This doesn’t even stand up on its face. NOBODY who has anything to do at home paid or unpaid is going “meh just easier to keep the kids here falling behind on their educations & racking up truancy days while making it impossible for me to work”. Correlation isn’t validation of your agenda.
Let me solve it for you. Parent's that would have been pressured to ignore symptoms and send their kids in now have that flexibility. Stop shitting on home working to make the rich richer.
“I think developing good social habits of getting up in the morning, putting your shoes on instead of your slippers, going out to work, going to school, expecting to complete a full day’s school, a full day’s work, clearly that’s habit-forming,”
Confusion of correllation and causation. And everything other commentators have said.
Back in the day when all households could thrive on a single income I bet there wasn't a call to force both parents to go to an office every day because it helps the kids be better attendees in class.
I don't believe any parent finds it easier to have their child at home while they WFH. A primary reason absences are so high is because schools aren't able to deal with rising neurodivergence & mental health issues. They're forced to prioritise outdated Ofsted targets instead
Maybe if schools would meet their obligation to support SEN kids less parents would be forced to WFH in an effort to deal with school trauma, homeschool and pay the bills?
TES - Nine out of the 10 areas with the highest rates of unauthorised absence are in the North.
ONS- Regions with highest working from home rates are London and the SE.
Go figure?
I don't believe this . When I was a child many had a parent at home full time . While it's undeniable that attitudes to attendance are changing it's not because parents are at home .
Yes, we’d prefer the old way where people would have to send their children to school sick just because they couldn’t afford to miss a day at the office.
This is another instance of how media is employed2manipulate the public in2 the neoliberal ‘work until you’re dead’ leaving no time 4 your family or life narrative.The reason we have social issues is because people r constantly @work,yet they’re unable2 provide4 their children or care4 them
COVID lock-down was a nightmare. Wife worked (key worker) and I worked from home. Couldn't wait for school to re-open so I could work without trying to also deal with and occupy the offspring.
Stats show illness is very much the main driver of absence. Unsurprisingly.
I’ve noticed a lot of absence where one parent doesn’t work / is on maternity leave / has a grandparent living with them / does shift work …
How ridiculous are we going to go with the assumptions?
Completely fed up with this campaign against working from home. Due to the cuts in care packages, as an #unpaidcarer, if I couldn't work from home for part of my working week, I would have to give up my job. That's the reality. Try working and caring for a while, then come and talk to me.
I get why The Sunday Times would happily publish stuff designed to help out office property owners struggling to pay the bills (cue tiny 🎻) but why is the Guardian just regurgitating it without pointing out the complete lack of any credible evidence & how correlation doesn't imply causation either.
So the figures are up, but nothing to say they are linked to parents WFH? Really silly article, anything else taken into account? The damage done by Covid as a disease? Nope, just someone saying something and a journalist printing it, super lazy
Is this evidenced? Certainly at the start of COVID, parents hated trying to balance working and managing schoolwork supervision. Can't imagine that has changed significantly
Here's a thought...perhaps since the parents are already home, they don't need to send sick kids into school loaded up on Tylenol and hope they make it to dismissal.
Used to be that a kid taking a sick day meant a parent had to take a sick day...so the kid just went to school sick.
Sorry but I read the first sentence and couldn’t or wouldn’t continue. Children telling parents what happen. Not a chance. COViD had difference impacts on children than adults. Try again
Zero evidence for your bullshit claims. I reckon home working increases attendance by relieving pressure on parents to send sick and infectious kids into school, give me an article you fucking hacks
The Trust that he used to run suspends more pupils than most other trusts. It seems that it is the rise in academies that has led to school attendance numbers fall.
This article is bogus. I WFH have for 12+ years. Yeah my 8yo kid doesn’t want to be anywhere near home while I’m working. Not interested in logistics and doesn’t care for my focus on it. I too am further motivated to get him on that bus BECAUSE I have to WFH. The guardian is way out of touch here.
I have similar observations, but the data makes me wonder if I’m in a minority. Younger kids are a burden to be at home, but as they become teenagers this may change.
Also I imagine this will be the basis for cuts in education. Why maintain 2 schools for 4 days a week when you can combine them and have half the students study from home for 2 days.
This is the second article I have seen on this today. The other from “times of Sunday” I think there is a big push among the billionaires class to end wfh because they want control everyone else. I hear it. I see them.
The problem for billionaires is that they have to live in the same reality as everyone else. Unless they want 90% taxes, they have to give up on the RTO mandates. Fooling people by blaming immigrants is only going to work so much as Herbert Hoover can attest :)
So no actual data to back up the assertion in the headline, just the chief inspector of Ofsted saying he imagines pupils will feel less inclined to go to school if their parents are working from home.
Aha, is that a fact...? It doesn't seem to match up with my lived experience though? When I skipped school as a kid the last place I'd be is where my parents were, I'd get my arse kicked, and did... so where are kids going? The park? Highstreet? The homes of the parents who can't work from home...?
I get the feeling I will regret reading this. Is there any evidence to back this up or is it just another load of BS to try and pressure people back to the office? All because lots of rich people have been left holding useless office space.
@theguardian.com this is ungraceful, untrue, finger pointing at a weak link of society and very turbocapitalistic in style. Make me wonder if I should ever support this kind of journalism
The only way this is partially true Is because parents might be less likely to send their SICK kids to school due to not having enough leave from work.
Oh for a laughing emoji! Journalist making it up as they go along ...again. Try actually asking those involved, not finding one person who you can misquote to fit an editorial narrative. Tiresome.
One guy says so? Any data to back this up? I work from home and have never let kids stay home unless actually sick. Maybe kids are missing more school because they are sick? Why is that never an option in these articles
People at my work take more sick days now-- it's become the norm not to come in and infect everyone else. I'd imagine the same holds for kids. Parents are less likely to send a sick child to school than before.
I’ve seen estimates that 50% of US had Covid during last wave and it’s likely higher for kids with poor infection control, in person activities and low vax rates. We have added a whole new illness every year and every article talks about kids missing a couple more days a year ….
Some say after covid as though it’s not still an extra virus in high circulation. In England there was an average of a 1,000 new cases of long covid in kids a week (23/24 ONS). The response was to axe the survey.
Same at my work, which is good. work from home also allows people to be cautious and stay home before they are deadly ill, can still write emails with sore throat but don’t have to spread it around.
The Ofsted chief is justifying his unhappiness that his staff work from home by linking it to children's poor school attendance, but without offering any evidence? Have I got that right?
Same. WFH allows me to see them before school and pick them up too. Another "people must be forced into the drudgery of a horrible commute for no reason, stop having a better quality of life!" Headline.
One reason this could be is that when my kid is sick I no longer have to decide if I can get away with sending her to school anyway and risk getting called to pick her up or if I can let her recover in her bed.
I’ve WFH pre-Pandemic and the only time kids miss school is if they really sick (rarely), have a Dr’s/Dentist appointment (they leave school early), or if we have to go somewhere and take a day.
Comments
I cannot express the importance of this enough.
All the best.
Back in the day when all households could thrive on a single income I bet there wasn't a call to force both parents to go to an office every day because it helps the kids be better attendees in class.
ONS- Regions with highest working from home rates are London and the SE.
Go figure?
Guess this is the voice of some disgruntled teachers who cannot WFH.
SHIT
I’ve noticed a lot of absence where one parent doesn’t work / is on maternity leave / has a grandparent living with them / does shift work …
How ridiculous are we going to go with the assumptions?
Used to be that a kid taking a sick day meant a parent had to take a sick day...so the kid just went to school sick.
Flimsy stuff
This crap is why I won’t subscribe.
It’s how the media in the US works, whoever has the most money (CEOs and billionaires) get to control the news.
I added a bit, but you said it perfectly!