To think HE is best option at this point

[SlowerMovingVehicle]

DD13 and a couple of friends now have leave-early passes at school so they miss 3 minutes of every lesson, to get to next classroom early and avoid being shoved, pushed and sworn at in the corridors by the older kids.

That's 90 minutes a week she's missing because apparently thugs must be Included at all costs and cannot be sent home or disciplined.

With very dodgy area, blades being carried and low level bullying, I feel like an irresponsible parent sending her there, no matter how hard the teachers work, they are undermining it all by pandering to the mob.

No other option and LA worse than useless. Aibu to think another 3 years of this is not sustainable and I might as well pull her out now?

How’s she coping? Does she want to be there?

I wouldn't worry that those 3 mins are valuable time, they will not be learning time. But yeah it sounds like a shit show.

Those minutes aren't learning time.

Most classes take at least 7 mins to pack up. If she packs up quickly she won't have a problem at all.

The three minutes will be packing away time - no active teaching is done in the final three minutes of a lesson.

Are you certain the school does nothing to reprimand and deal with those who shove and swear at other students when informed about it? Maybe they don't, but sounds unusual.

I was bullied by older kids at an expensive private school as a child. It's not right, but I am not sure it's always easy to avoid unpleasant situations all the time in life.

The school should challenge active bullying tho definitely. Amazed they don't.

Is it an academy or maintained school? This will determine who you complain to or who you can expect support from.

Bythefireside, not great tbh. Withdrawn and sulky but doesn't really want to leave as has small group of friends there. Just found out 1 of them might be moving schools though. They're all full/oversubscribed and not necessarily any better, it's pretty hopeless.

No advice but it's ridiculous. It seems bullies and thugs are allowed to get away with murder at school. The schools need to come down hard on these kids who are disruptive.

Aarla, state maintained. Just feel I am running out of options. The speed at which the attendance officer suggested the leave early pass (no mention of disciplining the kids responsible), the total brushing off of my concerns about knives and the disgusting behaviour of these kids on public transport leads me to think the school is powerless. It's the kind of school where you get rewarded for showing up, never mind if you've been vaping in the toilets all day.

As it is maintained you could try your councillor. LA’s, in my experience do act when a councillor is involved.
Have you read the school’s behaviour policy ( school website)? This sets out what the school agrees to do. Are they following it? Challenge them through a complaints process if not.

Also, use the school’s complaints procedure (on their website) to express your concern and escalate through the policy so that governors are involved in trying to resolve this. By following the complaints procedure fully , you can go to OFSTED.
Remember, you and those dealing with the complaint can't share information with you about any other child, only your ow.

Home Ed is great but your teen has to be on board as it’s a big change for them. Maybe look up some local groups on Facebook.

I'm assuming the attendance officer is organizing the passes to resolve attendance issues from finding the agro from older years too much?
I'm also assuming if you're living in a dodgy area with poor schools, it's because you don't have options.

Are you able and willing to find ways of going all over the show to access resources inc other HE folks? It makes a major difference.

Do you know enough of what HE will entail, how you'd achieve it and future exam costs etc, and can you create a position to make it work and still balance out working etc? (Not that I did at the outset!)

We looked at what would the absolute worst that HE could be like, and how it compared, and the answer was even if it went wrong it just couldn't be worse, but we were looking at survival by then.
But crucially DC wanted anything other than what they were going through, making all the future challenges plausible to overcome.
We jumped based on that, and it turned out to be life changing and the best thing we ever did.

Why have only 4 of them got passes.what about the rest of the class, do they just have to put up with it?

Elleherd, HE also looks fairly tricky tbh. There would be lots of time in front of devices, she hates trying new things/meeting new people and is totally unsporty. I wfh and it'll get stressy. Plus she's now into the teen phase and generally uncooperative with me. She does respond well to the very good teachers though, and is learning.

I think I'll wait a few weeks to see how she is, but if I hear about another knife carrying incident, will have to think seriously what to do.

LA useless, must be one of the worst in the country, and police not dealing with prevention as the thugs' older siblings keeping them extremely busy.

According to dd there are just her friends, about 7 in the class, who behave like civilised human beings, the rest are the type you would sit on the downstairs deck of the bus to avoid. In fact she walks home and doesn't get the bus, to avoid them completely. The language alone is just vile and never corrected.

IME as long as they're getting exercise, unsporty only matters at school.
Totally get the rottenness of the situation, but no, home ed doesn't sound like a good fit currently.
If she's coping, learning and responding well to good teachers then I'd be doing what you can to encourage her resilience to crap environments as best you can, and monitor how likely her becoming a direct target of thug life, or being attracted into that circle is.

All mine was getting was repeating yr 6, trying to get a large proportion of low sats grades up to speed, and learning crude insults in different languages hurled at him. He stood out and ended up a direct target of the knife (and worse) carriers, suffering escalating injuries and losing teachers of long term sick as a result of witnessing him being attacked.

School banned him from using the bus or walking, for his own safety. At the lowest point armed police were escorting him to me in the car park.
We had the same issues with older siblings as well as cohort keeping the police busy. Some of his then persecutors are now serving life and some of the older brothers dead. They were as failed by school and LA as he was.

While I wouldn't change any of what we did about it all, because of my circumstances that made that our school option, I did basically end up exchanging my future prospects for him to have decent ones through home ed.

It was right in our situation, but something else to chuck into the equation while working futures out.

Exactly this situation in Scotland. Schools are not allowed to reprimand, just have ‘restorative conversations’. It’s basically state sponsored child abuse.

I would highly recommend going in all guns blazing, asking for a written record of any conversations to be agreed, ask how they are safeguarding your child, where their risk assessment is, complain, complain, complain and complain to the education department and ask to be moved schools (name the school you want your child to be moved to). If you make yourself a thorn in their side they are much more likely to take action to get you off their backs. It’s shouldn’t be like this but it is. We pay taxes for state schooling and that schooling ought to be adequately safe.

Thanks Elleherd. Sorry to hear what your ds had to go through. The world has gone insane.

She'll never get dragged into it, I'll make sure of that. And they apparently did expel two found using drugs on the premises. It's just her world is so small, as too afraid to let her go anywhere because of vile behaviours.

I am all for HE if child has MH issues, and all avenues have been exhausted.
but in this instance l don't think it warrants HE.
The situation is obviously not ideal but you could end up having your daughter at home twenty four seven and not actually doing a great deal educational wise, which could then lead to further issues and arguments.
You need to be self disciplined, organised, resourceful and determined to be able to study efficiently from home. Does.your daughter posess those skills?