Daughter denied prom attendance.

There is always an excuse, but some excuses are better than others.

I know a girl who has Crohn's and has just spent a week in hospital on morphine every two hours for her severe pain. Her attendance has neared 0% in the past months. She cannot sit, she cannot lie on the side, she cannot focus. She has been taking 10 painkillers a day for the past year. And IBD is not her only issue. I think that is a brilliant excuse for poor attendance and fortunately her school thinks so too.

@MidnightMusing5 and @babystarsandmoon
I am quite shocked by responses like "rules are rules" and calling ill students "brats". If rules are rules, then surely children in wheelchairs should take part in high jump like everyone else and blind children should just get on with it and read non-braille texts, right? According to you severe illness/disability is just due to lack of discipline. I wished life was that simple. Please read the Equality Act.

Why are you torn? Are you this child's doctor? You don't even know her diagnosis! As a teacher you essentially have no right to comment on whether a child's medical condition is one that requires time off school

Not to mention she's been bullied, and it's clear from the OPs post the school has failed to deal with it

Threatening a clearly already anxious, bullied child with a medical condition that's worsened by stress with not attending prom is just shitty. Its not going to make her want to attend school, it's just going to make her feel more ostracised and more anxious.

I agree, OP.

And exactly what kind of warnings do you suppose will 'encourage' people to stop being disabled and magically make serious medical conditions vanish?

It makes as much 'sense' as 'warning' the kids that they have to be under or over a certain height to quality for the prom; or that they need to 'achieve' a certain skin colour to be allowed to go.

Go to the local press and name and shame

Well that’s lovely for your son but he obviously wasn’t as sick as what some kids can be regardless of his bowel issues. Dd spent weeks and weeks on end in hospital and nearly died. 🤷‍♀️. So no, I wouldn’t say there’s always an excuse. Sometimes there’s a very good reason.

Under the terms of the equality act she’d probably meet the definition of being disabled. I’d point that out to them. Disability discrimination is no joke.

dd was very ill in sixth form due to a chronic health condition, attendance was something like 60% in year 13. Am glad she was still allowed to go to the prom.

Wow, who needs childrenbto be bullies when they already have staff to do it?

Well done for standing your ground; but how disgusting that you were forced into that position in the first place.

Please don’t ‘go to the governors’, copy in the governors. We can only deal with complaints if they come to us under the formal complaints policy which is generally a few stages down the line. If you go to the press, it will likely be a sad face photo one and no one needs that as the comments underneath will be upsetting as the school can’t/won’t reply and people will assume there is another side to the story.

See what the head says, if you’re not happy then find the complaints policy, equality policy, bullying policy and then follow the complaints policy and refer to the other policies pointing out where they haven’t been followed. Then follow the complaints policy to the letter.

If your gp actually wrote a letter then this is discrimination and you should raise it as a formal complaint and take it to the governors if not happy with the response.

It may be that the letter got sent out to anyone automatically with attendance below X. I personally think it’s awful as they’re discriminating against (1) an illness ie the stomach problem - not your daughters fault and (2) a bullying issue

Linking attendance to the ability to attend prom, is just pointless and so unfair. I feel your frustration and would be raging!

imagine if a workplace told an employee, they couldn’t attend the annual work party that all the company were invited to, because they’d been off sick (with the type of health condition that would fall under the definition of a disability under the Equality Act)?!? They just wouldn’t .

i don’t have have good advice sorry but it’s staggering that this kind of discrimination is OK in school

My daughter has a long term chronic health condition that means she could never meet attendance targets even if she didn't have a single sick day - just the sheer number of days she has to be away from school on going medical treatment and consultations takes her below the target. I got into a big argument with the school about their threatening attendance letters

Thank goodness her school didn't have silly rules about prom but I am in a support group for parents of children with her disease and many many kids are discriminated against in this way at prom time.

And to the person asking if they would even be well enough to attend prom - I never knew until the day of prom that she would be well enough. We did a full make up and hair trial and did photos with her dress a few weeks before in case prom day came and she wasn't well enough. Thankfully on prom day all went well.

I feel dreadful for your daughter. Poor kid. I’m so sorry.

I think my son's school have a 'behaviour' stipulation for attendance to the school prom. I've not heard a school saying no based on attendance only.

Unfortunately I have lots of times as it is quite common, even when someone has a medical condition which prevents good attendance.

Ours is organised by pupils/parents so school has no involvement. Is this unusual and it's normally arranged by the school?

I’m torn - I’m a teacher in secondary.

On the one hand some children’s attendance is awful and there’s always an excuse. My son had stomach and bowel issues, had hospital appointments, colonoscopies and was under investigation for IBD. But he still had over 97% attendance. He had a toilet pass in school and it wasn’t always very nice for him, he was also tired and deficient a lot, went incredibly thin at one point, but we (including DS) didn’t want it to impact his education or his grades, so we asked for half term medical appointments and he only stayed home when it was absolutely unavoidable.

At the same time though, I think prom is for all the children in that year group. Regardless of behaviour or attendance. They should all get to go, because they might not get another chance to participate in something like that. And they all have their beautiful clothes, fancy cars, salon perfect hair and makeup. So much effort is made. So I always give out way more prom point than I should, to make sure they all get what’s needed to go.

If you have a letter from her doctor get on the phone to the Head and tell him/her that you will be in touch with the LEA to discuss the obvious discrimination and then your next call will be to the local press and the DM.

Did you provide the letter from the doctor? Seems very unfair to ban her based on attendance alone when there is a medical reason!

That's really shit of the school. Unless a pupil is very disruptive or a constant bully then I don't think anyone should be denied prom. This years cohort missed out on everything at the end of primary school thanks to covid. I hope you get it sorted for her.

My daughter has missed 18 months of school but was still given the option to go to prom. She isn't, obviously as she can't cope with lots of teens.

I can't speak for anyone else but I wasn't a bratty child. I was a perfect and school librarian. in the top sets never in trouble never had a detention. What I was was a traumatised child who lost her dad and the day after the funeral had major spinal surgery and had to wear a body cast for 9 months.

OP I hope you get it sorted for your daughter.. Instead of the barbecue mum kept me at home and took me out for a lovely lunch. I still resent the two teachers involved years later. A little bit of compassion goes a long way.

Actually it can help sometimes.
A little bit of a school being embarrassed in public can make a difference to a ridiculous decision (refusing a child with an illness to attend a prom).