Denied Prom Tickets attendance

[Fantasticday74]

So I have seen a fair few cases where teens have been denied Prom Tickets for not meeting school criteria. Ok some it s fairly clear that the school may have been justified in making that decision. However there have been a few cases that to me feels wrong and of course this is only the cases who went to press etc
Teen 1 denied Prom Ticket due to poor attendance caused by Chrohns Disease.
Teen 2 denied Prom due to minor disruption caused by being ND. ADHD.
Numerous kids receiving Medical Needs Tuition but still on role at school not receiving an invite including DD.
I feel from groups I am on so many are penalised in this way.
So AIBU to think schools should take disability and Medical Conditions into account before denying kids their Prom.

Children who miss school due to health issues should not be included in the prom ban imo. That's outside of their control and to me, it seems a bit like punishing a child for being ill. If they've a genuine medical issue, then it's to be expected the kid may miss some time at school.

I completely agree but I’ve never known anyone to be banned from a prom due to illness.
Even without illnesses the prom is not usually based solely on attendance and it takes a lot to be banned from it.

I know many students in various schools who’ve had awful attendance, been expelled and sent to PRUs and then returned but sorted their behaviour out enough to attend.

Obviously some schools have stricter policies than others and it’s not fair to the quiet students who just go to school and get on with it if those with bad behaviour or constantly truanting from school get to go too.

But IME the school encourages students to go to prom and use it as a carrot for good behaviour and the ones that don’t get to go is because of other things not just based on their attendance because they have an illness.

Even without illnesses the prom is not usually based solely on attendance and it takes a lot to be banned from it.

In a lot of schools attendance is a set criteria. In DD’s school it was 98% attendance plus no behaviour issues or the likes.

In schools that get it wrong they often get ou very wrong. Lots of schools get it right, but in my experience the ones that get it wrong can often massively (and repeatedly) get it wrong.

This is yet another example of discrimination against the sick and disabled. It's the opposite of inclusion and forms part of a worrying trend.
It also sets the example to children that the sick and disabled are not welcome in society unless they somehow make themselves less vulnerable.
Mind you society's attitude in general to people with chronic health issues is pretty disgusting.

Yes that is my fear.

Our schools was 95% attendance and other requirements like behaviour points and getting firms signed off. And if you missed one criteria you didn't go.

Schools don't want to upset children and parents. If a human mistake has been made, they will rectify it. More often, there is more to the story and schools do not comment or get into tit-for-tat arguments on sm or defend themselves because they are legally advised against it. I always think - what is more likely? Are the teachers cackling in the staffroom because they have devastated a child with acute medical needs, or is there a bit more to this that the child or the parent doesn't know about or is concealing?

A nearby school was in the local press recently with a similar story - a boy who had turned up, all happy in his expensive suit and so on, only to be turned away at the door. Nobody had told him he wasn't invited so he was embarrassed and devastated, denied this important right of passage. The school didn't comment and sm comments were brutal. But a family member teaches there - a long history of challenging and disruptive behaviour, told that he was in danger of losing his place at prom many times, denied a ticket when he tried to buy one. But turned up anyway.

Considering our local ghastly MAT school who have umpteen reasons to block prom tickets for the kids had to cut their prom short as there were kids there who trashed the place... they really aren't punishing the real arsehole contingent with these rules lots of the time. One of my kids is usually in the 99% attendance levels, the other has a lot of medical and therapy appointments - but is the most utterly committed student and incredibly well behaved (her ASD means she fixates on following rules so dream kid to have in class).

Kids' current school have a fun day at the end of the year where they take suggestions from the kids as to what to do, and will bring in things like bouncy castles etc if that's what the kids choose - and they run a set of chances that kids have to lose all of if they want to blow their go at attending it. This year, in the heatwave, for some selfless reason, the Head has volunteered to stand and let the kids lob cold wet sponges at him among other stuff.

The Head Teacher’s attitude to sickness and disability is the key to a schools general attitude I’ve always found.

in all the years I worked in learning support we were much much more effective in schools where the HT understood, and wanted to understand, the conditions affecting their students.

When you had HT’s who had the attitude that a lot of people have toward disability then the outcomes were much poorer because their attitude tended to prevail through the school.

They were nearly always the schools that put a massive amount into attendance awards and reward bollocks. With zero leeway for children with known issues.

I often think there's more to these stories when I read them

This ^^

Very few schools are that stupid and most are fully aware of discrimination issues - aware, too, that some parents of kids denied something tend to lash out.
It might look bad on the face of it, but personally I'd want full details before rushing to condemn

The school were given an opportunity to comment but they declined.to me that suggests they realise they screwed up

Not necessarily; there's often little to be gained by getting into a tit for tat, especially online, and there's every likelihood they'll have explained it all to the family behind the scenes - though the version the family then choose to broadcast can sometimes differ

How are schools getting away with this blatant discrimination?

The reality is that schools don’t want kids with Sen or medical needs. They take up funds (Sen funding is not ring fenced so can be used for something else if no Sen kids), make absense statistics for ofsted look bad and also are more likely (though not always) to get lower grades on exams, it’s basically lose-lose. If a school has a bad name for Sen it’s a win as they get less Sen kids going there

Please don't generalise. Where I work kids with medical issues would 100% get to the prom, same for mental health issues etc. We had a few this year with really low attendance who went.

Those with low attendance that didn't go were those who didn't come in to school because of poor behaviour, violence etc.

We had one parental complaint that her precious boy could not attend - one of our criteria (sent to parents in September) is that all coursework much be completed. He had done none of his BTEC coursework and mum thought it appalling that he wasn't allowed because of it. There was no reason for him not to do it - school had bent over backwards to help but other than write it for him there was nothing else we could do.

What I mean is don't always believe the stories in the newspapers - there is nearly always more to it

My daughter was denied her prom ticket 2 years ago over attendance

We were put into a refuge for a couple of weeks due to domestic violence. We had court dates, and things like that.

She was distraught and I felt awful for her

Doingmybest12

do you have any idea how hard it is to exclude children?
I don’t see why children who have repeatedly sworn at teachers, regularly been involved in fights and disrupted numerous lessons preventing other children from learning should be allowed to go to their prom.
that’s not ‘mean spirited’ at all.

Attendance should be a factor.

Sorry that should say - attendance shouldn’t be a factor!

The only reason a child should be excluded from a school prom is for extreme bad behaviour that affected other learners. It is disgraceful to penalise children having to attend hospital on a regular basis. If a workplace discriminated like this they would be in trouble. Headteachers act like mini God's and expect their every word to be followed.

I think unless someone’s behaviour has been so bad that they’ve had to be expelled, or are bullies then they should be allowed to go to prom. My friend’s daughter was a bit cheeky to a teacher during the last week of school and she couldn’t go. She had bought a dress, had nails, lashes etc booked . She still got dressed up, had pics taken, went to the place for pics and to see wveryne and then went to the after party.

Fantasticday74
If you want your dd to go to the prom why not contact the school? They may well have assumed that as your dd is off school due to illness that she would not be well enough to attend the prom. In some schools the tickets are sold by pta. It seems odd that you are angry with the school for not inviting her to an event that you say yourself she is unable to attend.

The posters whose automatic response to any form of bigotry is to primly shout "we don't know the full story" need to give their head a wobble.

This always happens. Pp can share personal experience of outrageous racism or ableism, and posters are just desperate to find any possible way to excuse and justify racism and ableism.

Clearly none of you are disabled or have disabled children, or you'd know how appalling discriminatory the school system is towards disability and SEN.
I absolutely know of cases where disabled children with zero behaviour problems and excellent grades were banned from prom simply for being disabled, or for missing school to attend chemotherapy.

I was a perfect child (extremely introverted bookworm who barely ever spoke and was never disruptive, at the top of every class, competing in national chess and maths competitions, labelled as gifted, even attending a special programme for gifted children that involved studying maths and science at a much higher level) but I was in an accident and became severely mobility impaired, and was basically forced to leave school because they just didn't want a disabled student there. They refused point blank to even consider very minor accommodations, like letting me leave class a few minutes early to accommodate for the fact I couldn't physically walk between one classroom and the next on crutches in the five minutes allowed to move between classrooms (which was so short that girls going from the ground floor to the top floor had to really run to be able to make it on time).

As an explanation, her registration status would have been different (probably Dual - Main). On a SIMS Student Analysis report, it only brings up the Single registered students and there is no way of widening the field on that feature.

Somebody who actually deals with data daily would know the difference this makes and could therefore pull a list of everybody on roll with all registration types, but your average HoY, AHT or HT doesn't know this about SIMS.

So it might not be a deliberate slight on your child but more a simple difference between selecting Student Analysis, Student Reports or Find Student and not knowing each one is relevant for different purposes.

Adding to my PP - the mailing apps draw the data from another part of SIMS where registration type is not restricted to Single only.

Absolutely.

There is no link between the Prom and what is happening in school. ( unless the pupil is a danger to themselves or others).

Yes, work on attendance, behaviour, standards of work…with consequences related to these things.

The Prom is a celebration for the end of school, a milestone.

The two are not linked.

I remember one of my DC’s, Y6 at the time, being led in a baby wrist band/rein to school by his out of school child care provider. He was humiliated. I asked the reasons - “because he won’t wear his coat”.

Behaviour which was unsafe walking to school, messing on the road, a danger to himself or others, yes - please put a wrist band on him.
No coat - let him freeze!

I didn't pursue it because DD wasn't well enough and had no desire to attend. I had a good relationship with the school despite all her issues as DD1 was the perfect student. Although she was class of 2020 so no celebration there either.
The whole system though pretty much excluded LA Tutored kids though as the child was required to get a Form signed by every Teacher after meeting all the other criteria too.

Sorry DD2 is LA Tutored child.