DD has not settled into secondary school

[winterstail]

I feel the happy, outgoing and loving little girl from just last summer has vanished.

DD has always been fantastic. Keen, polite and affectionate. She was so excited to go up to secondary but it has all gone wrong.

For one thing, DD has struggled with homework and recording it. The teachers mostly give out worksheets and DD lost a couple and got an after school detention for one hour. I've no issue with the detention but the problem is the after school detention seems to serve all 'crimes' - homework and fighting and smoking and swearing and refusing to hand a phone overeviews. So DD was in after school detention with older kids who intimidated her and frightened her. This made her cry in the detention and the teacher told her that it should be a lesson to her. The other kids then followed her home chanting abuse. I complained about this to the school which made them make concerned noises but they were very keen to talk about what led DD to get a detention, not an eleven year old being frightened by 14/15 year olds.

Anyway, as she has now had 3 after school detentions she had to spend a day in isolation which really upset her and also means she can't go on the pantomime trip.

DD feels the teachers think she is a 'naughty' student, she is often singled out in assembly which humiliated her.

She has been self harming, and tried to throw herself down the stairs last night to break her leg so she wouldn't have to go in Monday.

What can I Do? I can't send her back can I?

Oh op your poor dd.

I really would do what Noble suggested as their pastoral care sounds shite.

I think you should email the school today with something along the lines of youarenotkidding's suggestion. Send it to the head of Year and copy in the head teacher, head of pastoral care and chair of governors because the school need to face up to the serious failure of care to your child.

Phone the school tomorrow to explain you are keeping DD off for this week due to her mental distress and ask to make an urgent appointment with the head of Year. Get a GP appointment to get DD signed off school.

Whatever you do, don't let anyone fob you off or insist that DD has to go back to school before she is ready. One of my family faced similar issues in Year 7 and her mh never recovered.

You are definitely not overreacting to this.

You need to remove her. I home educated my son but I did look at other schools for him. Take her out and look for another school together. In the meantime build up her self esteem because if she goes into school with a victim mentality which is what she has now she will become a target. Check every school carefully, ask around look on forums, check parent view. Her mental health at this stage of her life is crucial. She needs to know you are on her side and will protect her. Good Luck OP

I would question the isolation rule. My DD's (grammar) school probably would do detentions after school for the other 3 (15 mins each until 6th one of an hour). They do have them by year other than the hour one. They don't do lunchtime detentions at all (well other than if they fail the cross county test which half the kids did they get to miss the next 8 lunchtimes practising and if they fail after that another 8) which to me is a detention as it's not optional and they have to get lunch at break. DD has had that but thankfully passed at the end of the first half term, most kids didn't.

I hope she enjoys the lunch.
TBH I would expect that level of sanction for not doing any Hw or repeatedly forgetting books or repeatedly wearing trainers. Most schools issue a warning first then maybe a break or lunchtime detention afterwards. This seems draconian.
Ex teacher and mum of teen BTW.
She is still learning strategies to help her cope. They should be supporting her not undermining her confidence and ensures school makes her feel miserable. Poor kid.

I would be very concerned by the detention system here. As a teacher, I would say that forgetting homework is usually a lunchtime detention offence, particularly in Year 7 when they are getting to grips with a new school. It seems incredibly harsh to allow Year 7s to be kept after school in situations where they are bullied and intimidated to this extent. You should organise a meeting with the Year 7 head of year and form tutor as soon as possible.

@Summerswallow has hit the nail on the head. Schools like this only care about league tables. They get great results and children who thrive on pressure, competition and discipline flourish. Behaviour tends to be very good. But for sensitive children, they’re a nightmare. This is why I hate league tables so much.

Hope you get it sorted OP.

As "sensitive" and "bright" are not mutually exclusive and "bright" does not necessarily equate to "well organised " I doubt any school that really cares about its position in the league tables would act like this. There is nothing to suggest that the OP's dd could not be a real asset to this (or any ) school, if they weren't so busy demotivating her.

It isn'the a great school and the behaviour is quite poor. I think they areven trying to clamp down hard on new y7s, but they are missing the mark.

I dont understand the login of isolation when your put in a room with everyone else on isolation. It just turns into a room with 5 kids in with a chip on their Sholden egging each other on to play up

Logic

Your poor dd :(

The school does sound pretty poor. My dd struggled to settle in Y7 but it was more socially because she transitioned with no-one she knew. It wasn't until Easter that she felt comfortable. She had 2 detentions but they were only 10 min lunchtime detentions for talking. These were year group settings. She has also once or twice left school shoes in the changing room. I have sent her in pe trainers with an explanation note and she's changed back into them asap. It's always been fine.

I think there's a lot of movement between schools in Y7 and 8. I know 3 pupils who've moved schools in these years for one reason or another. I think sometimes certain children just don't take to certain schools. I would look into other options.

Good luck.

I complained about this to the school which made them make concerned noises but they were very keen to talk about what led DD to get a detention, not an eleven year old being frightened by 14/15 year olds

You sometimes have to be really firm with them. I had an incident recently where my anxious, self harming teen who suffers with suicidal thoughts (the school are aware of her issues) was accused of colouring her hair. She was dragged up in front of the whole class, yelled at and threatened with isolation. She arrived home in floods of tears, asking me why I won't let her kill herself

The most annoying thing is; She had not coloured her hair. It was the same colour it had been since September.

When I called the school to ask them what the Hell they thought they were playing at, they just kept turning the conversation back to her hair. I employed the broken record technique — "I will get to her hair later, right now I want to know why you thought it appropriate to humiliate my child in front of her peers despite her mental health difficulties and I want to know what will be done to ensure this never happens again" I repeated that about six times before they relented and discussed the issue with me properly.

We then reached a compromise.

I'd push for your DD to be given lunchtime detentions in place of the after school detentions and don't give up until you get what you want.

Do the school have an online homework helper/calendar? If not, suggest they look into. Sit down with her every evening and check her homework dairy until she gets into the habit of doing it.

Jesus Christ this school sounds ridiculous! She's in year 7 for gods sake! Especially the shoes one, have they never heard of picking their battles 🤔 Surely for things like that a written warning would be more appropriate and a detention after 3 warnings or something. I could understand if by year 9/10 but she's only just moved there !

She is in the habit of doing it. She forgot her book once and didn't write some homework down once. That's it. I'm not sure why some think she has additional needs as a result. If forgetting something once means special needs then we all do.

For one thing, DD has struggled with homework and recording it. The teachers mostly give out worksheets and DD lost a couple and got an after school detention for one hour.

You said "she's struggling" and "lost a couple of worksheets".

Struggling to manage the demands and losing things is not SN but pore organisation affecting her ability to keep up with demands and MH issues as a result is an SEN. Many pupils will have some sort of SEN during their school career (something that effects their education). Be it parents divorcing, death, broken limb or victim of bullying.
The school have a responsibility to meet the need and help the child through it as much as the parent.

Right now your DD has an SEN. She is having to stay off school tomorrow and possibly longer because of her MH caused by issues at school.

Indeed, but I don't think losing a couple of worksheets is anything out of the ordinary!

My heart sinks when I read these things. It would be a crime to treat adults in the way some schools are now treating children. I just despair.

It's the MH issues that makes the SEN, the self harming. There's nothing inferior about my son just because he has SEN.

Gosh, I would hope no one wild say or imply there was, lily

I think OP's dd having MH problems currently is a bit of a red herring. OP said in her opening post that her dd was happy and looking forward to Secondary school before she started Y7. Its obvious that the mental stress is being caused by school and (hopefully) that alone.

Do you have other schools nearby to look at OP?

Wow!! Massively strict school. I'd also be looking at getting her name on the waiting list for other schools. In the meantime, find the school's complaints procedure on their website and email the head teacher quoting it and explaining that their massive over reactions are causing stress and self harm. They need to pull their finger out and support your family before this poor girl is turned off for life.

I'd be wary about keeping her off unless you can homeschool. I took DD out for a week when she first started having panic attacks until the school worked with me to find a solution.

It took three months to get her back to school. With hindsight, it's not something I'd do again but only you know your child, OP. Perhaps time off might help.

You really need to fight with the school to get them onside. As far as losing worksheets etc goes their punishments seem harsh but all schools issue detentions for missing homework although usually it's lunchtime detentions. Switching schools isn't going to solve the problem. I would definitely push for lunchtime detention as opposed to after school and would be checking what supervision is in place. Students should not be intimidated in school or on the way home.

As I said earlier, sometimes you have to be really firm and repetitive to get schools to listen.

Is DD seeing anyone about her self harming? If you could get her into CAHMS or the like, they might help negotiate with the school. Mind, the waiting lists are often stupidly long for mental health services so that would be more of a long term plan.

Could you get her a file with plastic wallets in to slot her worksheets straight into? Whether or not she's young and has issues, keen organisation is a life skill she's going to need. You need to help her with this.

Does the school have a SENCo you could talk to? Who is responsible for pastoral care? An appointment with the head of year is a good start. Make it clear that you are not making a fuss about the punishments, but that you are worried about your DD. There are always some year 7s who have a difficult first term for various reasons.

Your poor DD. I hope this can get sorted out.

Our school is considered very strict and those infringements would have resulted in 2 “warnings” - the shoes thing would not have counted. A third warning would mean a 20 minute detention at lunchtime.

It does sound heavy handed.