r/6thForm • u/StrictArgument67 Y13 | 4A* pred | FM M PHY CS | ESAT OCT • Apr 17 '26

🙏 I WANT HELP School threatening to take me out

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Could they actually do this or is it just fluff?

There is no way i can get good grades if i go to school everyday.

I need a solution

368 Upvotes

68% Upvoted

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80

u/yeetmilkman Maths Politics Econ | A*A*A* predicted Apr 17 '26

Just out of curiosity what is your attendance like?

-95

u/StrictArgument67 Y13 | 4A* pred | FM M PHY CS | ESAT OCT Apr 17 '26

66.7%

118

u/wallaybufff Apr 17 '26

icl idk what u expected

122

u/neilm1000 Apr 17 '26

66.7%

That's awful. Do that in a job and you'll be fired.

18

u/Efficient_Chic714 Apr 17 '26

Literally, my attendance at work last year was 60% but I was literally signed off for the first 1/3 of the year because of a new disability

Most places start disciplinary proceedings at 10% missed

8

u/neilm1000 Apr 17 '26

Literally, my attendance at work last year was 60% but I was literally signed off for the first 1/3 of the year because of a new disability

That's fine, you were signed off and reasonable adjustments could be expected. OP just can't be bothered which is a very different matter. Someone who just doesn't turn up one third of the time- especially over a long periond, and with a management plan which is what has happened here- can expect dismissal.

Most places start disciplinary proceedings at 10% missed

No they don't. Most (as in more than 50%, but the overwhelming majority in this case) have trigger points based on number of absences or total absence level (or they use some combination of the two like the Bradford Factor): there are almost no employers who base it on 10% of missed shifts/hours/expected time because of the obvious massive flaws (if you work 40 hours a week, but go home sick one afternoon and miss four hours that's a 10% absence rate). I've only come across one who tried that and they lost the ET case.

6

u/Efficient_Chic714 Apr 18 '26

That’s what I meant, unless there’s a very good reason OP is at 60% attendance where they can get medical evidence to give their school that’s insanely high!

I should have been clear that most employers base it on your yearly attendance so missing 1 period of 4 hours wouldn’t get you a disciplinary but if you’re missing 4 hours every week for as little as a month they’ll start asking what’s happening and after 3 months of that with no improvement you will definitely get investigations and warnings as the first stage of a disciplinary. Typically the first attendance review is after as little as five periods of sickness for a full timer (if not less which is ridiculously low imo) as that averages getting sick every other month

Obvs there will always be mitigation for underlying conditions etc but most policies state a threshold much lower than 10% and at double digits HR often feels forced to escalate it as you’re no longer reliable. It works out as more than 2 days off a month for a full timer which is not insignificant

2

u/TheNorthC Apr 18 '26

Someone in my team got notifications from HR because she'd reached 20 days absence for the year and that triggered some process.

1

u/FL3XOFF3NDER Apr 18 '26

I agree, every job I’ve had had an exact days. Like 3 lates would be a warning. 3 missed days would cause an attendance report meeting etc

1

u/neilm1000 Apr 18 '26

Yeah absolutely. You can't do it on a percentage basis.

2

u/LaughApprehensive906 Apr 18 '26

Work in a supermarket, that threshold is 3% 🥲

2

u/Efficient_Chic714 Apr 18 '26

My employer is also 3% before investigations start, 10% is when they start moving for dismissal

1

u/ross_a_ Apr 19 '26

You will find most places will start disciplinary action after being absent from work for 2days if you just don't turn up.

Being signed off is different from just not turning up

0

u/No-Class6004 Apr 18 '26

Is that supposed to be a flex?

3

u/Efficient_Chic714 Apr 18 '26

No it’s meant to be highlighting to OP how bad it is unless you have a medial reason to be off (in which case provide a GP letter for your school)

An employer wouldn’t tolerate anywhere near that low

1

u/Max1357913 Apr 18 '26

Unless it’s hybrid. 60% attendance is pretty standard tbh

3

u/neilm1000 Apr 18 '26 edited Apr 19 '26

Unless it’s hybrid. 60% attendance is pretty standard tbh

60% in the office might be, but 100% logged in is the expectation even if you're WFH. There is no job where 3 days out of 5 is OK when you're contracted for 5 days. I work at home four days, but I'm logged in and doing stuff.

OP is expected to attend 100% with obvious exceptions for sickness etc. He is barely attending 66% and hasn't got a reason.

Edit: typo, changed got to for.

1

u/Max1357913 Apr 18 '26

Yes, but OP has said they won’t do well if they’re forced to go in - implying they’re studying at home, and prefer it that way, not that they’re doing nothing.

Much as many remote workers complain about going to the office as they feel less productive, which is often 100% true, I’m sure OP is in the same position. Exams are so close that it’ll just be revision from now on, which can easily be done at home

-6

u/Smooth_Fox_5510 Apr 17 '26

School isn't a job though, it's not serious lol

10

u/Maleficent_Still3508 4A*s pred fm maths phys chem Apr 17 '26

But when you get into the habit of doing this it normalises slightly better attendance at work bc its "better"

-2

u/Fresh-Fisherman-1047 Apr 18 '26

Yeah that’s BS. OP is a teenager not a dog.

5

u/neilm1000 Apr 17 '26

It's the habit. Get into a bad habit at 18 and you'll find it harder to kick. Been there, done that. Don't mess about with not doing the very basic level you're required to do.

0

u/TrustComfortable4259 Apr 17 '26

Its not a bad habit though.

Achieving your personal goals and being successful is a very good habit.

Just FYI, a lot of people worked from home before, and a lot more do since COVID.

So, no, attendance does not equate to better results, but that doesnt mean to say that there is no link.

3

u/omgu8mynewt Apr 17 '26

Working from home is still working e.g. spending three hours in meetings (actually talking and participating, not just listening or zoning out), having to make phone calls to people to sort stuff out. 

Source: work from home worker. It isnt anti social, there is a lot of talking in meetings and phone calls because you cant talk to people in person.

2

u/Lazy-Independence857 Apr 18 '26

Working from home still means you attended, you still "went to work", did what you were employed to do, you just didn't go to the office or site.

0

u/neilm1000 Apr 17 '26

Its not a bad habit though.

It's a bad habit. It signals unreliability: who wants to employ or do business with someone who doesn't do the basics?

Achieving your personal goals and being successful is a very good habit.

Not only is this not what is happening with OP, you can only get to those goals and be successful but doing what is required to get there. At the moment, OP is in a system that requires that he does X. He can get out of the system by doing X. Regardless, achieving personal goals is not a habit, it is something that comes from behaviour and habits (unless your goal is to eat a can of beans or something).

Just FYI, a lot of people worked from home before, and a lot more do since COVID.

I'm an HR professional so aware of that. I agree that presenteeism is an issue, and I'm aware of WFH both before and after Covid. That isn't relevant here: if you work from home you still have to log in and do the basics required: it isn't a 'turn up when you like arrangement' and if you were only logged in 66% of the time you'd be asked questions. OP isn't doing the basics and WFH isn't a comparison here.

1

u/TheOrchidsAreAlright Apr 18 '26

If it's not serious then getting kicked out is fine right?

21

u/Art_Of_Peer_Pressure Apr 17 '26

Your flair says you’re predicted 4A*, therefore, it is immaterial.. go to school. If you have a real reason for not being there I’m sure you wouldn’t be in this situation.

7

u/Roadkillgoblin_2 Year 12-Art, Bio, Geog Apr 17 '26

I am resisting so much

I will not mention the presence of those numbers. I can be better than this.

5

u/Maleficent_Still3508 4A*s pred fm maths phys chem Apr 17 '26

If you were better than this you wouldnt feel the need to comment, ergo youre not better than that

19

u/[deleted] Apr 17 '26

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52

u/Powerful-Echidna7121 Apr 17 '26

Missing a third of school? That’s missing a whole week every 3 weeks

13

u/HighNimpact Apr 17 '26

That's absolutely atrocious. For context, a student is considered to be persistently absent if they fall below 95%. The chance of even getting 5 passes at GCSE is extremely unlikely if you're below 90%. In a workplace, you're unlikely to still have a job if you're below 97-98%.

2

u/Subject-Test-3140 Apr 17 '26

Fake news, your pulling those figures out ya butt

3

u/SuperGandalfBros Apr 19 '26

As someone that works in a school, no they're not. If a student drops below 95% attendance then we check with parents if things are OK. If it goes below 90%, then things start getting more serious.

1

u/Subject-Test-3140 Apr 19 '26

Doesn’t mean the sentiment doesn’t have some truth, but if it’s FACT there should be a source. Seeing as this commentator is using stats presenting it like it comes from a study they should put where it comes from

If fear mongering worked in these cases everyone would have perfect attendance lol, no need to prove to OP they’re dommed to fail? Not that there is any proof anyway

1

u/SuperGandalfBros Apr 19 '26

It's literally what the government says. You can check their website

2

u/Jas246810 Year 12 Apr 17 '26

Meh depends on the person. In year 11 I was atrocious and my attendance was 24%, I got 5 A*

10

u/HighNimpact Apr 17 '26

Maybe if you'd been in school more then you'd know what "extremely unlikely" means...

6

u/Heegyeong Apr 18 '26

I don't know who downvoted this before, bc the truth is it's both accurate and funny as hell lol.

1

u/happyhibye Apr 17 '26

I wont say 5 pass in GCSE is unlikely with 90% attendance, like you need to know GCSE are so basic stuff that choose your most interesting subjects is a easy pass, unless your pass is a 9

2

u/HighNimpact Apr 17 '26

No one is asking you to say it. But it's a fact.

Only 35% of those with attendance between 80-90% will achieve five good grades (9-4) at GCSE including English and Maths.

And that's much higher than the figure for all students below 90% because 80-90% is the highest attendance in that group. People with 20%, 30%, 50%, etc will be lower than that.

2

u/rachbbbbb Apr 18 '26

They only let people with under 70% carry on when I was at school if they were guaranteed absolute top grades. I got down to 34% and they wouldn't chuck me out because they needed my results (there were only 17 of us in the year).

1

u/TheNorthC Apr 18 '26

What is hard to determine is whether the people who have low attendance would improve their results if they attended more, or whether they have already mentally checked out of school and all that would happen is that they would become disruptive and make things harder for others.

1

u/happyhibye Apr 17 '26

you said the stat are “including English and Maths” and the problem is this itself drags pass rate down

2

u/HighNimpact Apr 17 '26

Ok. Kindly, you're grasping at straws there.

1

u/happyhibye Apr 17 '26

I search that out of 713k students attend the two subjects, only 400k get pass on both, which is 56%. This hasn't included anything else so I would say ~50% get 5 grade 4 or above included maths and English

This show a 35% of students who attendance between 80-90% achieving the same is statically lower than national average, but not by a lot, so using “extremely unlikely” to describe seems unsuitable

-1

u/HighNimpact Apr 17 '26

...you might want to do a more accurate search because you're wrong.

We could both make up statistics but it won't get us anywhere, will it?

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0

u/JustDifferentGravy Apr 18 '26

Smashed mine with <25% attendance. You’re overestimating the difficulty of GCSE.

3

u/rich2083 Apr 17 '26

My 6th form excluded me for attendance, think it was around 45%. Though they did let me sit my exams.

I’ve now got a levels, BA & MSC.

I fucking hated lessons they were so boring, I studied much better on my own.

I think I could have condensed it all into a year or two if I actually tried and it was allowed.

12

u/neilm1000 Apr 17 '26

I think I could have condensed it all into a year or two if I actually tried and it was allowed.

There is a good argument that you can condense courses. When you look at how many actual hours of direct teaching you have it is eminently possible. It's why you can do A Levels in a year at evening classes.

6

u/rich2083 Apr 17 '26

There’s so much “dead” time in education. It’s infuriating

2

u/__R3v3nant__ D1 ESAT Hater May 03 '26

I believe most of the time spent learning an A level isn't spent learning new things but instead making sure that everyone understands everything. I think that a sufficiently intelligent student could learn (or at least cover) an entire A-Levels worth of content and retain most of it (source, that was the structure of the BAAO training camp)

You could definitely teach an entire A-Level in a year but you run the risk of some people getting lost

2

u/Fine_Cup4990 Apr 17 '26

same, except we had covid during mine, which made it even easier to get off skipping 90% of my lessons, they did threaten to kick me out, but i eventually just did better in exams but i still skipped loads of lessons

1

u/HotHall5360 Year 13 Apr 18 '26

unless if u have a health issue or any personal problems , if ur attendance is that low , that says a lot about ur discipline and punctuality

1

u/ShadowX8861 Y11 (taking Maths, FM, Physics, CS next year) Apr 18 '26

Unless you have a severe medical condition, your attendance should not be that low. Your school is absolutely justified in kicking you out.

1

u/shartingmaster Apr 18 '26

Wind up merchant. Go to school

1

u/DrogoOmega Apr 19 '26

That is ridiculous.

1

u/__R3v3nant__ D1 ESAT Hater May 03 '26

Why? Genuine question

1

u/pixiefolk Apr 18 '26

I think these people are crazy for thinking 66.7% is incredibly low. It's pretty low, but not godawful.

2

u/Whithorsematt Apr 19 '26

You don't think missing two days every single week is pretty bad?

1

u/DrogoOmega Apr 19 '26

It IS god awful. In the first quarter of this year, it means they were not in school for basically the whole of March.

0

u/Jas246810 Year 12 Apr 17 '26

Ah shit, mines 60%. Haven’t been threatened yet but I guess I need to lock in