To feel my Son given an unreasonable isolation day?

[stucky]

I had a call from my DS school to inform me that he was almost suspended for losing a school lanyard. This has resulted in a safeguarding as the lanyards are used to show staff and students that you are allowed on site. The lanyard he lost was a teachers lanyard, which he was pressured to take off of another student and subsequently lost.

My DS (14) has ADHD and really struggles with his memory. He said that he had no idea how important it was, if he had he would never have agreed to take it. I feel that the system, which I was unaware of until this incident, is faulty. It seems crazy to me that a school would use lanyards as toilet passes when there are so methods that could be used. Am I being unreasonable?

If I have this correctly - he was pressured by another student to steal a staff lanyard? The fact he lost it is also of concern, although I am assuming it was lost on school premises not offsite, in which case it is less so.

I appreciate he has ADHD, but he is still responsible for stealing a staff lanyard? In safeguarding/security terms it’s almost a non-event as they can cancel the card on their system and issue the staff member a new one, but he does need to understand the consequences of stealing so an isolation day doesn’t actually seem inappropriate. I would probably ask, however, whether the boy who incited him to do it is also facing isolation?

ADHD is not a get out clause for potentially criminal behaviour. Having ADHD doesn’t mean you don’t know right or wrong. It can mean that it’s harder to stand up against peer pressure so I would also ask the school whether the school counsellor/SEN support could work with him on understanding this so that incidents like this don’t happen again. Perhaps, they would allow him to do an online programme/watch a learning resource on this during his isolation day?

Did a member of staff ask him to look after the lanyard? I think how it came into his possession is the crux of the matter here.

Is the teacher being put in isolation for giving his lanyard to a student? That seems a far more serious offence to me…

If other posters have got the story right, then it's a case of stopping excusing all bad behaviour because of ADHD. ADHD is not a free pass. He needs to learn about consequences and in this case, it was a big one.

You should encourage him to learn his limits and say no of he thinks his actions could put him or others at risk.

Exactly this.

A lot more back story then what’s being let on.

Schools constantly hear x was 'pressured' to do something. In a handful of times, individual students may be vulnerable enough that it's relevant, but in the vast majority of cases, this isn't legally blonde. The school doesn't have to demonstrate mens rea. The behaviour policy is there to further your kid's education, and if an incident happened on the balance of probabilities, the school are best placed to know what should happen in response to it.

I think the number one safeguarding rule around lanyards should be you don't give yours to other people! Did the teacher hand it out or was it stolen?

A detention would be reasonable, a whole day in isolation is utterly ridiculous. That's my teacher opinion too

Won’t this depend on the actual facts and/ or school policy. For example I would imagine if a student needed to use a staff toilet for some kind of an emergency etc that would probably be fine but it might depend on the school’s own rules.

In this case though it sounds like the OP’s child either nicked it from the member of staff or another child, so I’d doubt that the teacher is really at fault.

Essentially you’re right though that this could lead to the staff member getting into serious trouble if they haven’t followed policy- but it would probably be something like a written warning or disciplinary, so much more serious. I don’t know the teacher or the circumstances but this might just result in another good teacher leaving the profession which I don’t see as a good thing.

So he was dicking about with the teachers lanyard and got caught and you think the punishment is too severe? Yabvu

If the pass is intended to be used by pupils to indicate that they've been authorised to go to the toilet, isolation is a harsh consequence for losing an item and detention would be more proportionate.
(I've known schools allocate reusable passes to control toilet access, and DC's primary used coloured sashes for this purpose)

If the pass is the teacher's personal ID then he should not have been in possession of it at all, and the consequence reflects the severity of the breech. It could affect access to secure areas of school or lunch accounts.

Seems perfectly reasonable to me and frankly not really something worth getting irate about.

This.....
Take the punishment

I have ADHD. I'm still able to keep hold of things that I know are important. There's no excuse.

The problem here is that you send your DC to school so parents have to accept that there will be different rules and punishments than at home. There are times when it would be right to stand up and make a fuss when a crime is being committed against someone, but times when it isn’t really your place. You may have been more lenient as his mum but they aren’t asking your opinion on how they punish their students and I don’t think it’s always our place to fight back with the school about their decisions - you were not there, you didn’t see any of this happen and you are seeing it from only one viewpoint. If you don’t like a schools policy on punishments don’t pick the school. If you don’t like the school system, homeschool the child

This isn’t going to affect your son’s education or cause him any other issues, it’s not discrimination. It’s one small incident and a detention isn’t going to be of any detriment to him long term. This ‘system’ is there to teach people the rules in real time as they happen - you cannot possibly, reasonably know every single advance rule or scenario to try to avoid it.

This is a lesson learned not to do again and everyone can just say ok, I didn’t know this but now I do, so I can avoid it happening again and everyone moves on.

The backstory doesn’t really matter, especially as it’s your son’s version of events and you are biased. There are other peoples version of events so I would just chalk this one up to a minor incident and let it go. They can’t expect you to punish him more if you don’t agree

A whole day in isolation doesn't seem ott?

@OhMaria2 no? Not really? This is clearly something very important and it's been lost

I think the whole lanyard obsession is bizarre. I know of schools and colleges which are more open access which use the lanyard as identity- not through electronic means but expect students to have one. I know is some of those cases staff and students use any card in the hardware card wallet which shows how bizarre it is. The whole idea that a lanyard protects is very strange logic.

If I just read your first sentence I would probably think it was an unfair punishment for your DS.. but.. it was a teacher's lanyard which he shouldn't have had in his possession.. regardless of who 'pressured' him to take it, and then he lost it.. Honestly, he should have immediately handed the lanyard over to the first teacher he saw. I'm not sure that having ADHD is an excuse here, sorry. He also needs to learn to say no to other students asking or telling him to do stupid stuff.

As I understand the OP the teacher's lanyard is given to pupils so they can show that they have permission to go to the toilet.

Its in the OP.

I missed it in the OP but here’s the thing. I used to work in school safeguarding. IMO you can either have lanyards that only teachers have, which are precious accordingly and should be handled with care. Kids should not have them. And you can have the lanyard on a toilet pass. If you have a sensitive child protection lanyard on a toilet pass which is given out to students, you can sit back and wait for exactly this to happen. Which is all well and good for most things, but you shouldn’t allow that room for error in safeguarding measures.

A dayin isolation seems a bit OTT but as the parent of a 13 year old with ADHD which sometimes contributes to him making poor decisions AND losing things, I nonetheless think that actually, it's perfectly reasonabel for there to be consequences. He took a staff lanyard (who cares where he got it from) and then instead of handing it in, he lost it. ADHD isn't a get out of jail free card. I would have gone for a detention myself, rather than a full day of iso, but I imagine they have set rules for these things.

I agree but that is on the school and not the teacher.

ADHD or not, he needs to learn actions have consequences. School have punished him for breaking their rules it's up to you as his parent to work with him on strategies to avoid it happening again. For example, if he was pressured to take it cos his mates were playing a game how can he learn to say no or walk away. Teach him that if he loses other people's property regardless of circumstance or how important the property is, it inconveniences them. It's your job as a parent to help with learning social skills and how to organise himself better so he doesn't forget or lose stuff. This is much harder if he has ADHD but not impossible and it is something he has to learn before he becomes an adult if he is going to be successful at work (and in adult social relationships).

The punishment might seem OTT but it's not one with lasting consequences like a suspension etc so just move on. Life is sometimes unfair and we can't always control how people react when we do something 'wrong' or expect them to react in a way we would consider fair.

No not at all