Procedure when absent from school because of sickness?

[Russethouse]

I'd heard flat Coca Cola was worthwhile if you were stuck in a foreign country and couldn't get anyhing else...Coca Cola have very high standards of water purity so at least you are getting fluid you can be sure about.

(Yes I know there have been a couple of incidence in the past, but in some countries it would be better than the local water)

[YCCMB]

I think visible signs of illness are quite important to the French. If you've got a bobo, then painting it red means fewer people miss it. I remember one of my French colleagues wearing a scarf in the office all day, and when I asked him why, he explained he'd got a cold. Or was it a chill? Either way, apparently it's a visible symbol that he felt I should have recognised. [:D]

Mr Betty was given a lifetime's supply of betadeine to accompany his grazes after a slide along some tarmac removed some skin following a cycling accident. He looked like David Dickinson for days.

[Chancer]

Is the red stuff betadine?

I had to shower in it before my operations.

[NormanH]

Yes it comes in different colour bottles (often red and yellow) for different % strengths.

I think it is basically iodine.

[idun]

No not betadine. There were two sorts of the red stuff when my kids were young.  Mecurochrome was one and eosine was the other, I think. I didn't like either. Although I was told that one was 'better' than the other, but it depended who you listened to.

[idun]

I had to use a betadine wash before an operation, it was in a red bottle. We also had ordinary betadine at home.

[Debra]

So here we are and it's now the turn of my eldest to catch the dreaded bug.  So thinking I'd be all efficient, I fired off an email at 7.45 this morning just after the exodus for the college bus and before getting distracted with walking my youngest to his bus stop.  Then, to be safe, at 8.30 when the lessons start and the office opens, my husband phoned the secretary to let her know and got 'yes - I got your wife's email and I know that he is ill'.  Yet still, at around 10am, the phone call - from the CPE!  The secretary didn't pass the email or phone message on to her so now she's noted it, apparently.  Still - at least whilst busy answering my inquisition as to why she was calling she forgot to interrogate me about the doctor!

Son says it's probably her who normally calls, rather than the secretary, as she is a new CPE this year and her 'thing' is absences.  The old one didn't bother as long as there had been a call from a parent or a message via a sibling.  So perhaps it's the CPE I'm supposed to call.......

[idun]

Yes, it is the CPE. Another layer of admin that has to come out of the education budget and IMO quite unnecessary. What the Head is supposed to do, I have no idea.

[Debra]

I've had meetings with the head when I've made a complaint about bullying (CPE was there too) and to discuss redoubling (principal prof there too) and he usually does a speech at the beginning of any meetings.  Isn't he an administrator and coordinator? 

If it's the CPE I'm supposed to talk to I'll have to find out if she has a direct number because the only time I get her is when I want to speak to a teacher or the head!

[idun]

Yes, CPE, professional school admin, dealing directly with the kids and parents, which IMO is the Head's job. I have no idea what the Head's do. I have yet to see one teach and the main admin is done for them.

 

[Debra]

No I meant that the head is the administrator, coordinator and he's also the final call for the teaching staff and CPE to deal with pupils and parents on any subject.  I thought the CPE was in charge of discipline, which is probably why this one has decided to be a stickler for keeping the attendance records up to date as if the kids don't bring in their late slips or absence slips, they get a disciplinary black mark and it affects their 'vie scolaire' moyen (perhaps everyone is behaving nicely and so she has time to be a stickler for paperwork!).   It's the CPE who gives that mark for the end of trimester bulletin.  Each teacher has their own behaviour mark to add to the test and homework marks to make up the subject moyens but the CPE does the overall behaviour in school and playground and general paperwork (like those excuse slips) and is who the children get sent to by a teacher who can't handle a disciplinary problem, with the head as the last resort.

[NormanH]

The Conseiller Principale d'Education and the surveillants (les pions) are responsible for things outside the classroom such as attendence, behaviour and to extent relations with parents.

Their office is the Vie Scholaire.

After the teacher takes the attendance register it is collected and sent there for example, and a disruptive pupil can be sent there with a note.

I used it a few times when working in collèges in the late 1990s!

The job is rather different from a school counsellor in the UK, because it involves a disciplinary function which would be regarded as rôle conflict in the UK model.

http://www.viescolaire.org/info/?p=12583

http://cpe.spip.ac-rouen.fr/spip.php?article1155

[Debra]

Yes - sick son isn't sure whether the principal or the CPE is in charge of the surveillants (I think it's the latter) but notes that if you get sent for detention at lunchtime then you sit in the CPE's office (which is the vie scolaire room, so he has the impression that it's mainly the CPE's office!) but if you get a detention in advance, outside of school hours (Wednesday afternoon or on an evening) then the surveillants supervise you in either the CDI or the etude room and if the surveillants have a problem with you in the playground, they send you to the CPE just like the teachers do. 

Hmm - hopefully this is all from experience in previous years, but I'll find out at the parents' meeting in a couple of weeks!

[Debra]

[quote user="NormanH"]After the teacher takes the attendance register it is collected and sent there for example[/quote]Explains why the phone call is quite late (must have all the classes registers to work through) - it's not that she starts late then!

[NormanH]

Yes one of the surveillants comes round collecting them. This  can take a while to go round all the classes in a large collège.

[idun]

Yes, les pions, are directly under the CPE.

I know these peoples' functions, I just don't know how so many colleges can lack teaching staff and equipment and yet have the money for surveillants and CPE's. I still have no idea what the Head's do. I would suppose very very little.

[NormanH]

Don't for get that Proviseurs and Principals are not promoted posts as in the UK, based on successful teaching experience.

They are posts awarded on the basis of a competitive written examination, a 'concours'.

YOu can get a flavour of what is required ( a very theoretical analysis) from last year's exam and 'corrigé'

http://cache.media.education.gouv.fr/file/2012/15/7/Rapport-de-jury-2012-Personnels-de-direction_226157.pdf

[Chancer]

Also worth noting that the CPE, which I believe stands for Conseilleur Principal de l'education (correct me if I'm wrong) is not concerned with education in the English sense of the word but the French, that is to say the childs upbringing.

For the students at my lycée who stay at the internat during the week she has a particular responsibility, for the others she gets involved when problems of comportment may be related to the home environment which in some cases is pretty apalling.

[NormanH]

You get a good idea of the scope of the job from the link I gave above

http://cpe.spip.ac-rouen.fr/spip.php?article1155

[Greenfrog]

I am pleased you said this about the Doctors, Debra. My girls are always saying their friends have this and that medication to take if they have been ill as they go to the Doctors. Like you I only resort to that if it is something serious and not for every virus they pick up at College and recover from in a day or two. And I do sometimes wonder if College think I make up their ailments as I never give a medical certificate.

I phone the vie scolaire about 10 mins before they start College and say they are ill and they always say "c'est note". But if they are off for two days I don't call on the second day as I feel they will assume they are still ill if they don't appear. And then sign the note in their carnet on their return.

It is good to know that we don't have to take them to the Doctor - it is just sometimes they make you feel like a neglectful parent. A difference in French/English parenting I guess.

[Debra]

[quote user="Greenfrog"]It is good to know that we don't have to take them to the Doctor - it is just sometimes they make you feel like a neglectful parent. A difference in French/English parenting I guess.[/quote]I think it may be a difference with the doctors too.  I was a bit miffed that I had to take my son for allergy testing to prove that he was allergic to certain things so that he wouldn't be forced to eat stuff he was allergic to at school and also so he could carry antihistamines and take them if he had a problem.  I explained that the attitude in the UK had been that a mother's close observations were more valuable than putting a child through testing (which involves deliberately giving them a reaction) - and the school doctor was horrified!  "But you're not a doctor, madame!"  I was even more miffed when I found out he had to have these tests yearly to confirm that he was still allergic to the same things!

[5-element]

[quote user="NormanH"]
YOu can get a flavour of what is required ( a very theoretical analysis) from last year's exam and 'corrigé'

http://cache.media.education.gouv.fr/file/2012/15/7/Rapport-de-jury-2012-Personnels-de-direction_226157.pdf
[/quote]

I thought I'd have a look Norman, but must confess that by page 7, I was losing the will to live... if you don't get a response to that link, that might be the reason... it is all so dense, so wordy, so intricate. You would have to be on the inside for reading it through, no?

[NormanH]

I gave up too...

Isn't that part of the problem of the system?

[Daft Doctor]

Yes Debra, my son has a peanut and brazil nut allergy.  When we first arrived and went to the Pole Vie Locale to register him for junior school and for the school cantine, I told the assistant about the allergies.  Initially she said he'd have to see the school Dr but I had the letters from his consultant in England which she could understand.  When he started school we were again told he'd need to see the school Dr, despite providing the evidence and treatment plan from the UK.  In short, that consultation never happened and about 6 weeks later I got a projet d'accuiel individualisé direct from the school Dr, with the treatment plan copied from the UK document.  He changed to college in September, and before he started friends told us that, like your son, he'd have to see an allergiste annually for tests and that we'd need a new PAI every year.  In the UK we were told quite correctly that these allergies rarely go away and they only retest once, usually at 12 years of age.  This is partly to see if your child is one of the rare few who loses the allergies, but mainly to reinforce the need for care as the child is going into adolescence, so they don't become complacent.  Seeing an allergiste annually is quite frankly a waste of time and money, except of course if you're the allergiste! 

Anyway, before term started I went to the college and saw the head teacher, who speaks fluent English and was very helpful.  I showed her the PAI I'd received 3 months earlier and she just said it was fine and she passed that onto the cantine.  No need to see anybody for this school year at least.  OK, they know I'm a Dr and that might have made a difference, but I think it was more that the head was helpfully pragmatic.   I will strongly resist taking him to the allergiste next year either.  Aside from being completely uneccessary, apparently in France they take loads of blood tests and have never heard of EMLA (the local anaesthetic cream we use a lot in the UK before taking blood from kids - much kinder).  As with you Debra, I know what he's allergic to, and don't need it to be ritualistically confirmed.  I haven't pulled the 'je suis médecin' card yet, but I certainly wouldn't be scared to if it meant my son avoids uneccessary medical intervention.

[idun]

A very wise friend, told us years ago when we were having many problems with our youngest son, that his Dad had to be there at every meeting as they would not take a woman seriously. I had been hitting my head against a brick wall for months and had seen teachers and the head several times.

So Debra, being female probably puts you at a disadvantage immediately. And Daft Doctor, being male means that you will probably be taken more seriously to start with and if they know you are a Dr, then you are indeed a man to be taken very seriously.

Appointment made and off the pair of us went. The Head didn't really look at me, addressed everything to my husband, and my husband said not a word, I said everything. My husband is quite deaf, meant that he didn't catch much anyway. Papa got a big handshake at the end of the meeting after everything had been sorted, and I didn't.