Head refuses to reward Year 11’s with a July Prom? Any ideas?

^It is presumably relying on the kids and parents to be sensible enough to realise for themselves that if they're not allowed to put the year group in the hall to sit exams, cramming them together in a function room is off the cards.^

@LubaLuca
Well I don’t know about your school, but our school have had all year 11’s doing all their exams in the hall as usual for four weeks, except they are wearing masks and have to have all the doors in the hall open. All the year together exactly like normal GCSES.

Is it not the wrong time of year for a formal (what we call it where I come from) - are they not usually held in late November?

There is a lot of organisation required, usually by an elected committee of pupils - they pick the band, hotel, menu, flowers, transport, after formal venue etc. It’s not something that you can arrange in a few weeks - I will caveat that my experience is from 28 years ago but I don’t think it will have changed much.

Of course schools aren’t organising proms this year!

DD’s school are having a low key disco. DD doesn’t want to go and isn’t going.

Head is being sensible, we are in a pandemic and at this stage anything could happen by 21/06 nothing is guaranteed. Just let the kids organise some low key things themselves if they want to.

They just can't be arsed and are using "but covid" as an excuse. Or got caught on the hop because they didn't think the road map would go ahead as planned and now it feels too late.

Can't be arsed....

Do you have any idea how this year has been for secondary schools?

Public Health have written to all Head teachers in my LA to expressly say that we must not organise Proms until restrictions have been lifted- by which time it will be too late. It fits with the current restrictions of 30 being able to attend a wedding.

For those saying- well they mix at school. Yes they do, but either in their restricted bubbles or their close contacts are monitored (which would definitely not be possible at a Prom)

I'm relieved really- think about having to tell all the parents that they can't go on their holidays because they all have to isolate as someone at the prom tested +ve.

Please leave the head alone. If you want to sort something, do it completely aside from school. They don't want any more pressure, stress or organisational hassle. They also don't want to be behind the "prom spreads covid" headline.

I cannot even believe that you are even thinking of escalating it.

Our school sent home to isolate approximately 100 DC on Friday. I don't blame your head for not wanting to be responsible for the death of a DC. Wait a few months. It's not the end of the world. Why would you make their job harder with your whining? It's astounding.

What if restrictions aren't ended OP? Do you watch the news?

Well we don't have the money for one this year; we spent nearly everything that would be a 'luxury' on cleaning and laptops.

At the moment we have only 20% of our year 11 in after a flurry of cases, so a prom wouldn't be the best idea right now, seeing as we can't even get them in for some assessments.

We are also missing a chunk of Y13 and Y10 too. I can't imagine any of their parents would be best pleased about us saying that they can't be in school together but are fine to get shitfaced in a room after school (no matter what you do there is alcohol at a prom, and ket last time for us). Let's not add all of that to covid please or I might just snap.

Just organise something fun with a small group of friends.

My prom was a boring waste of money where I spent the evening just feeling horribly self conscious in a dress (I wouldn't have had the courage to be the only girl dressed otherwise). I'd have been glad if it was cancelled.

You want it then you organise it , if it’s that important to your child they can spend the next few days getting everybody’s email address etc . This year has been absolute shite for teachers and I can see why they don’t want to be involved .

I’m not sure where to turn to escalate it?

Nobody can force the staff to do all the unpaid work involved in organising this. Presumably the head has good reason (I could list hundreds) to say that it isn't viable this year.

If you want a party do it yourself. The only contact details you need are yours so students can buy tickets.

You know headteachers have had a hugely stressful year don’t you? And are carefully balancing risk for everyone in the school? Teachers on their knees trying to sort out milestone assessments and sort out all the paperwork to do with that. Sensible head teacher.

Let’s hope these awful naff prom events never return.

My son missed out on his prom too last year not a lot you can do really and given the Indian variant I am not surprised, lots of kids have missed out on proms over the last few years not a lot they can do.

So you ban outside dates. Not tricky.

If weddings can go ahead with large numbers of guests mixing maskless and clubs can plan to reopen maskless, then this can happen.

They just can't be arsed and are using "but covid" as an excuse. Or got caught on the hop because they didn't think the road map would go ahead as planned and now it feels too late.

(Would be interesting to know if they will be doing year 6 transition days in July- most secondary schools round here have them planned. )

If you start now could you get the students themselves communicate through Facebook/WhatsApp or however else they contact one another.
Does the school have a social media page?

Also they may all be in a year group together but they’ll bring outside boyfriends and girlfriends for sure. And parents chaperoning. And staff. Massive, massive risk.

It's a blessed relief for me that there's none of this nonsense at my Y11's school. The Headteacher hasn't made any announcement, but is presumably relying on the kids and parents to be sensible enough to realise for themselves that if they're not allowed to put the year group in the hall to sit exams, cramming them together in a function room is off the cards.

It’s July. It’s months off. There’s a pandemic. There is currently a dangerous variant that the Prime Minister had said he’s worried about.

Come on now.

I've had to organise one of these before and it is no small feat. It was more work than my own wedding, especially because they pay for tickets, so understandably expect a certain standard for their money. It was a marquee hire, coach transport to and from, photographer, DJ, informal awards ceremony, hot and cold buffet, table dressing, flowers, selfie booth...

Aside from all the logistics of it all, the behaviour management side is really stressful. Word gets round communities if 16 year olds all from one school are drunk or worse at these things and it can damage the reputation of the school. You have to have staff giving up their night for no extra pay to come and chaperone and make sure they're all OK. You sometimes get some that have got really drunk before and so you're then having to turn them away and getting into disputes with parents who see no issue that their child can barely stand up.

Having said that, our school are doing one (thankfully it's not my role any more!) but I don't envy them having to turn it around so quickly.