Compulsory after school classes

I get through frustration.

There will be a blanket policy but hopefully more nuance is possible on an individual basis. Start with whether it's physically possible for her to attend. Unpick, in your own mind and with her, whether it's impossible or "just" difficult. If it's impossible then you go in with that, politely not aggressively, explaining (again!) about your family's needs and how this isn't possible. Don't get sucked into a bigger debate on grades and class time, it is simply not possible and it is completely outside her control.

In our experience the main deliverable for the NEA is the PowerPoint and it could be done at home. Obviously they can't build a table at home but one period a week to work on their PowerPoint, fine. My child was actually out of class for a chunk of theirs due to bullying and there being no teacher, so I was physically bringing them home to do it.

Whether she could drop the subject might be worth a discussion. Not always easy at GCSE level but possible at some schools, and having 8 or 9 GCSEs shouldn't hold her back from anything.

Left of field suggestions - regular taxi home for her, or to a waiting place such as a library or coffee shop until one of you can collect her. We had a public library in walking distance of school so DD could just go there after school chucked him out.

Whilst i see this isnt massively convenient for you, do you realise these teachers are offering up extra lessons that theyre not actually being paid for? If they werent staying at school for this, theyd be able to go home to their own families earlier.

So do you really think theyd be doing it if it weren’t beneficial to your daughter?

You can tell them that they need to make up the classes in lesson time since they didn't tell you that she would need to make up the time when they took the DT class off her. However it won't actually make there be enough time in the school day for her to complete all the work. Unless you are happy for her to drop the DT course, I don't think you have a choice. I remember having to spend year 11 doing one lunch time maths club and one afterschool maths club each week along with the other children who were doing the higher maths paper, because we weren't going to have time to do all the higher paper work in class. It was rubbish that they hadn't taught us separately all year in class and had allowed teaching the other kids to hold our learning back when doing the higher paper was something that almost every school would teach, but there was no other way to undo the mess!

@goldenautumnleaves25 You are being unfair. All schools have a statutory minimum school week of 32.5 hours: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/64a2f21fbb13dc000cb2e5e1/MinimumSchoolWeekNon-StatutoryGuidance.pdf

How they arrange this is up to them.

It is notable that the op hasn't answered any questions about whether the extra class is on a short day or a long day, and why their Y11 child can't get public transport. So its unreasonable to make assumptions.

Oh wow, two super short days a week is very poor from the school! My son’s school is compulsory until 4pm … school is in the middle of nowhere, school busses leave at 4:15 and 5:15 .
No surprise the OPs school can’t get enough teaching done.

In what year is your daughter?

Teachers give up their own time for these classes. And it's often inconvenient for them (I had to arrange childcare for my disabled child so I could run classes for other people's kids!)

If these classes are considered compulsory there is often a little spoken about transport budget or organised minibus for children who would've got a specific school bus home or won't be able to get home otherwise. It's worth asking and explaining your situation.

Well that's your experience, so normal for you, but it's not universal. None of my 3 children ever had a single compulsory extra lesson after school, they couldn't get themselves home if they missed the school bus as it's 20 miles and there's no public transport to our village, and 6th form hours at their school are exactly the same as the rest of the school.
What's "normal" varies hugely from place to place. You can't just assume the OP's situation is similar to yours. I'd hazard a guess that if it was an easy walk from school to home she wouldn't be worrying though.

It depends where you live. Not everywhere has plentiful public transport.

DD had art lessons after school every Monday. Being rural, the school bus left at 3. There was an option of a long walk in the dark to the station to come home, which I didn't want her to do, so I would pick her up.

I can see this must be frustrating for you when the school day has been truncated on two separate days. Posters are right, the teachers offering these additional lessons are likely not the management level who decided on the hours allocation. In the end, as a parent, you should be taking up these offers of extra teacher time because your daughter needs them and she should not loose out because you have two SEN children. The Prom is a red herring but it’s a somewhat mean stance.

This is normal for year 11. Mine had extra lessons most days after school, this was for all students not just the ones struggling. Surely a year 11 should be finding their own way home from school. What will you do next year in year 12, my kid leaves and starts at a different time every day.

Yes this.

Chances are that some of the other days are a bit longer – start earlier, finish later. We are only talking I suspect about a max of three periods a week tbh. A school I taught in only had one lesson after lunch on any day.

I have heard before of schools finishing early on a Friday – as I say, this is often a day with persistent absence so maybe it is a way of easing the issue with that.

Anyway I think the OP has got to park that as it won't change between now and next May. How best can they enable the DD to access the support she needs? That's the key question.

I agree the prom ban seems heavy-handed tho and would try to negotiate with the school if it was impossible for your DD to stay late.

It's a hard one for sure and threatening to ban her from prom seems an overkill

My daughter is sen and wasn't allowed to take a foreign language or history/geography to fit in extra math and English classes and had to go to school an hour early to work with a TA (for the whole 5 years) and attended homework club after school so she could again access that support

It was inconvenient as I had to drag her brother out on his oxygen since transport didnt cover the start and finish times she needed but it meant her English grade was high enough for college so she only had to retake maths her first 3 years of college

Is there any flexibility with work or the collection of your other two children that would give you a chance to get there to collect?
Is she able to take public transport on her own or with others in her year group so you dont need to go and collect?

I can see this is upsetting but her doing well in maths is more important than DT. Does she need DT for any future plans? Can she drop it? My daughter did 8 GCSEs it was enough for access to a good A level programme

Id be annoyed by the fact they took at DT class off her for maths and now she is at risk.

Octavia64

DT is one of those subjects that expects a lot of work to be done outside class - similar to art.

It really shouldn't be.

The NEA should take no longer than 40-50 hrs as per the specification.

What happens is that DT becomes a subject which gets less than Ideal pupils and SLT that have no idea what it entails.

Any extra curricular studies should be either theory for exams or lessons/hours missed.

Again the problem is that so many SLT have no idea what the subject entails.

when you're not actually providing the minimum of education on the other days is unbelievable!

across the week, they will be providing the minimum hours required, they may eg be having shorter lunch breaks for this.

Sorry but what kind of mental arrangement is it to not bother to provide a full day of schooling two days out of five and then make threats to kids to make them stay late on the other days?

I would tend to think the prom threat was out of order anyway, but doing this to a teenager when you're not actually providing the minimum of education on the other days is unbelievable!

It just sounds like a complete mess. Appalling way to run a school.

DS1 stayed after school every Monday for nearly two terms in yr11, finalising his art portfolio for gcse. I think even if she hadn’t lost a DT period for maths, she may well have had to do extra hours on coursework this year.

I think this is pretty standard in year 11. My Dd is doing DT and is expected to go in on Sundays until Christmas to complete the coursework. Not just Dd - all of the DT students, regardless of predicted grades. It’s just what’s necessary for them to reach their potential.

Yes it’s a pain. Yes it has impacted the rest of the family and what they want to do on the weekend. But it’s just one term, and we want her to achieve her best, so we’ve made it work.

Threatening that she can’t go to the prom is low, though. It’s not her fault.

I would be making an appointment to talk this through with the school, to find a solution.

Clearly she should take advantage of the extra tuition being offered, but the school has no right to mandate course attendance outside normal school hours, and also has no right to threaten students with retaliatory action such as removing access to school social eve ts, it's also discrimination and bullying behaviour - report them to the LEA.

Lunch breaks are too short to do this in most schools. DD had 40 minutes for lunch.

@labrat1984 , like others, my questions are:

1. Why can't your daughter use public transport?
2. Is the extra class on a day when the school finishes early?
3. Is the extra class for additional teaching time or so that she can complete assessed coursework?
4. As you can't do after-school events, will she be able to go to the prom?

The prom is a reward rather than a right so it's very common for schools to prevent students from going if there are behaviour or attendance issues.

If you write to the school about this issue, do remember to thank the teacher for offering to stay late to help your child. It is not their fault that previous lesson time was reduced, and they're probably as annoyed about that as you are. DT teachers are in high demand and short supply. The school will not have messed with the timetable without good reason - it sounds like they may have financial issues. Are they undersubscribed?

OP what plans have you set in place to improve her work and get her DT up to where it needs to be?

This is free education? Your daughter needs the best chance of achieving the best grade she can achieve?

Life isn’t fair and circumstances aren’t always perfect. So as a parent have her back and support her doing this.