first, last and only concern is to my own child and nothing you can say will change that."

 

Sorry for putting you all through yet another probably completely disjointed rant.

 

By the way, anyone that made it this far, the "hot off the press" publication is at http://www.hpa.org.uk/web/HPAwebFile/HPAweb_C/1194947358374

[Karen A]

Hi.

You might find this thread interesting if only to provide some consolation that you are not alone.

I spent most of last week and this morning dealing with attendance issues.

http://www.asd-forum.org.uk/forum/Index.php?/topic/25605-attendance/

 

Karen.

[Greg F]

Thanks Karen, that thread is indeed very interesting reading.

 

A quote that I forgot to mention in the meeting went along the lines of "We are even getting in touch with parents who have an absent child who we know is currently in hospital long term to show we are tackling absenteeism". A classic line that shows just how little regard the school holds for the pupils, considering them little more than checkboxes and cash cows.