To think it Is it a feasible proposal that a school might consider allowing a currently pregnant Year 12 the opportunity to repeat year 12 next yeara currently pregnant currently pregnant year 12

[redhilary]

I have reposted this thread from chat due to limited traffic.

Is it a feasible proposal that a school might consider allowing a currently pregnant year 12 girl the opportunity to repeat Year 12 next year.

You shouldn’t be ruling anything in or out. Your a godparent not a parent. You are way over invested in all of this.

Goddaughter is adamant she wants to continue in full time education. Thus, an option of her mother and youngish Grandmother (62) to care for the baby, from Monday - Friday is not a impossible idea.

and yes she is still in denial about the extent of the dramatic changes to her life, she is about to be faced with.

If she's still in denial I don't think offering a place away from her child 5 days a week is a sensible idea. Education is important, but she made the decision to have the baby, and that means her life will change. Offering her a get out and leaving someone else to parent for 5 days a week isn't a realistic option.

What happens after she finishes her A levels. Will her mum be left with the child while she goes to uni, or will she take the child away from their home and the person who has been the primary carer for 2 years?

These are the suggestions of my friend who rightly or wrongly, believes she and her mother are a better parental bet than her 17 year old daughter would be.

Poor girl. She doesn’t get to decide things does she.

@redhilary

These are the suggestions of my friend who rightly or wrongly, believes she and her mother are a better parental bet than her 17 year old daughter would be.

I think it would be viable if you had a mature, adaptable, capable young woman who was determined to continue her education and succeed in the face of adversity.

That is not the person you've described here yet you are all still piling on the pressure, shoehorning her onto the path you have all deemed most appropriate and will be faux surprised when she buckled and fails I'm sure.

Can't you just give her a cuddle and tell her that she can park the big decisions until the baby is here? Let her focus on one massive upheaval at a time.

I don't see why I should rule out…

You shouldn’t be ruling anything out-it’s not your decision. You are coming across as way too involved and emotionally invested here.

WOW

Your Goddaughter doesn't have a chance. Not of achieving decent A levels and further education. She can do that, whether next year or in time.

But of growing up and getting to a place where she is a decent mum and has a good relationship with her own mum.

You seriously think telling your goddaughter that she will be a Crap mum and needs to live with you to continue her education (which is what you are all thinking about doing - suggesting to a mum that she can't/shouldn't raise her own baby or that it isn't really that important that she does so) is in her long term best interests?

Yes, your goddaughter could possibly do A levels at grammar school next year with good support from school and parents/grandparents (though I would have struggled to do a levels alongside DD1 when I was quite a bit older). What you are suggesting/doing is not good support from parents, it's extremely overbearing and pressurising. She would come home on Friday night after five days away and have to watch her mum play mummy to her DD and her DD consider another person her DD's mum? And get good grades or giving up her first year with her DD will be a waste. That is cruel, tbh.

Your goddaughter has chosen to keep a baby, so on some level she does want to be mum. She probably is in denial right now - it is scary. Don't strip this away from her under the guise of wanting her to do well at her education. Support her TO BE THE MUM, not replace her with another more acceptable (to you all) one and try to shoehorn her back in to the same place she was in.

Lockdown was tough for many many teens. But you are all in denial. Your GD missed social interactions and routine of school and fell in with an unsuitable boy, yes, but she also clearly also struggled with studying on her own and has a few issues with her mum (hence why you are suggesting she lives with you) - your proposal that she completes grammar school is likely to mean either more study at home around a baby that seems very close to the situation she couldn't cope with in lockdown OR a non-mum relationship with her baby that she may come to regret (and hate you all).

You know what, I went to a prestigious university at 18. I wish I had gone later, after resolving some mental health issues related to my autism - a more grown up me would have found it easier to adjust to a new learning environment. Studying a bit later (not just a year later) really isn't the end of the world. And nor is going to university - lots of great apprenticeships out there that get you to the same place whilst earning money and not accruing debt.

Back off - make a loose plan if she feels she can study around a baby next year. That's why FE college might be useful - it is more flexible and can be picked up when ready - it isn't a slight on her intelligence. Then try to support her for the Mum bit. That is the important bit. For her AND the baby (who you appear not to have considered fully - it isn't just a question of whether your friend is likely to be an objectively better mum than her DD, but that baby's interests in having the best possible relationship with her actual mother).

Your friend needs to focus on the task at hand rather than deflecting anger towards the school. She has a pregnant teen, her daughters reality is now completely different. Don’t we warn teens all about this?

It sounds like she needs to leave the school and have a fresh start. She doesn't sound academic enough for a levels, and smashing a chair up is not excusable. Imagine how the rest of the class felt. I've taught a lot of autistic kids over the years, you can't just use it as an excuse

If you think your god-daughter will be a poor mother, can't cope with change and has an awful boyfriend.... why haven't you all encouraged the poor girl to have an abortion? You're banging on about her being at a non-selective grammar school, whatever the hell that is, but frankly the way you're describing her, she is practically incapable of managing her own life.

Right the reason I am so invested in this 'Shit storm', is because Goddaughter's elder sister (20) the pregnancy is all my fault. She was telling me from March 2020 from the start of lockdown that her sister was sneaking out to see the boyfriend. This, and that her 'liberal' mother would do nothing about it.

Hence, elder sister kept begging me to take Goddaughter to live with me. Elder sister has only just started speaking to me again because of this. Thus, is telling me that if her sister does not complete her A levels and get to University its all down to me.

This is probably her deflecting the blame because she was at home from University and could have stopped the situation. However, she said her liberal mother would do nothing about it. Friend telling elder sister her parenting methods did not stop her becoming Deputy Head Girl @ the Grammar A A A at A level and Durham University. Sister screaming back her mother, yes but I'm not 'Fucking Autistic'.

As for the selfish father and ex husband well he is not interested as long as it does not cost him anything . Yet he could for instance have easily afforded the two private schools up thread that would have benefited Goddaughter greatly.

My head is about to explode...

Because she and the family are Catholics...

What a mess.

But it isn’t your fault or your responsibility OP.

I said it was not this supposed term 'Super Selective' not Selective. The difference is Super Selective schools select say takes the top 5% based on the number of places available on scores . Normal Grammar schools require a pupil to achieve say a score of 360 over English Math's, and Non Verbal or Verbal reasoning tests with a score of no less than 120 on any of the three 11+ tests taken. Hence non super selective grammar schools take the top 25% of the ability range.

Complicated I know but that's how the 11+ works.

I thought the Catholic rule was no sex before marriage. And divorce is a no no as well. I think you should step away and let them get on with it. Your interference is making things even more muddled and difficult. Now this schoolgirl is to be boarded at a house away from her baby all week. I still say adoption should be considered under these circumstances.

Modern day Catholics are selective in what they do. But ABORTION is a no no..

But it is not relevant to what GD should do in future to dwell on what you might have done in the past. You didn't have the parental rights to wade in and GD's mother chose to ignore it, effectively - that is on her and not on you.

GD's sister might have been right in the past about what the better option for her sister was, but her sister is her own person, a person who is about to be a mother. Enough handwringing about academic achievement right now. Ensure GD has options for the future and support her to be a mother.

You can't go back, only forward.

It's hardly going to help GD to grow up if you are all handwringing about what you all should have done to control her and massively overreaching all the time. She is autistic and she might be young and naive, but she isn't incapable of being a good mother. There are lots of things she can do - maybe having a bit of space and another person to factor in might help her to find the Motivation to find her OWN path.

Head girl and Durham isn't the be all and end all, frankly.

To be fair Goddaughter's sister is a brilliant sister and loves her sister dearly and is horrified and broken by the situation. She was in year 11 at the time of Goddaughter's school incident in her first week occurred . Apparently she put the fear of 'God' in to these two vile year 8 (year 13 now) girls . Telling them if you so much as be rude to my sister ever again I will ram your heads down the toilet and post pictures of it to all the year 11s .

it is the responsibility of an elder sister, to protect her younger vulnerable sister..

The two girls are still petrified of Goddaughter's elder sister.

Abortion is a no no but adoption is not.

To be honest, it all sounds a bit fucked up.

Forget the school, forget her A levels. If she wants to keep the baby then all that is in the past certainly for now.

Also, if I were you I would take a step back, a bloody big one!

I know years it is Fucked up. Adoption OK. perhaps but as you can imagine they are very proud family, who solve their own problems.

I posted the last post because it brings a bit a light relief to the post. Elder sister broke the Long Jump and 100 Metres school records so was not one to be messed about with !

You and the sister are acting as if having a baby is no more than releasing a big fart- a sort of, ' Phew! That's out' now the only thing that matters is if I can force the school to take me back and we'll all move smoothly on.

But you know, a baby is more than a fart with a bonnet on it-babies change lives-especially a school girl's life.

It sounds almost crazy to be giving out all these school statistics when the girl is going to have her life turned upside down.

Now, they don't sound especially proud to me, although the more you post, the more I'm imaging a sort of Brideshead Revisited family.

Do yourself a favour and walk away,. They are looking for a scapegoat and the elder girl has already had the temerity to try and blame you.

Leave them to it and don't put your own family at risk by becoming hugely involved. Neither your family-or your friend's family will thank you in the long run.

Certainly don’t screwup your own daughters a-levels because you’ve taken in gd.

I love them all dearly and will do what I can for all of them but I am exhausted as this Shit has been going on one way or another since March 2020...