There’s a medical crisis in schools at the minute – one that appears to be a major form of child absenteeism and, on face value, it could be the most widespread virus in the country.

Every day, teachers from Belleek to Newtownbutler, and beyond, are faced with dealing with this epidemic: ‘upset tummy syndrome’, to be precise.

The notes from home say it all. “Johnny was absent yesterday because he had a sick stomach”, or “I kept Anna home yesterday as she had pains”.

Yes, the ephemeral catch-all ailment that covers a multitude of diseases.

Whilst I’m being churlish, of course, the bland note from home says it all; get a line into the school, keep the paperwork simple, and why do the school want to know what’s the matter with you anyhow?

Of course, it’s not that simple, so let’s start at the beginning.

First and foremost, schools want children to be in school. Period. They want them right there at their desks, on time and with their pens and books out ready to work.

It’s logical and simple – a punctual, full class allows an uninterrupted flow of learning.

There are no people drifting in late with “What are we doing, Miss?” questions and the teacher can explain once, to everybody, what they’ll be doing and then get on with educating.

Essentially, it’s a right pain for teachers to play catch-up and it’s not that pleasant for the kid’s friends, especially in today’s world of collaborative learning, teamwork and project work where a missing child means an idle companion.

So what of the attendances and what is the legal position? It’s all laid out clearly by The Department of Education.

Firstly, parents and carers “have a legal duty to ensure that their children of compulsory school age receive a suitable full-time education.

“It is also vital that they encourage their child’s regular and punctual attendance at school. If a child is registered at a school, then it is vital that they attend on a regular basis.”

There’s a lot in that simple statement. The words ‘legal duty’, ‘ensure’ and ‘vital’ don’t allow much room for leeway, though admittedly the term ‘encourage’ does allow a little bit of flexibility for school refusers, and those who have entered a ‘horse to the water but can’t make it drink’ stage of their lives.

If that’s not clear enough, then under Part III of Schedule 13 of the Education and Libraries (Northern Ireland) Order 1986, raps on the knuckle can be anything up to a £1,000 fine or a not so pleasant ESO, an ‘Education Supervision Order’ – something a parent or carer wants to avoid at all costs.

These do happen locally, and aren’t just empty words. Let’s break it down then. In each school year there are 190 school days (for children).

A 95 per cent attendance rate is deemed ‘satisfactory’ by the Department of Education Northern Ireland, and although it seems close to perfect, that figure still amounts to one week and four days of missed learning.

Continuing downwards, a 90 per cent rate equates to 19 days of absence in the school year, or one day a fortnight, and so the list continues.

The important thing is that once attendance drops to below 85 per cent, by law, schools must make referrals to the Department of Education’s Welfare Service.

This means absconders’ parents having a little chat with the Education Welfare Officers, who in turn, can trigger all kinds of intrusions into their lives, and bring them to the attention of various relevant agencies. Again, best avoided.

There are other reasons why good attendance is vital; the most obvious being, it really does help young people to get employment.

There’s a criticism that the youth of today are a bit fickle and lack resilience, and while that debate is for another day, the fact remains that missing one day a fortnight, for example, will certainly not cut any mustard with prospective employers.

They will not give two hoots whether you were an angst-ridden teenager – to someone who will pay your wages, they will take the view that have to overcome these hurdles in life, so absences on your CV don't help.

The social side of being at school is another factor why schools like children being present, rather than at home in front of their PlayStation.

One of the things you learn quite early in your teaching career is how much children learn from each other, both academically and socially.

‘Scaffolding’, as it’s aptly called, is a key tool in children’s development and it’s touching to watch children of all ages re explain to their friends sitting beside them what you’ve just said, but in their language.

That’s not the whole story though – it’s how they learn from interacting with each other that also teaches them how to behave.

Being in company, and especially the company of others your own age, helps condition you for life.

If you’re absent from school, you miss out on the day-to-day minutiae of essential emotional development and growing up.

Sitting with a group of friends and smiling inanely because you haven’t a clue what they’re talking about as you weren’t there is not a nice feeling, and aggregated over a year has the potential to change the character of how that child may mature.

Finally, another angle. The minute you hear a head teacher say “It [poor attendance] doesn’t look good”, read that as “It doesn’t look good on my CV”.

Schools are at pains to improve attendance and while there are many, many laudable reasons for this, it also allows head teachers to add, “I improved attendance which was historically poor” to their own CV.

As I’ve often said, principals are paid according to the number of children in the school, so always bear that in mind when assessing schools’ motivations.

That’s fair enough, but all too often in some schools, it’s the ordinary teachers who end up taking a disproportionate amount of parental flack when the excrement hits the air extraction system.

A caveat: it goes without saying that there are children who miss a lot of school through no fault of their own, or their parents.

In these cases, it’s important to say schools really do support such children and families.

However, on a sager note, let’s hope Anna’s pains subsided, and that Johnny got over his sick stomach; after all, it’s an epidemic.