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.

I think you've mentioned that your sister is Head of English at a Kent Grammar school.

Why don't you ask her to speak with your friend and her daughters and leave it at that.

Tell them you're exhausted and make yourself unavailable.

You need to step back.

This is not your life that is being decided about here, nor is what's happened your fault/responsibility.

Your god-daughter needs space and support to make her own choices - she doesn't need people making choices for her about how her life is going to be organised. Her mum, her sister and you all need to let her decide what she wants.

Does she want to be a parent to this child? If she does, then it would be cruel to force/pressure/"arrange for" her to be separated from the child. Can you imagine how you would have felt if you had been kept away from your child and had to watch relatives act as parents, because those same relatives (and god-parent) decided that was best?

If she wants to be a parent, her mum needs to help her to be, by helping her to plan maternity leave, antenatal classes, parenting support... Having a child is a huge upheaval to anyone's life, and she's going to probably find it harder than most first time parents to work everything out, but professional support is available from the health service, charities, social work, etc.

You and your friend might see her as immature and having messed up her life, but a large part of that perceived immaturity is probably because her life has been so firmly decided by other people that she hasn't had a chance to mature yet. Encourage your friend to give her that chance. She also hasn't messed up her life or education. Let her choose what she wants to do next, be it trying to stay on at the grammar school, taking time out from education to focus on being a mum for a bit, studying somewhere else, or something completely different. Whatever it is, let it be her choice. Otherwise you're all risking permanently damaging your relationships with her when she finally gets an opportunity to discover that she is capable of making her own decisions about how she wants to live her life.

Adoption though is a saw point for the family as Goddaughters Great Godmother was sent to a Magdalene institution in 1959 in at 16. for having indulged in sexual activity. like many who were placed there she left Ireland and has never set foot in Ireland every since.

That's right Years she is a Head of English at a Grammar school in Kent.

Ever since . You can see why I'm not a Head of English can't you. I think if I got £1 for all my missed words and grammar mistakes, I could now retire in luxury !

If adoption is a sore point, then please see that effectively pressuring your daughter to give up her child to mum and grandma to parent it and forego the parental relationship could also be a really shitty point down the line.

@Scirocco

Great post. I agree with every word.

And of course GD will say she wants to be in education now. Anything else is scary, particularly when everyone else is wringing their hands and telling her she has ruined her future. Doesn't make it the right decision when the baby comes - she should make that decision when she is ready and shouldn't be forced down a path now.

Among the other things Friend is upset that the family has not broken the link of having children far too young. Great Grandmother child at 16 (1959) Grandmother first child at 18 (1977) Mother (herself) first child @ 24 (2001) Daughter child will be @ 16 years 11months (2021).

Maybe elder sister will.

But really, what's the point in dwelling on that?

Of course she can be sad privately, but that sadness needs to not colour the way she parents her DD. Would she really be advising a friend to do this with her DD?

It has happened now (tbh, turning a blind eye to your DD escaping to have sex with her isn't the best way to go about breaking the chain!). Parenting in anger/despair is never a good look.

Goddaughters Great Godmother

Is that actually a thing?

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

Those of us commenting on grammar schools are very well-versed in how the system works! Are you saying she is not at a super-selective grammar, but it’s still one of the highest achieving in the country?!!

Right the reason I am so invested in this 'Shit storm', is because Goddaughter's elder sister (20) the pregnancy is all my fault.

Are there words missing here? I’m not sure what you’re trying to say. Clearly the reason this child is pregnant is because she had sex with a man-that is a fact and isn’t anyone else’s ‘fault’.

@redhilary

Among the other things Friend is upset that the family has not broken the link of having children far too young. Great Grandmother child at 16 (1959) Grandmother first child at 18 (1977) Mother (herself) first child @ 24 (2001) Daughter child will be @ 16 years 11months (2021).

You’ve said this twice now-I don’t get what it’s got to do anything!?

She had a baby in 2001 at 24-so did I. That’s hardly young . There is a huge difference between 24 and 16!!

I never said my Goddaughter goes to one of the highest performing grammar schools. As grammar schools go it is probably below 'average'. Hence, why her sisters A A A was the highest A level grades that year.

I know there is a huge difference between 16 and 24, but my friends daughter has started the link again giving birth when she will be 16 years and 11 months. Another thing young births are often linked to outside factors such as poverty lack of education. These are quite an affluent family where everyone in the immediate or extended family has been educated to at least Degree level or at least on the way to it.

I said Goddaughters Great Grandmother . If I mistyped it was down to fatigue .. It is a unusual concept especially as her Great Grandmother is 78 which In another way she is very lucky to still have both a Grandmother and Great Grandmother still around !

my friends daughter has started the link again

She hasn’t ‘started the link again’. She has got pregnant at 16. Her own children will make their own life choices!

I think you need to step back. If they are an educated family, let them sort things with their kids in their own way. I suspect the child will have this baby, which will be her priority and then at some point later on, when there is childcare in place, she will probably resume her studies-whether it be A levels, Access course, BTec etc.

It doesn’t always have to be done in the traditional way and I can’t imagine sitting A levels at a grammar school with a cohort of younger children she doesn’t know, with a newborn, will be the best move for her.

I really do think you are over invested in this. What do your own family think of you being so wrapped up with it?

No good will come of it in the end.

To be harsh.
*Your Goddaughter is an average pupil.
*She is disrespectful at school-swearing and destroying furniture

• She is sly...sneaking out of the house without anyone knowing in order to have sex.
• She is now pregnant
• She says she wants to be rat-arsed for her birthday.

I'm afraid it's an old old story and although you may be shocked that this is happening to a degree educated affluent family-that's what happened.

Her family didn't know what she was up to, her mum is too 'liberal' to care and her sister is trying to blame you! It sounds like a plot from Eastenders rather then The Archers!

The girl is going to be just another badly behaved unmarried school-age mum. I doubt the school will want her back-she has hardly covered herself in glory- and if you bamboozle and force them, she may get back but she won't be welcome.

If the girl and her parents-no mention of her dad in your posts- want to pick up A levels then she can go to an FE college, where there will be better support.

I wonder if this pregnancy was really an 'accident' on her part or maybe a way of 're-setting' things.

Anyway, gently, back off.

@redhilary

These are quite an affluent family where everyone in the immediate or extended family has been educated to at least Degree level or at least on the way to it.

Are you/her mum/her family embarrassed about the pregnancy? Or embarrassed that she might not get a degree?

Your focus on education is going to be so harmful to this young lady, and her baby.

Do you know the statistics for the number of autistic adults that are in full time, paid employment? Further education really doesn't impact her opportunities as much as you are assuming they will.

Dumplings yes I do know the number, which is about 8%. Autistic people particularly High Functioning ones are probably the most discriminated group in the U.K today.

Somehow it is seen as acceptable to discriminate against Autistic people, but that if they were another group would be declared as criminal actions.

Maybe one further way of thinking that might appeal to your friend is to understand that:

• grammar schools do not necessarily have better teachers, what they have is pupils who have been selected from a particular ability range. Great when you have a child who fits the profile, but can be dispiriting to struggle - and realistically it will be a bit of a struggle to do herself justice (arguably, she has been struggling for some time given her particular needs).

• your GD may get a better contextual offer as a later applicant from a FE college than from a grammar school (even with knowledge that she is a mother). An extra year or two in education is nothing at 16-20

My thread might be disjointed in nature, but this is why up-thread I pointed out ESA and £760 a month which many posters did not get. You probably know what I mean. I don't want her stuck on ESA and PIP in her mid twenties, because as you know Autistic people found it extremely difficult once on PIP and ESA to ever leave it.

The Government or more specifically Work and Pension's give absolutely Fuck all help to High Functioning Autistic adults. They want them to just disappear in a hole I think. This is another reason why unlike other people on the 'DOLE' they never chase them asking what they are doing to change their circumstances. Work and Pensions realize that getting 'proper' employment for High functioning Autistic people is walking bare foot on 1000 degree Coles.

However, what little chance Goddaughter has in an work environment , which despite the so called progressive outlook today, which actually is more discriminatory than twenty years ago. An example being an Autistic person might have a gift for something but because they can only achieve a Grade2/ 3 in GCSE Math's/ English they have no chance to show their natural ability.

Thus, Goddaughter has more chance with a Degree than without one of escaping 40 years on ESA and PIP.

Dumplings yes I do know the number, which is about 8%.

Is that only covering those that are diagnosed though? Over the decades I worked with many people who would have ramped it in had they had ever been diagnosed but in my day unless you had Kanner type autism you were just classed as weird/odd/naughty/overdue for a good smack etc. Aspergers didn’t even exist as a diagnosis back in my day, that came subsequently and alas has now been cannibalised by the ASD umbrella. Lots of specialty occupations are stacked with undiagnosed people who don’t form part of official stats. That will well change as this gen comes through where many (but by no means all) are diagnosed, but I’d be careful about throwing out ‘firm stats’ of people who would fit the current dsm definition of autism in regards to participation in the workforce.

Thus, Goddaughter has more chance with a Degree than without one of escaping 40 years on ESA and PIP.

Not one person has said she shouldn’t get a degree. All people are saying is that she shouldn’t be shoehorned into the path she was on as that path has now changed. She wants to stay on that path, as by doing so she can pretend everything is the same and nothing is changing. But it won’t be, and indulging this fantasy is doing her a great disservice.

There is no reason she can’t get a degree but once she chose to have a baby, the reality is that the path to get there may be a different path with a different timeframe. I would focus the energy there and supporting her with this, rather than concentrating on pretending to her that her life will be exactly the same (and even trying to facilitate this by letting her pretend she doesn’t have a baby 5 days a week), and distracting yourself with school stats.

Yearssince
*She is disrespectful at school-swearing and destroying furniture

• She is sly...sneaking out of the house without anyone knowing in order to have sex.
• She is now pregnant
• She says she wants to be rat-arsed for her birthday.

Firstly these two school incidents are partly down to the poor provision of SEN support (the school needs to improve on that for any future girls who might need support )

The first incident in year 10 occurred because all the girls were talking amongst themselves about what a 'Selfish Twat' the head is. However, Autistic people have a habit of speaking their minds openly so Goddaughter shouted at the head that she was a 'Selfish Twat' instead of keeping her opinions to herself. What should have happened is the SENCO should have been called and moved Goddaughter to a room hence told her to write an instant Apology letter to the Head This would have made Goddaughter aware had done and given her the option to remedy her actions. No the school acted in a inappropriate manner firstly by instantly placing her in to isolation for the remainder of the day and registering the isolation. Then the school brought this incident up in the year 10/11 assembly by highlighting the unacceptable conduct of some girls with the head of year 11 looking directly at Goddaughter.

The second incident (the broken chair one) happened in year 11. Goddaughter was texting the 'Boy' who had been bombarding her with texts for three days about waiting outside the gates for her at 3.30 .
The school have an 'instant' 1hr after school detention policy for use of a mobile phone in class. The Math's teacher thus walks over to her, pulls the phone directly out of her hand informing her and the class of her 1hr instant detention. Guess what 'Bingo' Goddaughter gets up, kicks her chair and accidentally breaks it. This results in a three day External Exclusion.

Again what should have happened here, is that the Math's teacher should have contacted the SENCO through her phone on her desk about Goddaughters use of the mobile in the lesson. The SENCO should then have collected Goddaughter from the classroom, talked to her for a few minutes and then asked her to hand over the phone. After that the SENCO should inform her of the sanction for her actions. That being an 'instant' after school detention. This is surely the correct way to diffuse a situation with an Autistic girl. An Autistic person is likely to act differently, to how a Neuro-typical person might in instantly understanding the consequences of showing their frustration, through an inappropriate action.

Please don't be nasty and unsympathetic towards her, by trying to paint her as someone who is reaping what they sowed through her actions.

The two school incidents may be relevant to whether or not the school is prepared to go the extra mile for her, but they really aren't the key issues here.

And is your account of what "should have happened" actually what is documented in any formal support plan, or is it an expectation that you have personally? Without a formal agreed plan for what to do in those situations, the teachers will have (quite reasonably) followed their standard processes. If there was a plan and it wasn't followed, that's a different issue.

To be honest, if anyone had behaved like that at the school I attended, they would have been disciplined. Not necessarily removed from the school or told not to come back, but they would have received clear disciplinary action.

It seems your quick to blame everyone else for her actions.

Autistic or not she isn’t above the school rules and that certainly doesn’t justify calling the head a selfish twat!

But if you believe the SEN support is so poor then why would you want to fight for her to stay there?