Well done this mum - Attendance Awards

I'm with her all the way - good for her.

I'm proud of her some children don't have a choice regarding school attendance due to illness .

Last week, my GC's school were handing out these awards too (4 weeks before end of term). Only 1 child in the class had 100% attendance but she wasn't there to pick up her award because she was off sick that day!
In one of the other classes, the mother of the "winning" child declined to accept the award because she was aware that another child in that class had such serious health problems that he would never win an award for 100% attendance. Hats off to that mum.

Thanks to vaccines and antibiotics many children manage to have a better attendance record than their grandparents, 60 years ago! In my first year of school, I had measles, whooping cough and pneumonia - that last kept me away for a whole term. In my teens, I always managed to catch the annual flu virus. Children caught - and spread - infectious diseases all the time and few of us would ever have managed to achieve a full attendance award which is probably the reason why such a thing existed. Homework was sent home with siblings or neighbours. Full attendance is a gift owed to medical science, not an achievement by the individual child.

Correction: which is probably the reason why such a thing did not exist.

I remeber being very annoyes when my DDs school gave these out, and wrote to the headmaster. It seems to me that if a child has been at school every day, they have been very lucky or they've been sent to school when they should have been kept at school and passed all their germs around!

This is the pressure that is being put on many employees, to turn up to work whatever happens.
It shouldn't be put on children.

*kept at home!

At one of our children's schools, a major local firm handed out vouchers worth a considerable amount of money (£50 in the 90s) for students with perfect attendance records.
As a community nurse, I became aware of young people missing health appointments (knock on problems in the NHS).
Our son had a perfect attendance record, but I warned him he might not get the voucher as he had taken a day off to attend his grandmother's funeral (the school had not responded to the query).
He didn't, and fortunately, we could afford to give him £50 to spend, as I felt so sad for him. We explained that we disagreed with such a brutal approach, and complained to the school.

Sore subject, this. My grandson is sometimes off school because his mum isn't well. The school couldn't care less, they said, since they know he isn't playing truant.

I blame ofsted who use a schools attendance figures in their data to decide their verdicts.

60 yrs ago no vacs? that is scary
whooping cough vac has been around since 1920s
1955 and 56 polio and small pox vacs
dtp has been available since 1948
there was no reason for you anno to have suffered.

It's true - schools are under pressure from ofsted. Attendance figures are something ofsted looks at when judging a schools performance. Really unfair - if a child is ill, a child is ill, but I'm afraid figures make or break a school these days. Doesn't seem to be of concern to the powers that be that a child is too unwell to be at school, or that the illness can be passed to other children and staff. A crazy situation.

Did everyone have whooping cough vaccines as a matter of course mimiro? I know I had whooping cough and so did all three of my DC. I don't recall them being offered a vaccine in the 70s.

OfSted has such control over the day-to-day activities of schools. The best schools for me are the ones that manage to humanise this nonsense and realise they are dealing with small human beings who cannot be conveniently categorised, graded and labelled.

The whole issue of attendance is a vexed one at the school where I am governor. There are known children whose attendance is not as good as the others; but we know the family circumstances and understand why. There should be flexibility and a recognition that children are more than learning machines - that there are other things in their lives that need to be taken into consideration. But the OfSted grading takes no account of that.

I am the person who has the task of printing off the reports for our whole school after the headteacher has entered the children's attendance percentage.

I can't put names to all the faces but I know the little girl that has Epilepsy (school has rung the ambulance on a number of occasions), the boy who was knocked off his bike by a car and is still in hospital, the children who live with dad (who I've seen him riding around on a mobility scooter), I could go on! All these children had 'needs to improve' in red bold text on their school report.

These children should be given a bravery award!

My autistic grandson will never win an award for academic achievement or sport and so his hundred per cent attendance certificate means a lot to him. Are we to say that no awards should be given for anything because some children through no fault of their own,have no hope of achieving them ?

One of those "what to do for best" situations. I expect most of us know of children who have health problems which affect attendance, so will never get awards or good comments. On the other hand I know my neighbours kids (and others locally ) are often off school but are perfectly able to be out running the streets during the evening or out in the paddling pool with music blaring away.
I was lucky that my boys had good records (only off for chicken pox or very occasional tummy bug) and they both had some full attendance years. Never had awards handed out at our schools though.

Ditto Greenfinch
I certainly don't think any child is too worried, as long as there is a chance of them winning something whether it's full attendance, best spelling record, fastest runner, kindest and helpful pupil etc.