School called, said DS11 not socially distancing over weekend, is excluded, but it never happened!

[MinecraftMother]

Sorry for the long thread title.

I'm at my desk today and the deputy head of my DS11's school calls me.

She said that they've been made aware that he was not practising social distancing this weekend and so would not be allowed to attend school until next Monday.

The thing is, he's been with me, in our home all weekend and we've not been anywhere. Sure, dog walks, but they believe he's been gaming and had a sleepover somewhere.

I'm trying to figure out where this story of him spending THE WEEKEND (!!) at his friends' house has come from, but tomorrow morning, can they refuse to take him?

He, like all our kids, really needs to go to school. For his sake, and frankly for all our sakes. We have two younger kids and two frantic full time jobs, for the minute 😔

I told his teacher that it wasn't true. He was with me all weekend and we practiced good social distancing, at all times well within the law. She said she'd have a word with the head and come back to me. I haven't heard anything else - but her call was towards the end of the day.

Poor thing. Imagine having to make those calls and then reaching me with my absolute denial. What a position teachers have found themselves in. I really feel for them.

Anyway, the truth is he's been perfect, what if tomorrow they will not take him? I'm already taking DD9 to the office with me 😆 I can't bring another!!

Wonder what happened at drop off?

Hi gang, typed out a big response on phone and it wouldn't post! I just kept on getting the "retry" or "cancel" box.

So here I am on the PC, old skool.

He went in.

I had an email last night, read this morning, from the Dep Head. She's the one who called me. She said that "during the day it had come to my attention that DS11 may have broken social distancing so I spoke to him about it. This is when he informed me that he went to Twins' house for a sleepover on Saturday...I can now see that he had got confused about the timeline and place...please accept my apologies and we'll see him tomorrow [today]".

I am not concerned that they are checking. It was the fact they called without hearing my response. It was a simple "DS11 hasn't been SD so he's excluded until Monday next". Not "we've heard this, can you confirm or not?",

When we did speak I simply replied with "the child is wrong, he did that weeks ago. He spent the whole weekend at home with me, we didn't go out. I'll see you tomorrow" and then I stopped talking, let her fill in the silence. What could she say? You're lying, give me proof etc etc.

I do know that they ARE quizzing the kids about their out of school activities. I've spoken with a few of the other parents and it's becoming clear they are trying desperately to reduce the number of children in school - whether they be the YR, 1 or 6's or the key worker kids.

I hope they've learned a lesson here for the next time they call a parent with news of exclusion!!

By the way - is anyone's school calling them regularly, in a safe-guarding measure to ensure the kids who are at home are, well, still alive?!

Our secondary school are phoning or emailing me weekly ish for my year 10 and year 11.

i think I am more confused that an 11 year old child did not remember NOT leaving the house all weekend and getting confused with a weekend 3 months ago when he had a sleepover. If I was the head to be honest I would not believe you.

Ours haven't called once.

Obviously the big one is back now, but we have another DS7 at home.

We've not been submitting his work so they've not heard from me for agggges. In case I take any flack for that, Mumsnet-style, they were sending work via the Tapestry app which was photographs of books to work from. To reformat them took me, no word of a lie, about an hour in the morning and then I had to print out the bastards. We went through £80 worth of ink in a few weeks.

So we decided to get our own workbooks online and go through them. Work on times tables, reading and comprehension and bitesize.

Honestly, I couldn't hack the way they were sending work out to us so went my own way. What that does mean is that they've not heard from us with work to mark, for example, or art work pieces, for ages and they've not called. A friend of mine is a teacher and she's working her way through her register with calls and then going back to the beginning and working her way through again, every week...she couldn't believe they've not rang to see that everyone's ok (well, the boys).

My girl (9) goes to a different school (for girls - she has he whole life to be shouted down by men, we figured) and the difference between the two schools is like night and day.

If I'd have known 2020 was gonna be this shit, I'd never have had kids...I am so sad they might not even be opening them in September fully!!

I'd be making a formal complaint to the council/MAT and your local MP! The head was totally unacceptable to exclude someone based on nonsense.

@Psychoseverywhere - she didn't couch it (the question) as being "in recent days" - she asked him " have you been to the twins' house" and he said yes. Because he had. He's adamant she didn't ask him about this weekend. When I said to him "didn't she say "this weekend" to you?" he said "no, or I'd have told her it was ages ago" - hard to describe, but I can tell from the look on his face, and even his voice, that he was confused about why I thought he WOULDN'T answer like that if asked about this weekend. It was a mere day ago - even he's not that much of a daisy-head...

The weekend he spent at the twins was, to be fair, one of the best weekends of his life thus far! There's lots and lots of fun to be had at the twins' place! I won't go into detail as too outing, but it's a child's dream place, really. He's always, always going on about going back.

The Dep Head does believe me - we have a long-standing relationship and know each other quite well at this juncture so when we spoke and I told her what we had done at the weekend, there was no way she didn't believe me. Because it's the truth - I had rather hoped she'd have thought of our history before jumping in on the phone, rather than asking me about what the child said.

But how was the head to know it was nonsense? Children of 11 years of age know the difference between what happened this weekend and what happened a weekend over 3 months back.

Ah ok well I assumed she asked him specifically about the weekend just gone. Sorry!

@Psychoseverywhere He did leave the house - we had adventures with his siblings and the dog in our local brook and park, but no visits to the twins. We weren't in the house all weekend, it was lovely weather (for the most part - but they were in the brook in their wetsuits).

We’ve had one phone call from the Y3 teacher. One email from the Y7 teacher. Nothing from the preschool teacher (no work or anything either).

He's quite literal - so if she asked him, as he says she did, "I understand you went to the twins' house, did you?" I could see him simply saying "yes" - because he did.

Not all do psycho my ds who is extremely intelligent and amazing at maths and science has poor language and communication and not a clue about concept of time. His is due to being autistic but plenty of others who are NT have same profile but don't have the other impairments.

@Russell19

Children with mild asthma and diabetes allowed in school so by vulnerable she probably meant those children.

Still take him in this morning and like you said, tell them they are mistaken.

And those who have family members who are very ill - they could need to come to school because a parent has lung disease, cancer or MS, a sibling has a trach, etc - the illness that makes the household member extremely vulnerable to infection also makes the child vulnerable and need to come to school.

I asked the teacher why she thought it was this weekend, and she said she couldn't divulge who told her.
So it wasn't any of the children who told her (the twins aren't in school) and it wasn't my own DS11...hmm.

Also, the way she had already made up her mind that it was true makes me think that an adult to her that it was this weekend - perhaps it is someone on my facebook page, another parent or member of school staff? Maybe they saw the photos and for some reason thought it was this weekend?

Shall I plant a story, a la Rooney vs. Vardy...?!

Shall I plant a story, a la Rooney vs. Vardy...?!

Sounds like a plan!

We've had daily phone calls for DS (but he's in a specialist school); nothing at all for DD; local parents have had weekly phone calls for other primary children in mainstream, but DD school finally spoke to me and said it was because they had many more KW/vulnerable children in than in other mainstream schools. I'm not convinced this is a good enough reason but they have started doing them now anyway.

Can you please stop with ‘the twins’ It’s quite offensive to lump them together.

Can you please stop with ‘the twins’ It’s quite offensive to lump them together.

Oh give over.
Op is calling them that so she doesn't have to keep saying friend1 and friend2 or whatever.

I have twins and it's not nice when people refer to them as one entity BUT this is not one of those cases and people mainly do it without thinking, it's not malicious and it's certainly not offensive.

Actually, I find this quite sinister. The questioning of children to see if they have not 'socially distanced' over the weekend or whenever. Or the possibility that the OP was reported by a third party of maybe not conforming to the rules.
Another poster (may have been a different thread) said her DC was now beginning to get angry and resentful, so I am beginning to think the lack of social contact more significant than the lack of schooling. Especially if they have to maintain the 2m distance in schools.
Frankly, the sooner this 2m distance rule is abolished, the better.
Sadly, I expect the rate of infections to go up, after the demonstrations last weekend, so I expect my wish will be a long time coming.

@GreenTulips

Can you please stop with ‘the twins’ It’s quite offensive to lump them together.

Ha ha! Sure, ok.

rolling eyes x a million

On my phone, it was - as a previous poster sensibly said - getting a little tedious to write Friend A and B.

But if you need something to have a little whinge about today, I'm glad I could be of service...

ps these boys wouldn't give any fucks and neither would their parents, so jog on. You are embarrassing.

And there’s your ignorance.

@GreenTulips

And there’s your ignorance.

Double eye roll again