Did I over react - world book day

[LankyCranky32]

I don’t want to drip feed so it maybe a long post. This actually happened a few years ago now but came up in conversation with a friend today when we were discussing the upcoming world book day.

DD now in year 5 was in year 2 at the time. She has always had complex medical needs when I say complex I mean IVs at home daily including 12 hour infusions etc open heart surgery, and other complex issues.
at the time world book day was coming around DD had unfortunately been too poorly to attend school and had been in hospital for months without really much end in sight. She wasn’t one to win awards for anything like sports day, star of the week and also wasn’t allowed to be apart of the end of school trip list because of her attendance - I never ever kicked off about any of this just so you know it isn’t like I expect her to get awards for things that she doesn’t excel in.
anyway the week before world book day I had gone to the school to pick up some work and spoke to her teacher and senco. I bought up that DD was working really hard on her costume in her cubicle and it was helping her a lot with the trauma going on at the time, she was doing better but recovering from a very well near fatal infection which meant she has gone through a lot of different things including theatre trips / transfusions as she had been septic.
I told them that I don’t know if they will allow her to come to the world book day assembly but I was going to ask the doctors and if not I would send a picture of her in her WBD costume to the senco email.
fast forward to WBD, the doctors had decided that she could leave for an hour to go to the assembly as long as we took a taxi as she had lines etc in her arm.
I had emailed a picture the day before also.
we arrive and the TA took her in to assembly and dropped her back off to me in reception after. DD looked heart broken I could see it straight away.
when the TA left she started the cry and I asked what was wrong and she said “ I really wanted a bookmark for my costume “
she isn’t spoilt or one for always winning in fact she never had won anything in her time at the school and usually accepted it well.
the receptionists were a bit shocked that she had not won in her class as there wasn’t very many home made costumes and said hers was one of the best they had seen.
she was still crying when the TA came back in to reception, saw she was upset and said why is she upset I explained and her reply had upset me because it wasn’t a “ oh sorry but the other child’s costume was better “- I feel like I would of still been like would it have killed you to give her a bookmark 😅 but would have probably accepted it.
instead she said “ she couldn’t be judged because she wasn’t in school this morning “

I was like but we knew this and I sent the email of the picture, why on earth couldn’t she have been judged.
she then went on to explain that it was the rules and she was only here for the assembly not this morning.

so I did get a bit upset about this I didn’t shout or stuck around to argue because DD was due surgery the next day and wanted to get her back to the hospital to rest asap.
I was visibly annoyed though.
I did not see her class teacher during this only has conversation with the teacher assistant.
I didn’t say anything about the teacher I just said I think it was unfair that the school had known the situation and she was refused to be allowed to be included in the competition.

the next day DD was due to have surgery that afternoon and the school knew this.
In the morning the head teacher called me in as a matter of urgency. when I got to the school he called me in the office and did not wish DD well etc but it was tell me off about my attitude towards world book day and that her class teacher ( who I had never saw ) was left crying and willing to quite teaching because it was very draining having a child as complex in her class and that we needed to “ dehumanise “ DD
I would like to add in the time she had been DD teacher she had not been in class for 65 percent of the time and I had probably had 2 short conversations with her and neither were about DD having problems in the class or anything like that.
I lost the plot at this point and argued with the head teacher, stormed out and told them she wouldn’t be returning.
she did eventually find a new school and has been there since with no arguments.
the local authority however had blamed me for the break down of communication and when we got the new school made comments like “ this new school you have to try and build a good relationship with “
the new school are absolutely great and even make sure if she can’t get an attendance award she gets a no unauthorised absence award etc 😂

I know it must sound so petty now looking back and it wasn’t about her winning it was about her not being allowed to be apart of it if that makes sense.

I think back now the whole school swapping like maybe it was a bit of hasty reaction 😅

YANBU, OP. Ignore the twats who come up with the "if you bend the rules for one you must bend them for all" brigade. Not all children in the school have a critical or life limiting illness.

It was thoughtless at best and spiteful at worst not to give your DD a bookmark for her costume. I'm glad you found a new school and your DD is doing well there.

I would be really upset if a seriously ill child was excluded from judging in this circumstance. It comes across as punishment for something out of the child's control. Poor thing. I don't think you were petty and sounds like the school move was a good decision.

No way, you did not overreact the school were completely in the wrong. As you say they should have judged her- if they’d done that and found the other costume better then fair enough but to not enter her at all is not fair and likely to be not legal (I strongly thing that bring judged on a picture would be a reasonable adjustment under the equalities act). And I would just have given her the sodding bookmark for making the effort to get there- what a load of heartless twats! Can you put in a retrospective complaint to the governors?

Ignore the LA they are just as bad. I very much hope that the new school is better and that your fantastic sounding little girl is doing well xxx

Just no compassion was there, and it's heartbreaking that your dd had to go through that.
They need some lessons it seems on how to be kind and caring.

My sons sen stopped him from being able to manage school for the last year of primary.
He had outside help from a fab organisation and even though he couldn't manage to go back he really wanted to go into school on the last day of yr 6 and say good bye to some teachers and some friends (he has been there since nursery and he was of to special school).
And even though he was still on roll at the school they would not let him!
Will never forget how sad my child was that day!

The first school's communication manner was clearly awful as there was no need to feed back to you about the upset teacher and various badly worded comments seem to have been made. Do we actually know the child was excluded from the judging or was that all based on an off the cuff comment from a TA? Because if a parent had emailed me, I wouldn't necessarily expect a TA to know anything about that and know what judging had taken place. Sometimes people say what they think is the right thing when they're caught off guard and it's not necessarily what would have been said by someone more senior (or what actually happened), especially with more time to think.

Like a pp I'm also not clear on how many children got a bookmark? Regardless, if your child was upset I'd have just got her one anyway - because what's the harm? But I wouldn't necessarily expect her to win the competition regardless (which I appreciate the OP has said she didn't either) and there are likely, sadly, one or two other children in the class going through equally shit times.