To support DS to break school rules?

[Woffa]

My DS's secondary school has issued a written ban on sixth formers driving to school and parking in the local roads nearby (even though there are no double yellow lines etc) to avoid upsetting the residents.
The bus fare for DS is expensive and the saving helps pay for his insurance.

AIBU to support him in ignoring the ban?

"Patrolling the highways and controlling parking is not one of these things. And frankly, they need to be doing a whole lot less of the other things and a lot more of the actual teaching, perhaps then they wouldn't have such embarrassing educational results on the world stage.
Less money on silly jobs like yours and more on teaching resources wouldn't go amiss, perhaps then more of you might understand what schools can do and what they can't."

^This!

+1

I would have thought it would be positive if your son went to the Head and said something like, "I know this is causing problems, I realise there are road safety concerns, residents who are finding this difficult (maybe elderly who find it difficult to walk two streets away to park) but if we said no parking within x distance or no parking in streets x y and z, can we agree to parking." I know as a senior manager in a different type of organisation I loved people who came to me with positive suggestions. To me he would come across as a mature young man, a credit to his school. Obviously if he went and sai, "You have no fucking right to tell me where I can park." the Head might be less impressed.

The problem as I see it with this approach is that it assumes there is middle ground.

Let me give you an analogy.

Say I told you that you must paint your front door a different colour. It is white, and I want you to paint it red. You could do one of 3 things:

1. Do as I tell you.
2. Suggest that you paint it green, as you prefer that to red.
3. Tell me to go do one, as I've no right to tell you what to do.

If you adopt the same approach as suggested above, you're effectively choosing option 2. Those of us who think OP INBU are choosing option 3. School have no right to regulate the lives of pupils outside of school grounds and school hours. Complaints about people parking lawfully in the street bring the complainer in to disrepute, IMO, and I speak as someone who lives in a quiet road next to a high school entrance.

"School have no right to regulate the lives of pupils outside of school grounds and school hours."

Try explaining that to Charis....who clearly doesn't understand!

SuckMySquallop No, because schools do have that right, and I'll repeat in Wales they have the legal obligation to regulate the lives of pupil during their travel to and from school. In the rest of the UK, there's no obligation, but there's certainly complete legal support to enable it.

He doesn't need to tell the head to fuck off, or to go and have a chat about a compromise.

He needs to put the piece of paper with this silly rule in the recycling bin, and carry on parking legally where suits him. Which is precisely what everyone will do, and what the school expect them to.

fredfredgeorgejnr

Get your facts right.

No school etc in the UK can police the public highway. Thats what this thread is about. Not the method used to get to & from school.

If you have proof thats schools can police the public highway and enforce punitive action for parking legally in a street, I and others would like to see it.

Otherwise....STFU.

Have you read the thread, about the status and enforceability of pupil agreements?

The school cannot have him prosecuted. They can expel him. (Thanks, Blair).

SuckMySquallop A school can make any rules they want about anti-social behaviour during travel to and from school, in Wales they MUST do it legally. The "proof" is in the welsh statutory instruments requiring it and their guidance, including information on the punishments.

Parking legally isn't anti-social behaviour, and neither is driving, so your point doesn't apply.

And no, they can't expel him.

fredfredgeorgejnr

This thread is about parking legally on the public highway. Not the sidetracked nonsense you're talking about.

So again, if you have proof thats schools can police the public highway and enforce punitive action for parking legally in a street, I and others would like to see it.

Otherwise....STFU.

Before you reply, you'd do well to read the original post.

Annoying the neighbours of the school is certainly anti-social behaviour - that's the whole point of them wanting to do it. And expulsion would only be as a result of failing to engage with other punishments certainly, but the right the school has is to punish, which obviously can escalate to expulsion if the pupil refuses to accept.

Here's the rules for a school in Wales, where there is a statutory requirement for them to have the rules, and enforce them:
www.crickhowell-hs.powys.sch.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/SixthFormHandbook.pdf All sorts of requirements, including where to park placed on the student.

fredfredgeorgejnr - Cop out.

"Annoying the neighbours of the school is certainly anti-social behaviour"

Is parking legally antisocial behaviour? Residents do not own the road...

Thanks for highlighting your failure.

Annoying the neighbours of the school is certainly anti-social behaviour

Complete tosh. If you're neighbours complained to you about doing something perfectly legal, like hanging out your washing, because they found knickers and bras on view upsetting, would you be guilty of anti social behaviour just because they were annoyed?

Indulging in anti social behaviour is anti social behaviour. Going about your daily business legally is not anti social behaviour just because some jumped up nimby homeowner thinks as they've bought a house they own the road outside too.

Annoying the neighbours of the school is certainly anti-social behaviour

No it isn't, if they are annoyed by something legal and acceptable. What if the neighbours are annoyed by kids on bikes, or kids talking, or parents with dogs, or anything else?
The mere fact that the neighbours don't like it does not make it anti-social. My neighbours don't like when I barbeque, that doesn't mean its anti-social and it doesn't mean they can ban me doing it.

The Crickhowell set of rules is interesting. They tell pupils that they must have permission to drive "to" school and provide parking for them. However, they don't define "drive to school". If a pupil doesn't get permission but drives anyway and parks in a road to that school, the pupil would have an excellent case to say they have driven to that road, not to school. And the school rules themselves endorse the right to do that, because they say "The provisions of the Highway Code must be respected at all times, as must all legal and other provisions affecting drivers and passengers.". So parking legally must be fine with them.

Schools really, really could not validly expel a pupil for driving legally in the vicinity of the school and parking there, even if they have a rule against it, because they have to demonstrate that allowing the pupil in the school would be harmful. Yes, a school might argue that repeated breaches of a school rule can't be ignored because of the effect on overall discipline. Their difficulty would be that it is the rule itself which has endangered overall discipline. I think that any school which has a rule of this nature is well aware of that fact and simply has it for show, knowing there is nothing they can realistically do to enforce it.

i dont think the school can dictate to them that they cannot drive to school, maybe a car share (if feesable) would be an idea so there are less cars parked in the street, with passangers paying a small amount towards petrol costs and alternative drivers each week.

Schools would do well to continue schooling instead of making up rules that are fit only for toilet paper.

Icimoi no-one has ever suggested that a pupil could be expelled for driving to school, any expulsion would be because of failure to adhere to the punishments they issue for that. Remember in the welsh system they have statutory support and guidance for dealing with breaches of the travel to school - www.merthyr.gov.uk/English/EducationAndLearning/SchoolsAndColleges/Documents/TRAVELBEHAVIOURCODEGUIDANCE.pdf - so it would not be in isolation, obviously I'm using the Welsh system here because it's more formal, but I do not have any reason to believe the powers in England would differ, the guidance is just les defined to cover travel to school.

^ Breaches of travel to school have NOTHING to do with this thread.

Quite why you persist on bring up this irrelevant side show is baffling.

The only issue here, as per the OP, is legally parking on a public road and the bullshit attempt by the school to "police" it. Seriously - why dont you understand or get that???

Icimoi no-one has ever suggested that a pupil could be expelled for driving to school, any expulsion would be because of failure to adhere to the punishments they issue for that

That amounts to the same thing.

fredfredgeorge, it is still idle to suggest that expulsion is ever going to be available as a punishment. That is primarily because, if a school makes a rule of this nature, it is virtually impossible to police it. In the highly unlikely event that a pupil gets caught, the school has no realistic way of disproving an excuse that the pupil was visiting a friend or relative or running an errand for their parents, and parked the car near their destination.

If the pupil is genuinely caught and his parents refuse to allow him to serve a detention, schools are not allowed to punish pupils for what their parents do. If the school tries to impose the detention during school hours and the pupil refuses to serve it and gets expelled for that, it would still be grossly disproportionate, particularly bearing in mind the folly of the underlying rule, and is highly likely to be overturned by the governors and/or on judicial review.

There is nothing in the Welsh guidance that gives statutory support for rules preventing driving to school; indeed, it expressly recognises that it is acceptable. It does refer to incidents of misbehaviour, but, as has been pointed out, lawful parking is not misbehaviour. For entirely separate reasons it seems to me that that guidance is highly dubious in legal terms, and probably unenforceable, which is no doubt why it has not been brought in in England.

The guidance in the school requires people driving to school to park in their designated parking place - so specifically excluding parking anywhere nearby - the excuse of visiting friends does not work as simply demonstrating that the car was parked near the school for the duration of the school day would be enough.

I completely agree expulsion would not happen, or even that the school actually wants to enforce it, but that is not the point. I'm just saying that schools are able to use their in school punishments to control behaviour on the journey to and from school.

And lawful parking, like other lawful things is certainly within the remit of things that schools and other organisations often have to address. The same as sports stadiums and other businesses have to address parking or the same as pubs have to address the lawful noise making of their customers after leaving. There's lots of similar things where law is too big a stick, and just using the leverage organisations have over their customers/employees/pupils.

But Fred, if a pupil is genuinely visiting Granny who lives near the school and decides to leave his car there and walk, it would be utterly ludicrous for the school to complain that he hadn't driven the rest of the way just so as to use the designated space.

Sure schools should encourage considerate parking, just as sports stadia and pubs do. But the reality is that such venues rarely do any more than that. I suppose pubs could ban customers if their lawful parking causes too much grief (though it's extremely unlikely), but the point is that that has nowhere near as serious consequences as school exclusion; and also that it is not hedged around with enforceable government guidance in the same way.