To admire the chutzpah of the Bodmin rebel prom?

[Maverick101]

I keep reading threads on here about British school discipline which make my eyes pop. It feels so phenomenally repressive from the outside.
(It's a couple of decades since I lived in the UK )
So I was heartened to read about the Bodmin College rebel prom.
I realise that there will be both supporters and opponents of the school's position here, but I'm interested to see how this sits with those closer to the action (I'm in Oz)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjqqjx9598do

I can't comment on this particular school. But from a general teaching perspective, prom is a massive PITA, and it would be easier all round if students/parents would organise their own! (Mostly they can't, because no venue will have them. This also gives an insight into why prom is such a PITA and why most teachers don't want kids who've racked up multiple behaviour points to be there!)

Prom is a bonus extra, it's not an educational right. If parents cause too much grief, schools will just stop organising anything at all 🤷‍♀️

I think it's perfectly reasonable to bar students from a prom if they've got a genuinely really bad behaviour record of doing serious stuff, but it sounds like this isn't the case here. Barring them for low attendance is ridiculous.

At our school there was the odd person who wasn't allowed to prom because of really serious misbehaviour but almost everyone was allowed. I don't mind it being not permitted if it's "we can't trust you to behave on non-school premises, so you can't come" for one or two pupils, but clearly once you're excluding a massive proportion of the year the policy is disproportionate!

It does sound insane. Where on earth do you go as regards discipline after issuing suspension for asking for a hair bobble.

Stupid, inflexible rules - good on the Rebels, that’s the prom I’d want to be at! (If I went at all - I do think prom is a bit of an over-hyped nonsense that must cause so much stress and expense..)

Oh yes, the inevitable post saying that teachers are leaving the profession because they’re not allowed to commit some random act of petty tyranny. As opposed to, you know, the actual issues forcing teachers out of the profession.

You may have left teaching because you couldn’t prevent some student with a chronic illness from enjoying her prom. But don’t think that you speak for anyone else. Unfortunately, this kind of attitude makes it harder to get parents to “support the school” as the mantra goes.

Their policy is too strict - it needs to exclude students whose behaviour makes them a liability off the school premises, but preventing young carers attending and those with genuine reasons is not on.

It is real life as an adult, if they miss work or other commitments too often, due to illness or something else that isn’t their fault, there are sometimes real world negative consequences.

Students do need to understand that, although it’s a cruel way to deliver this particular lesson.

I hope they had a fabulous time and I strongly suspect it was way better than the school official version somehow....

The school policies sound so bonkers they must have been put together by someone who thinks the Bradford score is an appropriate sanction. (It's widely used in hospitals and other organisations as a punitive measure against staff who are off sick even where there are absolutely genuine reasons.)

It's like nothing has been learned at all from that little pandemic thingie. Plus as yet there's barely any acknowledgement at all by those in authority that people are generally sicker and more vulnerable after COVID, let alone the cost of living crisis...

How judgemental.

These behavioural systems in schools comprising of isolation, reflections, detentions for small things like forgetting a hair band for PE or asking too many questions are ludicrous. Tell me how long you'd last in a job that gave you reflection points for forgetting your pen? Or banned you from the Christmas party because you had been off for three weeks with mental health issues during the year?

My DC go to a school with behaviour issues in a deprived area (mostly well managed). The did you get on the parents group bemoaning this, that and the other. Parents who allow their children to stop attending school because they just don't want to go etc etc. I can see why some schools 'use' prom in the absence of other discipline working and particularly in the absence of parental discipline and boundaries.

I'm not sure about proms anyway. When I finished GCSEs in 1989 we had a leavers party where we all dressed up (minus limos and professional makeup) - but it was just in the school hall and was a glorified disco with a school meal. It was great!!

It sounds very draconian to ban pupils from the prom but I always take these stories with a pinch of salt. The school can’t say anything about the pupils to the press because it would be a breach of confidentiality so we only have one side of the story. Newspapers publish so much bullshit as well.

There are generally two sides to every story.

Forgetting a pen does sound ridiculously trivial.

Teaching a class where a dozen kids have no pen is pretty challenging.

When you look at what kids have actually done to reach behaviour thresholds it can be pretty eye-watering in some cases. Then SEN kids/young carers get caught up.

However, organising an alternative event is rather magnificent and will stand those participating in good stead. To be honest though...maybe the parents should have done that in the first place? Not sure when it became the school's responsibility to organise a leavers' disco?

The problem with articles like this is the school have zero right of reply.

Maybe attendance was a factor but I’m willing to bet most of them were also badly behaved or disruptive.

With regards to someone asking above if they will find anywhere to host the rebels prom, it happened on Friday night. As did the school organised prom.

As a parent of children at the school who have managed to get through the year without any behaviour points or 'resets' (as have many of their peers) I am not sure they are handed out as willy-nilly as some would have us believe. I obviously cannot speak for how fairly every child in year 11 has been treated but I do know of children whose attendance has been affected by genuine illness or injury and they did not lose their place at the prom. I suspect there are two sides to many of these stories and know for a fact there are to some of them.

The school was taken on by a new academy at the end of the last school year, and there have been a lot of changes made. Some for the better, some less so. Some well communicated others very definitely not. The transition process has not been easy. The new trust (it is not the Athena trust the person above is talking about) did come in with a very different approach to uniform and pupil expectations, and at the start seemed to be taking quite a firm hand, although since new SLT have been in place they do seem to be working with the children to help them meet these expectations.

It has always been the case though that children whose behaviour has been below a certain level (negative points/on report etc under the old system) have not been allowed to attend the prom. This is not a new thing and pupils were warned at the start of the summer term they needed to meet certain expectations to be able to attend.

The up to 50% attending the rebels prom mentioned by a previous poster is I think due to the fact that the proms were both held on the same night. All children were invited to the rebels prom, and so those invited to the school run prom 'picked' which event to go to depending on which event they fancied/their friends were going too/their parents wanted them to go to etc. I think it's a real shame that those who did meet the expectations, had to make that choice, how sad for them.

Don't get me wrong, there is a huge amount to unpick about the school and the changes being made, but I do not think some children not being allowed to attend a reward event, they didn't meet the expectations for is the newsworthy part of it.

It is the BBC, the school will have been contacted and offered a right to reply.

‘No wonder teachers are leaving in droves’ is thrown out on every single thread about schools.
Teachers are leaving ‘in droves’ because of poor funding and increase in expectations/hours worked, not because kids wear make up to prom and ask for hair bobbles in a science class.

also admire them, hope it goes well

I always read these with a cynical eye, as I do think it's reasonable to exclude teens from prom to keep teachers and other children safe. At my school there were kids with a history of violent bullying or drug taking etc and it's unfair to expect teachers to deal with this when they're giving up their time. I can't see these issues applying to enough students so they can assemble an alternative prom though, unless I'm missing something and Cornwall has become like 1990s Compton.

The rewards and sanctions for attendance punishes those the most vulnerable kids. the ones with very difficult home lives, trauma and SEND. The young carers like that girl who was interviewed

yes this! I work with care experienced young people, who have significant trauma, multiple moves in home and often education, we have a few who can’t go to prom because of ‘behaviour points’ it’s so cruel - a proper ending of a life experience and a celebration is really important but it’s ended as yet another rejection

I think proms are utterly stupid in general to be honest. The amount of money spent is insane, they’re becoming like American proms. It’s ridiculous in my opinion.

However, attendance rewarding is also disgusting. There are many reasons why a child may struggle to attend school, from disability to continuing illness, issues at home, mental health issues, bullying. I recall a time from school when a lad stopped going to school because of horrendous bullying and the teachers absolutely bollocked him, ignoring the bullying and focusing on the lack of attendance. It’s because it impacts them and their school record. So in this instance, well done to the community for staging an alternative.

Behaviour - fine
Attendance- not if they've got good reason not to attend

She won't have had a suspension for "asking for a hair bobble". Reading through the post this student has obviously had multiple suspensions. Their behaviour is clearly a problem which is minimised by their parent. That doesn't happen lightly - most schools want their suspensions down.

Kids will always downplay their actions. This thread is enlightening - do you know how disruptive this type of behaviours are? Let's say it's a 50 minute lesson - student will stroll in 10 minutes late. They'll be right in the middle of their teach element. The student won't apologise and sit quietly - they'll want a "hair bobble, drink, pen" etc etc. They won't ask politely or quietly, they'll demand and be rude. When they're not given what they want straight away then they'll start to argue back. You've then wasted 10 minutes of lesson because of the behaviour of one student who continues to be a negative presence in the classroom. Schools are judged on their results and when you're facing this behaviour for every lesson it is impactful.

Schools are over a barrel - there is no flexibility in the curriculum because of the standards they are judged on (A8/P8). It is very hard to exclude students now and they get judged on that too. Their resources have been scraped to the bone so their ability to respond is hugely compromised . They have very little in their arsenal to be able to use as a deterrent for poor behaviour. Our school used Prom as this deterrent and actually it worked. There were only 10 students excluded and they were given plenty of warnings. It allows the kids who have behaved to see that their good behaviour has been rewarded and that poor behaviour isn't. This should be a mirror for our society.

I do hope someone cooked up an apposite parody of "Trelawny".

WalksLikeACrab I don't disagree in many ways but it's the ability to differentiate between genuine need and those that just can't be bothered. The school also get a lot of pressure for attendance but again, the resource to address the root cause is not there.

I think schools should be able to send invitations based on behaviour/attendance but , and it's a big but, that becomes an issue when it's a blanket policy they apply indiscriminately.

The high number of pupils attending the rebel prom is concerning, even if some attended by choice.