Would I be pfb to ask them to not keep teen ds back after school?

[Daisiesbox]

OK I'm willing to be flamed and apologies if this is long.

DS moved to a new school 18 months ago due to bullying some of which was quite serious and resulted in the eventual expulsion of another pupil. Ds also has some SN and is considered in sencos own words to be 'vulnerable'

The only school we could find with space was six miles away. I don't drive and due to where we live this means two buses although one is only 8 minutes long. Initially when he started the bus times were very regular and when it worked it was brilliant and ds was home in half an hour or so.

A few months ago they took a service off and it's caused chaos.

Ds now has to get the 6.51am bus to our main bus station for his connecting bus which gets him to school anywhere between 7.35 and 8am despite school not starting until 9am as the next bus out of our village is an hour and a half later hits rush hour traffic and makes him late.

He is happy with this as school let him in early and he can use WiFi and he loves his school.

At home time however it is a nightmare now the times have changed. He now hits rush hour traffic. If it works well he can come out of school at 4pm,get on a bus at 4.10 and be home before 5 however he has certain teachers who over run lesson daily or keep them back because of people talking.

When this happens ds misses the two connecting buses and ends up waiting alone at the bus station for anywhere up to 50 minutes to get back home. So he leaves school at 4pm and can walk in well after 6pm.

He is going to have to commute for work I know and he is in year ten but I hate the fact he is in the bus station for so long alone when he is vulnerable especially as kids from his old school pass that way for the sake of five minutes because some other kid is talking in class.

Wib massively unreasonable to ask them not to keep him back?

Its also creating issues in regard to toilets (medical issue) when he's out so long.

He's happy for the first time ever at school and is socially coping for the first time so I don't want to change and there's no where really to go anyway :(

Oh absolutely if he is at fault then that is different.

no, you arent being unreasonable.

Perfectly reasonable. It would certainly work at my school. Just make sure that when you discuss this with school, they can assure you that every one of his last lesson teachers will know, otherwise that'll stress him further. We would put a permanent note stuck in the front of his planner.

I don't think you're being unreasonable either. The teacher for the last lesson of the day could let him sit near the door so he can slip out at 4pm without disrupting anybody.

Yes, you should go in and speak to the school. YANBU

Is there any danger that creating a situation where a teacher at the end of the day says "Right, you've all got to stay behind for ten minutes as you've been messing around, except for Bob who needs to catch his bus" might expose ds to more bullying?

For this very reason they are not allowed to keep them back after school without advance notice. I did this to a class of mine years ago when I was a newly qualified teacher without realising a lot of children relied on getting buses home. Needless to say the Head spoke to me the next morning as understandably parents complained.

I would hope not 2tired but not sure. The other kids are aware he has SN. The school seems to be a landing place for children with SN/been bullied/mental health issues/differences who haven't coped elsewhere due to its size so the kids are generally more accepting of differences.

I hate collective punishment sigh. Ds was once told on Friday he had to attend whole class detention for half an hour at lunch on Monday due to a group of boys not including him being a pain in the back side in class. Of course ds having crap organisation skills he forgot by home time on Friday. Remembered at the last minute at the end of lunch on Monday after being asked by another kid where he was and went and apologised to the teacher immediately and had to do detention for the whole of lunch (an hour) getting a longer detention than the original class as punishment for forgetting to go to detention which was given because someone other than him couldn't behave.

I'm not sure what he learnt from that tbh!

I think you may need to talk to the SENCO & Head of year that seems really harsh regarding the detention and leaving promptly....
could he have an alarm on a watch (ds has a cheap fitbt type thing that just vibrates)

And thanks everyone for responding. Will have a chat with school and find out their thoughts.

It is handy to know teachers don't think iabu too that is helpful thank you.

X post thanks averythinline that's a good idea. Would be handy to set to remind him if he needs to go somewhere too.

The school is being really unreasonable to keep them back so regularly-this must cause havoc for a lot of families.

Legally we can now keep students after school without notice, but if you speak to the school about the issues regarding transport then I'm sure they will be more mindful in future

You would be unreasonable to ask for him to be let off standard punishments for his own behaviour because of this.

However you would not be unreasonable to point out that when he is included in a collective punishment for someone else's misbehaviour, he suffers disproportionately for it, and therefore ask for an alternative arrangement to be made.

It's a reasonable request for valid reasons. Legally a teacher can keep students behind for up to 10 minutes, but it's quite common for schools to discourage this practice where it is likely that students will miss school buses/ infrequent connections.

Teachers should not overrun. This used never to be acceptable at the end of the school day because of travel arrangements. It is also a sign of poor teaching if overruning happens regularly (not to say I've never done it...).

Neither should a whole class be punished for one person's behaviour. I will admit that I did use to occasionally 'waste' a class's break or lunchtime as they had wasted class time but within a few years of teaching I realised this was not only unfair but counterproductive (as the well behaved children would then also lose goodwill towards the lesson and me).

Even without your son's SN, this shouldn't be happening unless he is directly involved in any late arrival/poor behaviour.

In my experience, in a pretty tough school, the other students don't bat an eyelid at someone who has to do things out of the norm. There's plenty of kids at my school, who aren't kept behind for any number of social reasons, so if the school is any good, it won't be a problem at all, either with staff or students.

On the odd occasion my class is late tidying up or something on the bell I always announce "bus children go". When I was at school it was the same although in both these cases they were "school buses". Speak to the school there might already be a rule about this your DS isn't aware of.

Definitely not BU. I work in a secondary school and we have a few kids that have to leave bang on time, they often have a pass or I have am sent an email about it

Teachers should not overrun. I used to work in a rural school and it would have been hugely frowned upon if I had prevented students from catching buses home.
Whole class punishments are unfair too.

Our kids with long commutes are given an annual "pass" from the HT which means they're not recorded as arriving late when it's due to public transport and can leave up to 15 minutes early when they have to get their buses. It's never caused an issue with either teachers or other kids.

YANBU. Talk to the school