To admire the chutzpah of the Bodmin rebel prom?

I’m on a different thread where I shared how I would never have believed the appalling behaviour in my local primary school if I hadn’t experienced it directly. Swearing at teachers, aggression, 8 year old boys talking about Andrew Tate and making sexual references to girls that they couldn’t possibly have understood. So I kind of understand some secondary schools taking zero tolerance for any issues because I can’t see those children being easier in the classroom by year 9.

However this strict blanket approach is just awful and I imagine well behaved and well intentioned children get caught up in it and detentions and dressing down for trivial things becomes quite wearying and even damaging. Does this environment result in better outcomes for disruptive children? Would love the understand the research.

But on this one - good luck to the rebel prom!

My eldest is Y11, she says she's glad there are sanctions about going to Prom because it means the troublemakers aren't there. I was quite surprised, as a parent I think the celebration for leaving school should be separate from behaviour at school. There aren't many kids that are excluded though.

It's often easy enough to check stories like this because the discipline policies are available online, and some schools have far too rigid policies. Plus how likely is it really that 50% of the relevant year group are all lying?

ODFOD. It's normal to make a big thing of make up etc for big occasions like this. The very fact that you make massive assumptions about parenting from that one little point is all too revealing about you.

You can see from this thread that schools award behaviour points for utterly trivial things. Why assume they are automatically in the right?

As for whether it's "just" attendance: have you thought about what that means? If a child is prevented from attending because she is genuinely ill, why should she be deprived of something like this? What if the attendance issue is down to disability? Are you happy with schools breaking the law on disability discrimination?

Wtf , I booked dsds make up months in advance.

That doesn't make me any particular "kind of parent".

Have you put in a complaint to the governors about the prom and demanded your money back?

With your daughter, you should have had a formal letter about the suspension notifying you of your right to ask the governors to review it. Again, I would suggest that you use it. I think the only way to deal with these ridiculous sanctions is to make the school justify every single one. If the governors keep having to be convened about clearly unjustified suspensions like this they might start taking an interest in the obviously poor management of the school.

Good for them. In that college I would definitely rather go to the rebel prom than the official one. If they haven't got enough places for the whole year group they shouldn't be running a prom at all.

I find the whole thing bizarre. My two DD's proms had nothing to do with the school, the parents and girls organised them themselves. Both in private schools, so perhaps that is why??

I wonder how many secondary school teachers are rolling their eyes at this point?
Poor behaviour in school is a PITA for teachers and students who want to learn. I don’t think some parents realise that the vast majority of kids go through school with very few, if any, behaviour sanctions. Willing to bet my mortgage that a kid doesn’t get in trouble simply for asking a question or asking for equipment. There is always their version and they can really make it sound like the teacher has it in for them. Of course teachers make mistakes but repeated behaviour infringements paint a picture those who work in education recognise.
Teachers are leaving for poor behaviour. It is one of several problems in school right now.

@shieldmaiden7 is it really too much to suggest your daughter learns not to be rude to people? There are ways to communicate.

I think schools should be able to send invitations based on behaviour/attendance but , and it's a big but, that becomes an issue when it's a blanket policy they apply indiscriminately.

The high number of pupils attending the rebel prom is concerning, even if some attended by choice.

WalksLikeACrab I don't disagree in many ways but it's the ability to differentiate between genuine need and those that just can't be bothered. The school also get a lot of pressure for attendance but again, the resource to address the root cause is not there.

I do hope someone cooked up an apposite parody of "Trelawny".

She won't have had a suspension for "asking for a hair bobble". Reading through the post this student has obviously had multiple suspensions. Their behaviour is clearly a problem which is minimised by their parent. That doesn't happen lightly - most schools want their suspensions down.

Kids will always downplay their actions. This thread is enlightening - do you know how disruptive this type of behaviours are? Let's say it's a 50 minute lesson - student will stroll in 10 minutes late. They'll be right in the middle of their teach element. The student won't apologise and sit quietly - they'll want a "hair bobble, drink, pen" etc etc. They won't ask politely or quietly, they'll demand and be rude. When they're not given what they want straight away then they'll start to argue back. You've then wasted 10 minutes of lesson because of the behaviour of one student who continues to be a negative presence in the classroom. Schools are judged on their results and when you're facing this behaviour for every lesson it is impactful.

Schools are over a barrel - there is no flexibility in the curriculum because of the standards they are judged on (A8/P8). It is very hard to exclude students now and they get judged on that too. Their resources have been scraped to the bone so their ability to respond is hugely compromised . They have very little in their arsenal to be able to use as a deterrent for poor behaviour. Our school used Prom as this deterrent and actually it worked. There were only 10 students excluded and they were given plenty of warnings. It allows the kids who have behaved to see that their good behaviour has been rewarded and that poor behaviour isn't. This should be a mirror for our society.

Behaviour - fine
Attendance- not if they've got good reason not to attend

I think proms are utterly stupid in general to be honest. The amount of money spent is insane, they’re becoming like American proms. It’s ridiculous in my opinion.

However, attendance rewarding is also disgusting. There are many reasons why a child may struggle to attend school, from disability to continuing illness, issues at home, mental health issues, bullying. I recall a time from school when a lad stopped going to school because of horrendous bullying and the teachers absolutely bollocked him, ignoring the bullying and focusing on the lack of attendance. It’s because it impacts them and their school record. So in this instance, well done to the community for staging an alternative.

The rewards and sanctions for attendance punishes those the most vulnerable kids. the ones with very difficult home lives, trauma and SEND. The young carers like that girl who was interviewed

yes this! I work with care experienced young people, who have significant trauma, multiple moves in home and often education, we have a few who can’t go to prom because of ‘behaviour points’ it’s so cruel - a proper ending of a life experience and a celebration is really important but it’s ended as yet another rejection

I always read these with a cynical eye, as I do think it's reasonable to exclude teens from prom to keep teachers and other children safe. At my school there were kids with a history of violent bullying or drug taking etc and it's unfair to expect teachers to deal with this when they're giving up their time. I can't see these issues applying to enough students so they can assemble an alternative prom though, unless I'm missing something and Cornwall has become like 1990s Compton.

also admire them, hope it goes well

‘No wonder teachers are leaving in droves’ is thrown out on every single thread about schools.
Teachers are leaving ‘in droves’ because of poor funding and increase in expectations/hours worked, not because kids wear make up to prom and ask for hair bobbles in a science class.

It is the BBC, the school will have been contacted and offered a right to reply.

With regards to someone asking above if they will find anywhere to host the rebels prom, it happened on Friday night. As did the school organised prom.

As a parent of children at the school who have managed to get through the year without any behaviour points or 'resets' (as have many of their peers) I am not sure they are handed out as willy-nilly as some would have us believe. I obviously cannot speak for how fairly every child in year 11 has been treated but I do know of children whose attendance has been affected by genuine illness or injury and they did not lose their place at the prom. I suspect there are two sides to many of these stories and know for a fact there are to some of them.

The school was taken on by a new academy at the end of the last school year, and there have been a lot of changes made. Some for the better, some less so. Some well communicated others very definitely not. The transition process has not been easy. The new trust (it is not the Athena trust the person above is talking about) did come in with a very different approach to uniform and pupil expectations, and at the start seemed to be taking quite a firm hand, although since new SLT have been in place they do seem to be working with the children to help them meet these expectations.

It has always been the case though that children whose behaviour has been below a certain level (negative points/on report etc under the old system) have not been allowed to attend the prom. This is not a new thing and pupils were warned at the start of the summer term they needed to meet certain expectations to be able to attend.

The up to 50% attending the rebels prom mentioned by a previous poster is I think due to the fact that the proms were both held on the same night. All children were invited to the rebels prom, and so those invited to the school run prom 'picked' which event to go to depending on which event they fancied/their friends were going too/their parents wanted them to go to etc. I think it's a real shame that those who did meet the expectations, had to make that choice, how sad for them.

Don't get me wrong, there is a huge amount to unpick about the school and the changes being made, but I do not think some children not being allowed to attend a reward event, they didn't meet the expectations for is the newsworthy part of it.

The problem with articles like this is the school have zero right of reply.

Maybe attendance was a factor but I’m willing to bet most of them were also badly behaved or disruptive.

There are generally two sides to every story.

Forgetting a pen does sound ridiculously trivial.

Teaching a class where a dozen kids have no pen is pretty challenging.

When you look at what kids have actually done to reach behaviour thresholds it can be pretty eye-watering in some cases. Then SEN kids/young carers get caught up.

However, organising an alternative event is rather magnificent and will stand those participating in good stead. To be honest though...maybe the parents should have done that in the first place? Not sure when it became the school's responsibility to organise a leavers' disco?

It sounds very draconian to ban pupils from the prom but I always take these stories with a pinch of salt. The school can’t say anything about the pupils to the press because it would be a breach of confidentiality so we only have one side of the story. Newspapers publish so much bullshit as well.