Are we encouraging kids to take sickies?
I sent my two kids to school today, but I ended up getting a call from the school to pick them both up. No sooner had I picked my youngest up, I had to go back to pick the other one up as well. OK they did both have coughs but they weren’t really sick.
I was told that my youngest had a temperature and the oldest had a rash that needed to be reviewed by the doctor. I did my youngest’s temperature before school and after they sent her home and it was 37 degrees. I don’t think that constitutes hot. My oldest had been scratching her face (hence the rash) and was hoping to come home because lots of other kids get sent home in her class. In fact when I picked up my eldest there were two other kids waiting for their parents to arrive.
Apart from one of my children needing to go to hospital to have a bead removed from her ear (a childhood experiment gone wrong) my kids only sick days are when the school tends to send them home. I think schools are creating a culture around kids where they know that if they cough loud enough they will be sent home. I think the schools should be a little more matronly about children and illness. Most kids enjoy a sickie and thats not in the kids or the parents interest to entertain.
This happened to me last term when we had a series of family bereavements. My daughter would ‘fake’ being ill so that she could be sent home. I tried to convince them that she was not ill – but unhappy. Eventually seeing the headmistress worked.
How irritating. Unless kids are properly poorly (usually with a temperature) or have a particularly nasty lurgy, I think they are much better off in school where they can be distracted from minor symptoms.
Ironically, the strict attendance rules at some schools – ours has a new ‘£50 penalty notice’ if you take your children out of school for anything other than sickness or close family bereavement – must make it tempting for parents to lie and say their child is ill if they want to head off on a Friday for a weekend away. Last year I had a mobile telephone call at the top of a ski lift to find out why my kids were not in school on the first day back after Christmas. The secretary was very understanding and told us to enjoy ourselves, however, I am not sure what will happen now they have the fines in place!
We have had just the same experience. Last year, my daughter was sent home twice, two weeks running, because she had complained of a tummy ache. When I asked whether she had any accompanying symptoms such as diarrhoea or a temperature the office told me she hadn’t. Both times, when I collected her, she was positively jolly, skipping off down the road. The third time it happened, a couple of weeks later, I plucked up all my courage and told the office that I wasn’t prepared to collect her, that as far as I was concerned, to take a child’s report of a tummy ache seriously it had to be accompanied by something else like a temperature, and that both other times she had been completely fine. I made the point to them that otherwise it was giving my daughter the option to go home from school whenever she felt like it, as anyone can say they’ve got a tummy ache. Luckily, my daughter’s classroom teacher told me she thought I had done the right thing. (It had been a lunchtime assistant who had asked the office to phone me that time). Mind you, I’m not sure I like their latest response to tummy aches, which is to call them ‘worry tummies’ and get my daughter to talk about what’s worrying her.
To be fair my daughters’ school seems more robust-which is just as well as my youngest daughter seems to have perfected the art of getting some sort of injury during playtime on a daily basis.
The flip side of the coin is this obsession about attendance. When I wanted to take them out of school for my mother’s funeral (i.e. their granny) I was told this was not a legitimate reason – but if I wrote a letter saying they were having a day off school due to “family issues” that was OK.