intermitent attendees

we have a couple of children that dont attend on a regular basis at all.
they are scheduled for 3 and 5 days a week and we are lucky if we see them once. there is always an excuse, they are ill, have a cold, it is raining too much....etc.

have spoken to both mums about how important it is to attend reguarly, for the child and for them!
one of them often stays and sits in the corner when the child does eventually attend, but refuses to help, even if we ask her to do something specific. but she is also happy to drink our coffee!! and always saiys i used to work in a playgroup!
have chatted to both of them about more that the non attneding, how well child is doing etc. and both are approchable.
i think that they cannot be bothered to get child up to us, and one especially only attend when mum has the car! as she is up and about taking older 2 to school.
anyone got any children/parents like this

How do you charge them? Do parents pay in advance? If I was paying in advance for a service, I'd be more likely to use it.

We charge parents in advance at the beginning of every half term, with 14 days payment terms.

yes, they are both on eye grant and pay for extra half an hour. still not turning up very often and they need it more that some, if you get my drift.
we do the same with charging, each half term, 2 weeks to pay, then get a red letter if still not paid

[suewhit]

in our authority if they attend less than 75% for the eye grant we are in danger of loosing their funding . we have to prove that we speak to the parents by logging dates and times of conversations and reasons why they are not attending. we also sent out a letter explaining this and that they could loose their childs place. this does seem to have worked.
sue

might be an idea, didnt think of the implications on the grant. will check the right line from hcc anyway a letter explaining this to the paretns may help
sarah

thats a good one

we had something like that in the nursery - if the kid say dont want to then she didnt have to - dont think parents even tried. she also walked around like a princess when she wanst thier. and most anoying thing was she was 5 and so should have been in p1 but she was getting an extra nursery year because she wasnt as much at same level as others - even though staff argued she was fine, the parents pushed for it. but its then government paying for that place. it really was a case of parents just wanting an easy year of totting her along to nursery whenever she felt like it and them not having to bother to show everyday. gggrrrrrr. if the child attended her original pre school year properly in the first place she would have been fine. only reason she didnt know her numbers is cos no one at home bothered and never brought her. shes perfectly inteligent - in fact a little madam lol

frustrating eh?

it is, especially when you can see how improtant it nis for the child and it seems to be the paretn not bothering