How much school can you miss?

Aoifey!

My sister is in first year and has missed quite a lot of school due to illness since Christmas (about 2 months). I was just wondering if there is a limit on how much school you can miss without having to repeat or would it be up to the principal?

spurious

After twenty days a school is obliged by law to report the absences to the National Education Welfare Board, but effectively they do nothing. If your sister's sick, they won't bother. They barely do anything when a child wants to come to school but is being kept out by a parent/guardian.
I have a child on one of my rolls who I have seen about three times since September.

There would be a lot of merit in linking social welfare/children's allowances to actual attendance at school, hospital and medical appointments etc..

I don't understand in this day of computers and PPS numbers they cannot withhold money from a 'parent' who wilfully neglects to send a child to school, bring them for hospital or medical appointments etc..

Pwpane

Aoifey! it really depends on how much material she has missed, rather than time, and would be a matter for her parents and the principal to decide between them. If she's only in first year she's prob fine. See how she does when she goes back. It's really down to could she handle second year and the final decision would be the parents. That's how it is in my school anyway! So don't worry, let her get better and see how the rest of the year goes for her.

gaeilgegrinds1

Totally agree with you Spurious on that idea, have been saying it ages. We had one case this year where a parents was sent for a week in prison...

Aoifey!

Thanks we were just worried she would have to repeat because of the amount missed, I've been helping her a bit in the likes of Maths and German where she'll need the first year stuff to built on so she sould be okay on that.


And I agree with you on that spurious, it should be easy enough to check how often a chold in is school since each class generally takes rolls and it should be monitored more carefully. I'm surprised it's not.

whydoibother?

I suppose given the fact that there is no requirement to send a child to school at all i.e. you are entitled to home school a child, it becomes difficult to criticize parents for children missing days, but I do think if they opt for the school system they should be obliged to commit to it.

E.T.

gaeilgegrinds1 wrote: »

Totally agree with you Spurious on that idea, have been saying it ages. We had one case this year where a parents was sent for a week in prison...

How long did the child miss in that case? Just wondering as I've heard the NEWB don't even follow up cases outside of cities unless they're over 70 days. We've reported children missing 60 days without any follow up.

Delphi91

whydoibother? wrote: »

I suppose given the fact that there is no requirement to send a child to school at all i.e. you are entitled to home school a child

To do so, you have to be accepted by the DES as a provider of a suitable level of education, be inspected, etc

...it becomes difficult to criticize parents for children missing days, but I do think if they opt for the school system they should be obliged to commit to it.

If they have chosen the school system, then the parents are LEGALLY obliged to have their child attend school on every day that the school is open. So I would have no problem criticizing parents who fail to ensure that their child attends school. I had a mother of a student once who, when asked why her child was not attending school, told me "ah sure she's at home in bed and she won't get up to go to school, sure what can I do?" The child was in 2nd year!!! I know what I'd do!!!

Like Spurious, I have long been an advocate of linking child benefit, etc to attendance at school. But what politician has the balls to do it? I've seen students, who are chronic bad attenders have the cheek to come to the school office and ask for their Child Benefit forms to be stamped to say that they are full-time students in the school.

whydoibother?

Delphi91 wrote: »

To do so, you have to be accepted by the DES as a provider of a suitable level of education, be inspected, etc



If they have chosen the school system, then the parents are LEGALLY obliged to have their child attend school on every day that the school is open. So I would have no problem criticizing parents who fail to ensure that their child attends school. I had a mother of a student once who, when asked why her child was not attending school, told me "ah sure she's at home in bed and she won't get up to go to school, sure what can I do?" The child was in 2nd year!!! I know what I'd do!!!

Like Spurious, I have long been an advocate of linking child benefit, etc to attendance at school. But what politician has the balls to do it? I've seen students, who are chronic bad attenders have the cheek to come to the school office and ask for their Child Benefit forms to be stamped to say that they are full-time students in the school.

I never said those who opt for school aren't legally obliged to send their children. I was merely highlighting an inconsistency in the system. In my opinion an untrained parent cannot usually provide a "suitable" (my idea of suitable) level of education. That's why teachers do degrees and have specialist training in education etc. I think allowing this undermines the (imo good) argument that it is important to send your children to school everyday, regardless of whether the law requires it or not.