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What Percentage School Attendance Is " Good " ?
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No link - you all know the current case.
I'm not interested in the rights/wrongs of taking a child out of school for holidays - the two sides seem to have entrenched positions & minds will not meet.
What does interest me is the claim by the father that 92% attendance is both regular and praiseworthy.
I'm quite good at sums (perhaps because I missed only three days attendance at primary school in six years - it still hurts that I didn't get my 100% certificate that year) - and to me 92% looks pretty shoddy.
It's over 15 days missed per year - one whole week per term - damn near a day per fortnight.
Is this 'good' in today's educational envronment?
Perhaps teachers/parents/grandparents could enlighten me?
I'm not interested in the rights/wrongs of taking a child out of school for holidays - the two sides seem to have entrenched positions & minds will not meet.
What does interest me is the claim by the father that 92% attendance is both regular and praiseworthy.
I'm quite good at sums (perhaps because I missed only three days attendance at primary school in six years - it still hurts that I didn't get my 100% certificate that year) - and to me 92% looks pretty shoddy.
It's over 15 days missed per year - one whole week per term - damn near a day per fortnight.
Is this 'good' in today's educational envronment?
Perhaps teachers/parents/grandparents could enlighten me?
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Around 96% it would seem (most recent figures I could find)
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'The ruling rejects Mr Platt's argument that despite missing a week of school for a holiday, his daughter had regularly attended over the course of the year, with an attendance rate of over 92%.'
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I think its not so much the percentage of absence but the reason for it....like sickness absence in the work place. From the percentage point of view a long spell of absence for a genuine reason looks worse than “monday morning itis”
Personally I don’t think attendance percentages should be taken into account in such circs....its either okay to take a child out of school for non essential reasons or its not.
Personally I don’t think attendance percentages should be taken into account in such circs....its either okay to take a child out of school for non essential reasons or its not.
I would say 100% is “good”. Anything less is not so good.
But, as woofgang suggests, there seems too much reliance in Mr Platt’s argument of what percentage of attendance constitutes “good” or “regular”. All children (even sunny-dave!) will need time off school now and then for illness or injury. There could also be a case for allowing a short time off for bereavement if the deceased is a close relative or domestic emergencies. Schools understand and accept this. What they should not have to understand and accept is that parents deliberately remove their children from school to go on holiday for a week or two.
None of the arguments put forward in earlier threads on this matter are sound. I have heard “parents cannot get time off in school holidays”, “clashes with school holidays where other siblings attend”, through to the preposterous “it’s too dear”. None of these have suddenly happened (and even if they had, it’s too bad). Then there is the ridiculous notion that a week in Disneyland or Benidorm is somehow more educational than a week in school. Parents have an obligation to ensure their children attend as and when required by the school. The idea that “it’s only a week – it won’t do any harm” is self-centred. It may not do any harm to the individual (but I dispute that, having been forced to miss about eight days in a row when I was thirteen due to injury). But a school which has pupils coming and going seemingly at will because, according to Mr Platt, their parents know best how to raise them (which includes choosing when to send them to school), will be a school that struggles.
But, as woofgang suggests, there seems too much reliance in Mr Platt’s argument of what percentage of attendance constitutes “good” or “regular”. All children (even sunny-dave!) will need time off school now and then for illness or injury. There could also be a case for allowing a short time off for bereavement if the deceased is a close relative or domestic emergencies. Schools understand and accept this. What they should not have to understand and accept is that parents deliberately remove their children from school to go on holiday for a week or two.
None of the arguments put forward in earlier threads on this matter are sound. I have heard “parents cannot get time off in school holidays”, “clashes with school holidays where other siblings attend”, through to the preposterous “it’s too dear”. None of these have suddenly happened (and even if they had, it’s too bad). Then there is the ridiculous notion that a week in Disneyland or Benidorm is somehow more educational than a week in school. Parents have an obligation to ensure their children attend as and when required by the school. The idea that “it’s only a week – it won’t do any harm” is self-centred. It may not do any harm to the individual (but I dispute that, having been forced to miss about eight days in a row when I was thirteen due to injury). But a school which has pupils coming and going seemingly at will because, according to Mr Platt, their parents know best how to raise them (which includes choosing when to send them to school), will be a school that struggles.
Why is it there seems to be this thought that when a child is absent from school for a recognised reason, injury, illness, death in the family, there is no mention of disruption only when the absence is due to a holiday? The disruption is the same, perhaps less so from a booked holiday, and yet the schools accept and cope with these 'acceptable' reasons of absence.
Another bit of primary school arithmetic ...
... at 92% attendance there will (on average) always be two or three children absent from a class on any given day - how on earth is a teacher expected to plan lessons such that all the absentees can be brought up to speed on their return? It surely must have a negative impact on the poor souls who do actually pitch up most of the time.
I started out with no strong view on the term-time-holiday debate - I can see both sides of the argument.
But the more I do my sums, the less I like the "travel broadens the mind" logic - it may indeed be good for the traveller, but it begins to look like a nightmare for the teachers and other pupils.
... at 92% attendance there will (on average) always be two or three children absent from a class on any given day - how on earth is a teacher expected to plan lessons such that all the absentees can be brought up to speed on their return? It surely must have a negative impact on the poor souls who do actually pitch up most of the time.
I started out with no strong view on the term-time-holiday debate - I can see both sides of the argument.
But the more I do my sums, the less I like the "travel broadens the mind" logic - it may indeed be good for the traveller, but it begins to look like a nightmare for the teachers and other pupils.
Yes you are quite right, dave.
Far too much emphasis has been placed, throughout the discussions this case, (and by Mr Platt during his arguments) on the rights of individual parents to do as they see fit, on the alleged benefits of taking a child away for a holiday, and the problems being unable to do so causes for the parents. It's all fine and dandy when examining just one child (though I would still argue against taking a child out for a holiday even if he was the only pupil to do so). But if you have a class of 25 or 30 children all coming and going for a week or two at a time across the term the problems would be enormous. And it's no good saying "Ah, but everybody wouldn't do it". As soon as it becomes seen as a "right" a large majority of them would.
Far too much emphasis has been placed, throughout the discussions this case, (and by Mr Platt during his arguments) on the rights of individual parents to do as they see fit, on the alleged benefits of taking a child away for a holiday, and the problems being unable to do so causes for the parents. It's all fine and dandy when examining just one child (though I would still argue against taking a child out for a holiday even if he was the only pupil to do so). But if you have a class of 25 or 30 children all coming and going for a week or two at a time across the term the problems would be enormous. And it's no good saying "Ah, but everybody wouldn't do it". As soon as it becomes seen as a "right" a large majority of them would.
As with adults in employment, there will always be certain cases (such as a pupil or employee attending hospital appointments for regular cancer treatment) where unusually high absence can be justified.
However the rule of thumb I worked to when teaching was that the maximum time I'd expect members of my class to be off sick was 3 days per year. (98.4% attendance). Most of my pupils seemed to achieve rather better than that. (My class usually had the best attendance rates in the school, largely because if someone was missing at morning registration I did my utmost to contact one of their parents by lunchtime at the very latest, rather than waiting several days for the pupil to bring me a note).
There would though be a few parents who had some rather odd views on attendance. For example, one VERY irate mother complained bitterly to me about what I'd written on her son's report. ("Attendance: 26 half days missed in one term"). What infuriated her was the reference to 'half days': "That's a LIE! My son NEVER wags half days! He only ever wags WHOLE days!" ;-)
However the rule of thumb I worked to when teaching was that the maximum time I'd expect members of my class to be off sick was 3 days per year. (98.4% attendance). Most of my pupils seemed to achieve rather better than that. (My class usually had the best attendance rates in the school, largely because if someone was missing at morning registration I did my utmost to contact one of their parents by lunchtime at the very latest, rather than waiting several days for the pupil to bring me a note).
There would though be a few parents who had some rather odd views on attendance. For example, one VERY irate mother complained bitterly to me about what I'd written on her son's report. ("Attendance: 26 half days missed in one term"). What infuriated her was the reference to 'half days': "That's a LIE! My son NEVER wags half days! He only ever wags WHOLE days!" ;-)
The problem is not being tackled in the right direction. People are taking their kids out of school in term time because holiday companies put up the price of holidays when schools close for annual holidays. This practice by travel companies should be declared illegal & they should be fined heavily. All manufacturing companies should have works holidays at the same time as schools. We would eventually have a uniform system which would clearly do away with the need for pupils to lose educational time,
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