A PARENT has slammed a school’s new policy on insisting on medical evidence when a child takes any time off through illness.

Asking to remain anonymous he said that the rule brought in by Sutton Academy from Monday, January 12, is impractical and would put GPs under further pressure.

In a letter sent out to parents it states that due to the “current level of absence through illness and medical reasons" they are asking parents, when possible, to provide medical evidence.

It warns: “It should be noted that failure to provide supporting evidence may result in your child’s absence being recorded as unauthorised.

In accordance with the Local Authority procedure, periods of prolonged and unauthorised absence may result in the issue of a fixed penalty notice of £60 to £120 for each parent of each child affected.”

However the parent said it was unreasonable: “I would understand more if your kid was off a lot but to send a blanket letter across the school when some children have 100 per cent attendance is not fair. 

“The policy before was if your child was off sick the mum would write a note. You self medicate children most of the time.

“Now they are saying you have to take them to a GP even if they are off for one day. I work in the NHS and GPs are under enough stress as it is.

“Sometimes kids may be sick but not sick enough to take them to the doctors.  If there are 1,000 pupils and five to six in each year going to the GP that could be up to 25 doctors’ appointments they expect to be made on one day. It’s crazy.”

A spokesman from Sutton Academy responded: “As an academy we work very hard to ensure that our students attend regularly.

"In cases where a student has very low attendance we do request medical evidence in order to authorise the absence. This occurs only occasionally as the vast majority of our students have attendance over 95 per cent.”