To be late for school once a week?

Dear young person,

By relying on your school's policy of excusing lateness one day a week, what you are playing is a game called "brinkmanship." I.e., seeing how far you can go before you don't get away with it any more. This, while technically legal, sets authority figures' teeth on edge and anyway is a bad bad bad habit to develop.

The day's grace is there so that people who actually do have a valid reason for atypical lateness, such as unforeseeable bus cancellations or acts of God, aren't penalised for events beyond their control. You are working against this increasingly rare but valuable spirit of common sense and it is not in your or the community's interest to do so.

If the preschool admin bores the heck out of you and wastes your time, take a book or a crossword and gain something productive from it instead.

Punctuality is the courtesy of kings. Be proud of your ability to be on time, which I personally have longed for all my life.

With all good wishes,

I wouldn't care as long as school is ok with this.

At year 13, it her choice. The school are making her aware that it's not very good and not an allowance of one late a week, everyone should intent to turn up on time but they seem to have some leniency. If she asks what I thought I'd reiterate what the school thinks but what can you do, she's nearly 18. She's got to start making these choices for her own life now.

Our town is one school sixth form only or bus to nearby town for college (expensive and adds commuter time). It is run like secondary school with school uniform and they expect them to be in form, phse, assembly and onsite for frees not just in subject classes. Had to go to class to be babysat if teacher off even if no work set. Can’t study at public library right next to school, must stay in school even if overcrowded and only place to work noisy canteen. Weren’t supposed to go off for a driving lesson in free period.
You can see why some students push back against those type of rules. There was lots of turning blind eye by staff (driving instructors picked up from gates) and doing enough to skirt under radar in my dc’s friend group. They are all doing competitive courses at top universities. They all were hardworking juggling study, volunteering, pt jobs, learning to drive, uni visits, work experience etc.
One example my dc’s friend doing medicine used to use her Monday afternoon free period to volunteer in a care home in town, that was not allowed but was important for her uni application and relied on blind eye.

If there’s no penalty for being late once a week and you’re not missing any lessons, I would absolutely be late once a week.

Year 13 is weird because you’re essentially an adult being made to go to school. I can vividly remember my school asking for a note from a parent to excuse me for being ill, and having to point out that this was ridiculous because I was 18 and they weren’t actually my legal guardians any more.

I was late all the time in Y13 - assembly? No thanks - and I used to leave the premises in free periods, which we were also not meant to do. I’d long since stopped giving a shit about teachers telling me off, and I excelled academically so I didn’t feel the need to bother with any of the other nonsense.

I was routinely late to sixth form because it started far earlier than other schools (namely 8:30 am) and I was doing 5 A levels and working 16 hours a week in M&S, so was tired and prioritised sleep.

Anyway, it didn’t say anything about my character, I now work in a six figure job in law. Let your DD figure things out for herself.

They aren't necessarily whole school assemblies. Quite often they will be specific to a particular key stage and relevant to their particular stage of learning. They may involve a guest speaker.

Singing doesn't tend to feature heavily in school assemblies at secondary school anymore - or at least it hasn't in the 100's of school assemblies I've attended at schools across the UK.
Worship will only happen if you are church school and if that's the case then I'm afraid that's what you signed up for!

The school is unreasonable for having such a stupidly slack policy then trying to make it your problem at parents' evening.

If they have a problem with being late once a week, they should amend the policy that says students can be late once a week. It's not rocket science.

Can't decide if your kids is smart for making the system work for him, or taking the piss. Probably both. Either way, this is a problem of the school's making and it would fall low down my list of things to think about - but I'm very busy with a million things to think about. A kid that's doing really well at school being needled at by school for a situation they engineered wouldn't be a top 10 issue for me.

I think the YP in this case needs to understand that there is a difference between being a little late (measured in minutes) due to a bus or transport issue and intentionally missing registration and tutor time. The rule is there to not penalise individuals who may rely on buses or parents who perhaps struggle to get them in on time and to allow them to grace to rectify it on other days. It’s to cover brief lateness.

It is not a pass to skip the boring bits at school because they cba. The YP in this case has misinterpreted the purpose of the lenience being offered - and is leaving themself open to sanctions if an unavoidable lateness occurs on a later day on the week. TLDR: She/He’s being a pratt.

Yes there is this trend. People policing whether they think a topic is appropriate or not. Too much time on their hands. I can see exactly why you’ve posted this. You wanted to put your child’s point across and guage what the responses would be so you can hopefully share with your child. Not that hard.

I think it’s a stupid rule that’s bound to encourage lateness on one day of the week and I doubt your child is the only one.
They can’t have a rule like this AND berate your child for keeping within it!
If they don’t want lateness they need to scrap it.
While I don’t necessarily agree with what your child is doing, they aren’t breaking any rules and as long as they aren’t missing any lesson time or struggling to be punctual at other times, I’m not sure there’s much you can do!

He’s Year 13! He’s in top of things. He can do what he likes as far as I’m concerned!
In upper sixth, how is there even such a thing as ‘being late’ and assemblies?! Doesn’t he just go in for his timetabled classes?

I suppose it depends how much compulsory worship & singing & moaning on about the 5th form’s poor PE attendance on Tuesdays is involved, and if ‘essential school notices’ are available online anyway.

It's childish, but harmless. I doubt any of the school staff cares one way or the other. If mine did that, I'd find it slightly irritating but leave them to it.

Has anyone else been here long enough to remember the 'cutted up pear' thread? This feels like a bizarre sequel.

There’s a new and unwelcome trend on MN of people telling off others for starting threads on things.

God, isn’t there just.

‘Why do you care?’

’I wish I only had problems as stupid as this to worry about.’

’And you thought this deserved a thread on MN?’

’Get a grip,OP.’

Ad nauseum. It’s a tedious little pastime for some in its own right these days, notably those who won’t read OP’s responses to questions and updates because they ‘don’t like reading drip feeding’.

Not to mention his lack of a moral compass!

Because performance isn’t everything in any team is it. Behaviours are equally as important

I’m confused who this post is from?

A 17 or 18 year old is perfectly capable of posting to an online forum if they want views. I guarantee that this particular Year 13 gives precisely zero fucks about the MN Jury's view of this situation. Strange thread.

Yup. The crux of the issue.

Sounds like a sixth form college might have been a better fit rather than a school sixth form with lots of school rules.

Probably an unpopular opinion but I think if you can keep the rest of your standards up, it’s fine. This is how the real world works mostly imo. There is a very British thing of always aiming to be morally perfect / superior; I think often actually that’s to people’s detriment. We see many posts on mn about people working to the bone trying to balance everything and be the best at everything simultaneously; in reality they are on the brink of burn out and if they took some sick leave to recharge themselves it would be very beneficial to them; sometimes being selfish is fine. It’s not fine if it’s hurting someone else or impacting important things very negatively or long term. I think in this case it’s fine to put yourself first if there’s no damaging consequences.

They need to stop being full of self importance and get to school on time.