A MUM-OF-10 has been left raging after realising the extra, time-consuming step she has to take if her kids are sick.
Vanessa explained that all her children have “coughs and colds”, with illnesses doing the rounds and leaving people feeling “icky”.
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But due to the new government rules, any child who is kept home from school will have to hand in a GP letter authorising the absence in order to avoid getting fined.
“How are we supposed to get a GP appointment for a cold and a cough that doesn’t require a GP appointment?” she said.
“I mean if you make a GP appointment now for something that’s non-urgent, you’re looking at about six weeks.
“So by the time you get a letter, you get your GP appointment for your letter, your child’s not ill anymore.
“I’m just really baffled by it all. to be honest!”
So, in order to avoid getting a fine, parents are feeling forced to send their kids into school when they’re “under the weather”.
“And then if the school decides that they shouldn’t be in school, they can send them home,” Vanessa continued.
“And then the GP note won’t be required.
“Now that just doesn’t make sense to me. So as parents, we can’t make the decision without jumping through a million hoops.”
While she ended up sending the kids into school, Vanessa added she’d be fuming if she got a phone call to come and pick them up because they were sick.
“Why do they get to make the decision but not us as parents or guardians?” she questioned.
“It just feels very, very backwards.
“I’m really worried about it and it’s actually really frustrating that us as parents, as guardians, as people that send our children into a school setting, we’re all just going along with it and I’m a little bit baffled by it.”
Vanessa also said she feels the same as parents being fined for taking their kids out of school to go on holiday.
“Holidays are so enriching to a child’s life,” she insisted.
“They really, really are.
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“They provide more education than you can learn in a classroom.
“Whether you’re going to sit in Spain on a sunbed or whether you’re going to your local campsite, I feel like they’re learning experiences, they’re learning skills, they’re learning about different areas.
“You know, social skills, meeting new people, trying different foods, different cultures.”
Concluding, Vanessa admitted she’s “really, really baffled by the world” at the moment, and called it a “really sad place”.
“And that’s not even mentioning that our GP is already struggling, and now the school want to send us for minor illnesses to get a letter!”
Individual schools set their own policies regarding authorised or unauthorised absences from school, based on government guidelines.
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