Banned from school event.

[Wuzzlew]

Help!

My child has had a terrible time at school and technically leaves next Wednesday after final GCSE Exam.

School contacted me yesterday to say that due to poor behaviour choices they were no longer allowed to attend a series of after school or out of school leavers events.

However, there is also an awards ceremony next Friday for 1 hour. They have also been banned from this.

My child has significant SEN.

My issue is, which I’ve slept on and still can’t decide what to do is that they don’t want me tell my child until after their final exam.

Whilst this is sensible to allow them to focus on their remaining GCSE’s, it also seems cruel.

My child has chosen and selected gifts and written lovely letters to all their teachers which they are hoping to give out after the assembly.

They keep talking about the assembly to me and today when I collected them, mentioned how excited they were about the upcoming leavers events to teaching staff.

I feel like my choice is, tell them and potentially screw up their final GCSE’s as they probably won’t attend or let them go around school excitedly talking about events they are not going to be part of until the end of next week.

AIBU to think that I have been put in an impossible position and what would you do?

This is dreadful - you only need to know the 'intricacies' of a small percentage who have additional needs.

This is dreadful - you only need to know the 'intricacies' of a small percentage who have additional needs

Additional needs can cover quite a range, and applies to cover lessons as well. If anything goes wrong in a lesson it will be down to the teacher for not having read the information.

I'm assuming here that all this info is available on the roll-taking system.

@wildfirewonder Do you think 30% is a small percentage?

One class has 25 students with 3 strategies per child. Sorry no I cannot remember or apply 75 strategies every lesson. (some do overlap but many don't).

The information is all available but it's too much information to cope with.

Some of the situations you've described like changing teacher with no warning are not bad school choices, they're just things that happen in school because people are off. Sorry we can't warn students about that because we don't usually know until 8.30am and then scramble cover and are teaching.

The incident with him being surrounded does sound unpleasant to witness. What would your ideal solution have been? We sometimes have to do this when a student is harming themselves or others. It's horrible but we can't let students go round the school damaging things.

Time to go in strong now. I wouldn’t accept this. And I wouldn’t accept being excluded from prom.

Has the other child been excluded from attending? I’d be finding that one out for sure and either way, citing the EA2010.

I’m a head of year. Was your son given any formal warning that his behaviour could result in him getting banned from end of year activities? We had a couple of pockets of bad behaviour in year 11 just before Easter. All students involved were sat down and it was made clear that if they continued to make poor behaviour choices and disrupting the learning of others, their invitation the the leavers assembly and/or prom would be revoked. Parents were also informed of the conversation. Consequently, if it had been needed, the banning from the prom would not have come as a surprise.

That being said, it would have to have been something pretty awful to ban a student from a school event (such as an assembly) on school premises in school hours unless I thought they would maliciously disrupt it for others.

OP I think you need to email the school and attempt to try to tug on their heartstrings by saying exactly what you have written in your post:
My child has chosen and selected gifts and written lovely letters to all their teachers which they are hoping to give out after the assembly.

They keep talking about the assembly to me and today when I collected them, mentioned how excited they were about the upcoming leavers events to teaching staff.

If that doesn't work, maybe mention to the school about you potentially going to the media, and/or your MP.

I think this is really really horrible of the school.

It's a really big deal to children to attend these things. What a crappy way to finish your school days. Will be horrid for your kids self esteem.

As others have mentioned, poor behaviour or poor Sen management?

Im usually laid back about letting school do as they see fit but this doesn't sit right with me at all.

This is maybe already answered as I haven't rtft but did they lay out the removal of these events as a consequence to behaviour prior? Is this the way they usually deal with poor behaviour?

I think I would meet with the pastoral care / head / senco, whoever you feel happiest taking to. It seems so u fair on your child.

OP
This is heartbreaking and sounds vindictive.

Should you tell him? No, you can't. He's got to have the best chance possible of doing the best he can in the exams. The school have ruined his leaving events, he doesn't need exams and future opportunities ruined too.

I haven't seen if the school gave him warnings about his behaviour with a consequence being that he could be excluded from the assembly etc? Or if he was on a final warning? I think that's important to the advice people are giving (not that that's the focus of your question, but everybody finds it unfair, so wants to help),

I've never been to a leavers assembly so not sure how they work. Could a compromise be that you are also there and he sits with you not other pupils? I mean it's problematic too but better then not being there.

I think too that you should explain to the school now that he's already prepared gifts/cards for staff and has had it for a while, so they don't think it's a way to get him into the assembly and the rest.

I have more to say but honestly, this is just heartbreaking. Fight the fuckers on this. Because they are f*ckers for excluding him from this when he's not a threat.

No. Do not tell them before their exams.

and use this time to fight it.

When I taught I did know the kids from my regular classes who had additional needs that were known to require non-standard management based on experience of prior events in school.

30% is 60 kids from your 200, so already we are talking about a much smaller number than you originally claimed. Of those 60 kids, only some will have a very specific need in terms of response.

I do not think it is too much to expect a school to deploy an approach of 'last time we did this to Fred it resulted in serious escalation so we no longer do it'.

That depends on the child and level.of SEN .

*My heart is broken into a million tiny pieces and after 5 long years of fighting and putting my life on hold, I was counting down to next week when we could say goodbye and move on with our lives and have closure from what has been a truly awful experience.

I know my child needs this goodbye. I need this goodbye. I desperately want that to happen for them for us but I just don’t think it will.*

This is such a powerful thing you have written. I'm so sorry.
Would writing this to a sympathetic member of staff potentially make a difference?

At the risk of inviting a lot of criticism here....does his SEND mean they are free from the consequences of their behaviour? My daughter is SEND and I've always encouraged the school to use consequences if she refuses to work or demonstrates other behavioural issues. I believe she is well supported (to the extent a school can reasonably support one child amongst 31 others in a class), and we promote good routines at home. I agree it's a sh*y situation and I'm sorry for how it will make you and them feel, but you possibly need to reflect on their behaviour over the years. Is one snapshot argument in front of a visitor the reason they are not allowed to come? Or is it a pattern of poor and disruptive behaviour that is now coming home to roost? Possibly it isn't and the school is genuinely discriminatory, but it's important to be realistic as they are about to head out into the wide world where a ban from an assembly is the least of their issues.

I see no one here saying SEN men's no consequences .

I see many people saying it's a factor that must be considered when dealing with a child with complex needs .

More and more , education isn't a one size fits all but many schools pitt themselves against pupils with SEN and their parents by trying to force kids into a system they don't understand

Square pegs round holes . And it doesn't have to be like that - if schools showed some flexibility and employed decent sencos I think they could save money and grief - but the mind set is "they must fit in and we will make them "

Madness .

It’s quite possible that a child’s needs can’t be appropriately met in mainstream schools, but that isn’t the fault of the schools and it especially isn’t the fault of the individual teachers within them that are left to deal with situations that they are not trained for or paid for or supported with.

You’re making it sounds as if schools just can’t be bothered and are leaving children to flounder just for shits and giggles when the reality is that they simply do not have the resources to provide what is needed. That can be the situation no matter what is ‘supposed’ to happen. Teachers can’t just pull extra resources, including extra staff, out if their arses.

It’s also worth pointing out that specialist provision doesn’t automatically mean that teachers and TA’s won’t be hit, spat at, kicked, sworn at etc. These things happen regularly in special schools. We can provide the best possible environment for children with behavioural difficulties but we can’t eliminate the symptoms of their disabilities. So if these things still happen in a low demand environment with few expectations and enough staff and enough space to effectively deal with problems, what hope do those in mainstream have?

It is not realistic to expect mainstream schools to be able to cater to the needs of all children with SEN while still expecting them to provide the best possible education for the children without. We do not live in an ideal world.