Racism and children's files

[MostlyAnonymous]

Hi,

there was an incident at school (lower KS2) that SLT deemed to be racist. I am not sure it was. There was talk about skin colour, but that alone does not indicate racism. I am not saying it wasn't; I do not have enough information on what exactly happened to be able to judge.

With or without the racism aspect, the incident was fairly serious, and the 'victim' of the incident has been at the centre of our thoughts and considerations since. Especially as we felt the school did not adequately deal with the situation, apart from following procedures in reporting and recording, as explained below.

The incident was reported to county for statistical purposes. We were assured that no names would be attached. It was merely for statistical records.

Our child was somewhat involved, but eventually we were told they had done nothing wrong. Therefore (as our child had been 'acquitted' so to say) we did not receive any further information as to what exactly happened. Except that our child was 'ok'.

A friend's child / our child's friend was more centrally involved, but was also the 'whistle blower' - they had no longer felt comfortable with the 'game' they were playing and had reported themselves to a member of staff. They were initially lauded for this, and it was implied that due to their honesty, they were 'ok' (not in trouble).
The parents have recently (many weeks after the incident) received the information that the incident has been recorded on their child's file as a racist incident. They had to write a written request to learn if the incident was recorded on the child's file or not. SLT had refused to tell them otherwise.
They now are planning to write a written request to see the content of their child's file, as SLT has refused to tell them what exactly has been recorded.

This leaves me wondering if something may be recorded on our child's file as well. Can schools record serious things like this on a child's file without informing the parents? Should we write to find out, just in case they did and neglected to tell us?
And if something has been recorded, can this be contested? Or is the school's judgement absolute?

Also, I have reason to believe that it is possible that a third child, who was the instigator of the incident, may have escaped without any mention on record. That basically, the second child has been scapegoated.

I doubt it very much, but if your own child has a record of a racist incident on their file, is there any way you can find out if the other children involved in that same incident have been treated equally, and also have the incident on their file?

Thank you.

[user1955]

Short answer - no. What is recorded in other pupils' files is confidential, so you have no rights in knowing what is or isn't in their file.

[RoseJas]

Hi I can assist you with this as have been through it all right up to Governors and beyond and am continuing my case to resolve my little girls school records - just would prefer to PM you as obviously racism is an emotive subject. Cheers

[Clairetree1]

why are you bothered? Those records will never been seen again anyway

[Cliona1972]

Why would you think you can access other peoples' info?Consider it the other way round, would you like other parents demanding to see your child's records?

[Frances9]

Hi
The records are available for your own child only. As to the query of whether to bother or not ? Sometimes it's a matter of principle as in my case.
Yes the records are shared with other agency's such as Local Education Authorities, the Governing board, your child's future other schools and Ofsted. I know this to be true. Thanks.

[Clairetree1]

It really doesn't matter. they will never see the light of day, honestly. As to being shared with future schools, we either get nothing at all from primary schools or such a deluge of meaningless admin that we never as much as glance at the first page.

Honestly, if anyone in my tutor group has a record for racism from primary, I don't have the faintest idea. What they have done wrong so far this year in secondary I also couldn't tell you - its all recorded, but as I said, we have so much recorded that the vast majority just gets buried and never seen again.

[Clairetree1]

The only tie discipline records matter is in the case where exclusion is being considered, and then it is normally only the last 3 months that is looked at, and never more than a year.

[MostlyAnonymous]

Thank you.

As I said, I did not expect that knowing anything about other children's files would be possible. I wrote 'I very much doubt it'.

I do wonder if there is no transparency at all. There is a middle ground between 'seeing what is in other children's records' and not knowing anything at all. For example with Y6 results. Of course I have no right to know what child X achieved in their maths SATS. I do however have access to the aggregated school results and can tell how many children achieved a score of 100 or more.

Is it possible that two children do the exact same thing. But because one of the children's parents have a good relationship with the headmaster only the other child gets the incident recorded on their file. Nobody can ever find out that this unequal treatment happened. Is that the case?

Would for example a 'Freedom of Information' request as to how many children in the school have racist incidents on their files be possible? No information about specific children of course. Just aggregate data.

Thank you also for views as to if it matters or not. The concern is that if at any point in the future something should happen where it is statement vs statement, the child with the racist incident on file is less likely to be believed, and more likely to be viewed with suspicion.
It is reassuring to hear that in some cases at least, the files passed on to secondary schools do not really get read/do not affect day to day life. However the concern is more that if something does happen, the records will be consulted and then possibly 'patterns' may be detected and this then affects outcomes.

[Clairetree1]

It is reassuring to hear that in some cases at least, the files passed on to secondary schools do not really get read/do not affect day to day life. However the concern is more that if something does happen, the records will be consulted and then possibly 'patterns' may be detected and this then affects outcomes.

honestly, it really won't, we don't care about "patterns" from previous years, irrelevant. No one has the time to trawl through ancient records, and it wouldn't help anyone decide who was being truthful if we did.

You should be able to find out how many racist incidents have been recorded at your school from the council

[Clairetree1]

In fact, I very much doubt we even get that information anyway.