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 agree. If they have been banned from the prom due to aggressive disruptive behaviour fair enough because they could ruin the night for others , but to ban kids because their attendance has been poor due to illness is unfair.

And this is the problem not being addressed isn’t it? My son and his gf are bloody relieved that the boy who has made their lives absolute hell these last few months has been excluded from the prom due to behaviour. Otherwise they wouldn’t have been going and how is that fair?

Excluding on attendance is ridiculous but excluding on behaviour is surely to be expected for those kids who’ve made students and teachers feel unsafe while at school?

I just wrote a massive post and lost it due to a page reload but you said it in fewer words anyway!

Absences are categorised as ‘Authorised’ and ‘Unauthorised’, so surely schools could just exclude authorised absences from their prom eligibility calculations (rather than use overall attendance percentages)? Students on reduced timetables (like the young carer in the article) should similarly have their prom eligibility attendance individually calculated according to whatever ‘reasonable adaptions’ were agreed.

My DD’s attendance was 20% the year she had chemo - I probably would’ve gone Full Compo Face in the local paper if she were excluded from fun school events after reaching remission due to her overall attendance record! Thankfully her school were not that heartless (and she’ll probably never have more than 94% attendance due to multiple half day absences for hospital appointments).

Fair enough excluding persistently extremely poorly behaved students (violence, drug possession etc) from prom/disco, it reflects the same sort of consequence that happens to adults who behave similarly (eg getting kicked out of nightclubs/barred from multiple pubs under the Pub Watch scheme) and the exclusion is motivated by the need to keep other attendees safe.

But being excluded due to circumstances caused by illness, SEN or a difficult home situation (eg not always having a PE kit because your homeless family is squeezed into one hotel room with no access to laundry facilities) is just needlessly cruel and does nothing to improve the prom experience for the kids with exemplary records.

I generally support schools that have a clear merit/demerit system but is has to be fairly and consistently applied and the school has to dedicate resources to mitigating any circumstances that unfairly penalise students who are trying their best in challenging circumstances, otherwise the sanctioned kids end up demoralised and demotivated and that leads to even poorer attendance (and in some cases, even more disruptive behaviour).

Cuts to public services/post covid difficulties/CoL have dumped a lot of additional shit on the doorsteps of schools and some schools are doing much better at handling those challenges than others.

Teens who forget to bring things in or who are absent due to circumstances beyond their control shouldn’t be lumped in with the small minority of teens that really do put the safety and wellbeing of the majority of students (and staff!) at risk.

If you look news articles for Athena learning trust Cornwall they are a few.
A boy in my son's year was put in reflection all day every day for 9 months for pulling a fire alarm as a joke in September. I get that it was wrong a punishment was the right move but not 9 months of it. Reflection is when they go to a room and work from a booklet that has no link to their current curriculum. He wasn't even included in the year 11 leavers book.
Children have been punished for yawning. A child in reflection was suspended for removing his pen from the paper.
I get emailed an "intelligence event" every time my children go to the toilet. After they have been to the toilet they need to take time out of their break time or lunch time to go for a toilet chat to discuss why they went to the toilet during lesson time because they should "plan their bladder movements" if they don't go to the meeting they get a suspension. I did have toilet passes for my girls to go to the toilet without being questioned during their periods but from September I will need a doctors letter to prove they need a toilet pass. Doctors are now refusing to do letter for all the schools silly requests unless the schools are willing to pay for it themselves 🤷🏻‍♀️
They have now introduced a ticket system why if you want to talk to a teacher you need to request a ticket to do so.
It's beyond a joke.

If anyone wondered why we have a child mental health crisis....Hope there will be some class actions for personal injury against the MATs pushing these regimes.

Right, but as you point out the problems are caused by a small minority of the students ruining it for the majority. This school seems to have excluded half the students from attending prom, which would suggest the problem is more likely to be with the school and its policies regarding attendance.

Just wanted to point out again...

50% of pupils attending the rebels prom (not sure if this is even accurate) does not equate to 50% of pupils not being allowed to attend the main school prom. The rebels prom was open to all Yr11 pupils to attend. I don't think any figure has been given as to how many pupils were not allowed to attend the school event?

Also noticed a couple of people making reference to Athena schools, Bodmin college is not part of Athena they are under CELT.

Try having a child with multiple and complex needs who is sometimes unable to meet age typical expectations due to these disabilities, all documented by their Paediatrician, but who is subject to savage penalties for minor misdemeanors. This is now causing mental health problems and school avoidance because of the hostility of the regime. Totally counterproductive and damaging, but apparently the 'system' cannot be adjusted to take account of disabilities. The 'system' is more important than causing harm to vulnerable children.

And as for the Orwellian language and lack of evidence base for these ridiculous regimes.

Jeez at the poster whose kids have had sanctions by mistake and they've refused to remove them. DD1 had a couple of behaviour corrections recently and asked me to check on the parent app as she was unsure how long she would have to stay after school. I could see two for the same thing - just rang the school to find out what time she needed picking up (not to play hell on but just to work out the logistics as we've got multiple school runs this year) and the second the student support staff spotted the double sanction she removed one of them as a staff member had rang down to student support to ask them to log it on the system, but had then got distracted and put it on themself as well.