school say my son has to be in after his accident

[healingqueen]

I've NCed as this will be outing along with my recent posts.

My ds is 12 and in y8, last week was half term and he went out on his scooter as he does. NO helmet (dont judge I wasn't there - dad didnt make him wear one)

he ended up falling off his scooter at the skate park, someone called an ambulance and hes fractured his wrist and there was a lot of blood as he lost his front teeth, they sort of broke and his bottom ones went into his lip, im not sure if I'm explaining correctly.

there wasnt a lot they could do there and then apart from clean him up and take what was left of the teeth out to prevent infection? im not sure. hes going to have an appointment at a later date to see what they can do for the missing teeth as of course they're his adult ones

It's could've been so much worse and he knows he shouldve been wearing a helmet and I think this will have put him off the scooter anyway. I told him many times about wearing a helmet but if course he didn't listen

anyway hes still got a lot of bruising on his face, school know but has been refusing to go this week. they say this will go about as unauthorised absence and im worried about fines as hes already had days off this year

they say he needs to be in as hes well in himself bar the fractured wrist but he still needs to be in he’d sit out during PE. He is in pain with his wrist and we have a fracture clinic app on Friday to see if that needs surgery too

AIBU to think the school are bu here? hes refusing to go out full stop not just school

Well perhaps if he was expected to carry on as normal he wouldn’t have quite the amount of trauma?

stiff upper lip doesn’t always work but there are ( like anything really ) plenty of times when it’s a good place to start

Do what you think is right for your son OP. What the school says should be the tiniest of factors.

Yes we have we just don't agree. Don't assume we haven't considered MH just because he won't go back to school.

Adults at my workplace would get more understanding than this. Blimey.

I would wait until the bruising goes down. The poor boy probably looks like he has had a bit of a fight. Any reason to stand out kids will pick on him. You can ask gp for a letter in my experience they are not keen to do it and may charge you. I would let him recover this week and tell him he needs to go back on Monday. He must be feeling self concious too.

How much pain is he in? When I broke my arm, for the first week between healing and taking the only painkillers that actually worked which made me very tired I had to take a nap after a couple of hours normal activities, and trying to push through was very painful.
However if he's past that stage he should be in. If it's his writing hand school should be able to come up with something that means he doesn't need to write, and obviously he can sit out PE.

He should be going to school OP. The arm needs to be stabilised, presumably the hospital have done this already and he needs to take some pain relief but at 12 he should be trusted to do this. There’s no reason for him to be at home for weeks on end till his arm heals and the wait for his teeth could be several months longer. It will only make it harder for him to go back the longer he has off.

Unless your arm and leg affects the ability for you to think, feel, see and speak I'm not quite sure it's comparable?

concussion even if mild absolutely sucks

I was concussed.

Which wrist is it? If it's his dominant hand he will need some short term support eg. A note taker. And if it is his dominant hand, is it affecting him being able to go to the loo, manipulate clothing - zip trousers etc? At the very least the poor lad must be in pain and feel embarrassed.

School isn't the same as work. In 6 weeks he'd miss a big chunk of the curriculum. It's not the same as someone having to cover an absent employee for 6 weeks.

He's obviously shaken up by the experience, embarrassed about how it happened, and also how he looks. He'll be dreading everyone asking him about it and potentially teasing him about his missing teeth. But as others have said, his teeth won't be fixed any time soon, and his bruises will also take a while to fully resolve. The longer he hides at home, the bigger a deal it'll become, and the harder it'll be to go back to school.

If you have considered how this child has been affected mentally after a significant accident, surely you can see he may need longer to recover before returning to school from a mental health perspective.

he's not doing any school work at home as they havent sent any. i first phone monday morning and told them about the accident and that he wouldnt be in and she said she would pass it on to his HOY. HOY didnt get back in touch and i left a message tuesday on the absence line and again nothing and I called again today and this time the receptionist answered (there was no answer tues) again and basically said it's going down as unauthorised again then and was quite short with me. Then his head of year phoned and said he needs to be in, he's not unwell and the only reason he should be off if he had a sickness bug, no other reason and was quite dismissive.

It could be shock as at the hospital and at the time he was quite calm which they picked up on as most children (and adults) definitely wouldn't be. He was in a lot of pain with his mouth / face that the wrist pain wasnt that bad at the time of injury which they said its normal as other injuries tend to mask the main but now he is in quite a bit of pain hes been having calpol but its not doing much after about an hour once its worn off

he doesnt have his own dentist as i cant afford private and the NHS dentists are like good dust but he will have an appointment at the hospital for a plan on what to do we haven't had the letter yet though.

to posted saying force him and school isn't optional. HOW? if he won't get up i cant force him and i can't force him to get dressed either . especially as i have younger children to get sorted and the morning rush is chaos anyway without a child refusing

he has to get the bus to school too so it wont just be the other children he sees itll be the members of the public etc

i have tried to talk to him about it but he basically says he doesnt want to talk about it and that's that

I absolutely disagree with forcing him in.

In the short term after an accident the pain is acute and there is a lot of swelling. He may well only be in a backslab half plaster cast to allow this - this is less stable than a full plaster.

Secondary school is a pushing shoving kind of place with no-one really taking any notice of other's injuries.

It is NOT the school's choice to make decisions about your child's health - that is your choice as a parent.

Push back. Email and say it is not unauthorised absence, you are TELLING them that he is not well enough to be in school.

Unless they can provide proof that he is in fact well enough - ie. pictures of him roller skating whilst he off, then they should record this absence as sickness.

Take him to school for a sit down with headteacher or head of year to talk it through. This can be arranged when kids have all gone in and wont be out and about.
They head can see for themselves and hear from.him the concerns

Drive him there or take a taxi he can wear a balaclava or face mask.
And discuss phased return and home based learning zoom into lessons etc

I can't see how he can be well enough less than a week after a serious facial injury.

He must surely be in a lot of pain (which will affect concentration/ability to sleep) and must be having trouble speaking and eating.

What painkillers is he on @healingqueen ? Tramadol and the like make you very drowsy/sleepy for the first week or so.

Is it a dental hospital you have been referred to? If not, you'll need a referral from your dentist or an emergency dentist if you can find one?

-Gosh, it´s a race to the bottom here.

Ignore the school

You get to decide whether he is fit for school.

Is there a pastoral care coordinator or similar at his school? My DS went through a bit of a tough time in year 7 and really didn't want to go back to school. I visited the school with him and had a meeting with her and she was really helpful and accommodating.

If you can't deal with the refusal then you need to work with the school on it at the very least. Not just throw your hands up and go 'nevermind'.

I would also be having a firm conversation with your son that this is going to take months of no teeth and unfortunately life isn't kind enough to let you step off until you ready to get back on. Would I like it? Nope, I'd also hate it. But that's life and if you take your scooter to a skate park with no safety equipment on, then shit can happen.

Weird isn't it!

That’s a fairly blunt bit of data.

Obviously at some level there’s a relationship between attendance and performance but it doesn’t necessarily follow that for any given child every additional day in school will result in better performance (or that missing a few days will make it worse).

I think this is a general problem in education that the focus is on driving up attendance without looking at the factors underlying poor attendance.