to think doing the "right" thing has bitten us firmly on the bum

[dontpokethemommabear]

Earlier in the year I became concerned that my DS 14 was getting involved in drugs. I searched his room, talked to him at length, talked to the school, made referrals for local support services and engaged with our multi-agency referral unit to set up as much help as possible. DS maintained he wasn’t doing anything wrong and the other adults/ professionals believed him but after a week of raising concerns and talking regularly with school pastoral team, I found some cannabis in his room.

I contacted the various agencies I’d already made contact with, told them the situation had escalated and asked for help. I told school and I took the drugs to the Police Station. I self-referred to Social Services and asked for help there too.
All of which I truly believed to be the right thing to do. The full stop that he needed and a strong message to whoever was supplying the weed that this boy has a parent that won’t turn a blind eye and brush this under the carpet.
Three days later, he was suspended from school and the following week, permanently excluded.

The Headteacher sited the school policy that considers anything to do with drugs to be a reason for permanent exclusion on a first offence and that was that.

I’ve already been to the Governors appeal and they upheld the HT’s decision. Reason again being that the policy states this a circumstance where the HT can choose to permanently exclude a child.

I’m now awaiting the opportunity to appeal to the Independent Board at the local authority.

The police aren’t charging him. He had no drugs on him in school.

He’s got a pending ADHD diagnosis and has experienced 4 of the 10 Adverse Childhood Experiences so has measurable childhood trauma.
At school he had a great record, is predicted 6-7’s at GCSE and was well liked by all his teachers.

The whole experience is so incredibly far from what I thought would happen.

Our social worker, the police and other professionals on the original strategy board all believe this to be a case of Child Criminal Exploitation which I agree with.

My son has been groomed to do this and despite all the extenuating circumstances the school have simply washed their hands of him.
As it stands now, he has been out of education for over 7 weeks and there is nowhere else for him to go. None of the Pupil Referral units have any space because the number of children being excluded has skyrocketed and the Local Authority don’t have capacity to despite their legal responsibility to provide education.

I’ve waited weeks before posting here as I really hoped I’d be able to sort it out but it’s like banging my head on a wall.

Does anyone have any experience of the independent review stage or advice that could help me source any kind of education provision for him.

Edited by MNHQ: OP has asked if readers wouldn't mind reading her update to the thread before commenting - she apologises for the unintentional drip-feed here. Thanks, all.

Are you the birth parent? Do you have ADHD? Are you struggling with any mental health issues?

Plenty of kids smoke weed. Parents handle it at home. Once you kick up an official fuss the school will do something like this. They are just covering their own backside. It is not normal to report your own child in this way (unless there is a massive county line backstory?)

I think you just need to apologise to your DS and try and get him into another school asap whilst simultaneously appealing. He sounds like a nice boy who was going to do well and is well liked and just made a mistake.

You have reacted to this in a crazy way, huge over reaction to a bit of weed. All you needed to do is throw it away and have an honest, calm, open talk to your son about it. Instead you have gone all in and taken a wrecking ball to his life.

Poor lad.

Oh my god you have ruined his life. Why on earth did you feel the need to go to the police, what if they had charged him? I don't know many teenagers who don't smoke weed. He would have potentially got a criminal record! It wasn't exactly like he he had kilos of cocaine under his bed, could you not have just flushed the weed down the loo and grounded him?!

As for his education I hope you're well off enough to afford private school. Poor lad having to change schools, miss out on a proper education, potentially loose his friends and almost getting a criminal record all because he was doing what 90 percent of teenagers do.

I'm gutted for him, he's a kid, they make mistakes, what on earth where you thinking.

Edited as quoted wrong poster

I searched his room, talked to him at length, talked to the school, made referrals for local support services and engaged with our multi-agency referral unit to set up as much help as possible.

I contacted the various agencies I’d already made contact with, told them the situation had escalated and asked for help. I told school and I took the drugs to the Police Station. I self-referred to Social Services and asked for help there too.

All that over a bit of weed?! Unless we’re talking Snoop Dogg levels of use that is a ridiculously over the top reaction. I mean it’s too late to take it back now but good grief.

Are you able to throw some money at the problem? Can you engage a private tutor or enrol him in gcse classes at the local adult education college? In the meantime you can attempt home schooling, post pandemic there are loads of online resources you can use.

I think the OP has cottoned on the concept her “doing the right thing” was in fact the wrong thing. She doesn’t need half of mumsnet chiding her for it and she didn’t ask for opinions on the reasonableness of her actions. She asked for help in overturning HT’s decision and getting child back to school.

I really hope you’ve been home educating in the last seven weeks and hired tutors and have not compounded the issue by letting his eduction slip

Have you let the Pope know yet? Or King Charles?

You have really fucked up, OP.

Unless it's murder or rape, there is never any excuse for grassing on your own family.

She’s literally going to have to fall on her sword. Say it was her and she behaved badly, over reacted, it was a small bit of weed, he has never taken it before or used it , that he found it at school, but I don’t think he’s getting back in, shes done too too much to ensure he doesn’t.

police, school social services, multi agency referrals. And multiple times. I’m not sure he can come back from it. She’s literally acted like he’s Pablo Escobar

Do give the OP a break, if this is all the facts and there’s no back story attached, they were obviously doing what they believed to be the best thing to protect their child from choices that could influence his life path. There’s plenty of us parents out there who wouldn’t just be cool about it or able to just sort at a home level. Think the OP is probably suffering enough from seeing the consequences of her actions. Helpful advice is probably needed more than a critique of her actions.

I am surprised that the school has permanently excluded him if there was no evidence of drug possession or use at school. I agree with other posters that your reaction was extreme. Talking to school and other agencies before having any evidence that he was using drugs, and then everything that followed due to finding a small amount of weed in his room. Of course you were right to be concerned about it but could you not have dealt with it yourself, without involving school, the police etc. You didn’t find a huge stash suggestive of your son dealing drugs and being groomed, it was a small amount. Sounds more like experimentation/ boredom, not grooming. Have you tried approaching other schools in the area? The local authority also have a responsibility to your son and his education.

Gosh, poor OP. Clearly she didn't intend all this to happen. She probably just thought the school/police would give her son a stern talking to and this would be far more effective than if she tried to deal with it herself. I don't think that's an unreasonable assumption.

Op, try to avoid your DS going to a PRU - he will learn far worse habits there. I think appealing the school's decision is your best bet. Be sure to mention that your DS is awaiting an ADHD assessment. Children with ADHD do tend to mature more slowly, and are prone to impulsive behaviour, so hopefully the school will give him a second chance. I'm amazed the school have excluded him over a small amount of cannabis at home. It doesn't really encourage parents to be honest about any other difficulties they may encounter.

Oh heck, you've really got carried away with this.
This should have been kept within the family home and dealt with by parents, not the police, school and social.
Poor lad.
You have massively failed your son by doing this. 14 year olds do experiment, no it's far from ideal but this is where parenting comes in!!!! We should be wanting our children to trust us and be able to talk to us, tell us problems or just generally be open and honest with us. Were you hoping to scare the living daylights out of him? Make him so scared that he'll never put a foot wrong again? How was your relationship prior to this? Why couldn't he trust you to tell you when you brought this up? Did he know you would fly off the handle?!
You will have to contact every single school, within a larger area to you. You will have to speak to private schools. Contact LA every single day.
You HAVE to sort this out for your son.

What were you expecting to happen you absolute muppet?

She asked for help in overturning HT’s decision and getting child back to school.

She's already appealed to the governor who backed HT and is planning an appeal to Independent Board at the local authority.

I'd be focused on LEA and how they are going to support his education in meantime and at same time apply to private and state schools and look on on-line learning options.

Priority should be getting him back into some kind of education - not sure same school is going to happen or that's actually best thing - would depend on how they treat him.

I'm inclined not to believe it at all.

You are saying he was groomed to use cannabis? By an older kid, do you have ability to speak to their parents?
He needs to be in education and unless he's massively disruptive then another school should take him. It's a crucial time if he's in GCSE years or coming up to them. Don't criminalise him, he'll end up not even wanting to go to anything and PRU would be worse than school.
Tell him you'll help him in any way to cut down smoking, for health and financial reasons. Where does he get the money for the weed? Tell him if he needs money he should get a part time job but school needs to take priority. Don't let the weed thing cloud your judgement of him going forward. It's really common to experiment though I know it's hard.

I'm confused why all of these agency were involved for a small amount of cannabis?

Is it the case that everyone, including school think that something much more serious was going on?

Why was a social worker involved?
Why were the police involved?

Social workers can't get kids in to school or pay for tuition. It's all down to the LEA to provide education.

Just realised that they were involved even before you found anything.

Given as social services are so stretched at the moment was there another reason they were involved?

Okay, my bad for misconception, but they should have influence? Advocate? Ask for some type of funding?

Talk bout lighting a candle with a flamethrower. I hope your relationship with your son survives the fall-out. Didn't you realise that once you involve the School and Government Agencies, you don't get to walk things back, when it all gets too real. They have to follow procedure, and you're now left to metaphorically "shovel the shit from the horse that bolted". Unfortunately, this will probably follow him if he was to remain at the same school, you probably should be looking at other options for him.

Unless you're hiding a massive drip feed about hardened criminal adults grooming him as a runner, and your worried about his safety, you lit him on fire. Presumably, with all these meetings with the School, Police, and SS you were given some indication of what the procedural outcomes would be? Or did you just naively wade in and damn the consequences. I feel sorry for you OP, you're obviously in over your head. I feel more sympathy for your DS.

What does your DS other parent say about the situation. Are they present? If so, Did they support this course of action?