AIBU for raising formal complaint with school

[ThisCyanBeaker]

I need advice from teachers/ parents
emotionally based school avoidance has been occurring for my 16 year old for 4 months with her missing sgifnat amount of lessons before support plan was put in place. the schools plan was if she was too anxious too go to class she had to go straight to head of year office and if she coudn'nt go to class within 10 minutes she would be sent home. As she loved school this was a disheartening rule. the school also banned her from wearing short sleeves due to scarring on her arms even when weather was over 30 degrees. the support plan listed no actual support just stringent rules.
the plan was abdoned after a week but no one told me or my child leading to her missing more and more classes. no action plan , little safeguarding . all of this went against the schools own safeguarding policy , attendance policy as well as department for education guildlines.
this 'support plan' was very formal and was agreed in meeting with head. but yet was abonded so quickly and no one told us.
am I being unreasonable to raise formal complaint with school due this leading to no support and daughter missing a sgifnat amount of classes ?
(also I realise my spelling and grammar is bad in this I cant type 😅)

Maybe look to yourself and what you are doing before blaming the school?

What does it say in the safeguarding policy out of interest? It’s really the attendance policy and Sen. Did they follow their policies or not? Usually you complain to the head and then, if not satisfactorily resolved, to the governors. The policy must be on line and you must follow it. I cannot say if what has happened is reasonable or not without reading the policies. Parents do have a role to play in attendance and you should expect to work with the school. I’d ask for this first.

Raise it with whoever your contact has been so far first, eg head of year, senco - who ever you were implementing the plan with.

Ask what is happening about the plan, explain your concerns and ask for a meeting to discuss a new plan.

If that gets ignored or they refuse to put a reasonable plan in place then raise as a complaint to the head.

Schools complaints policies usually have an informal stage first, then a 1st stage formal (head) and 2nd stage formal (governors). Each stage relies on the earlier stages being completed first. The focus is generally on putting things right.

That doesn’t sound reasonable to me, both the very short limit to get her into class and the refusal of a shirt.
if the short sleeve shirt is everyone’s uniform / choice then I don’t think they can or should ban her - indeed they’re deeply stigmatising mental illness if it’s to do with self injury scarring. I assume they wouldn’t with someone who had burns from a fire? If not then I’d definitely complain about that as being unreasonable.

there are many schools who have less punitive and more supportive approaches. If you’ve already suggested what you feel is a reasonable plan and they’ve ignored then escalate to head of year, safeguarding lead and Senco, head, then governor depending where you are in the process

though I’d hazard a guess what is causing the anxiety? Are there specific days, triggers, times of month? Can they offer a reduced timetable to build up? Explore the idea of graduated approach and then also graded exposure for anxiety. They’re trying flooding which is less likely to be effective.

The ten minute thing is really likely as there is nowhere else for her to be, and the goal is to get everyone in class learning. Sleeves could also be to let her avoid unwanted interaction from peers - that do stare an awful lot and often just say what they are thinking! Have you asked about a reduced timetable as others have said? What do you mean by abandoned? Was there a note to say no longer doing this or are supports in classes suddenly no longer in place?

I think maybe this is poorly written op as I’m sure you do a lot for your daughter but it reads like you’re a bystander and her missing school just happened,

ten mins will be as she’s no where else to go, they don’t have the facilities, the sleeves seems unreasonable though, the plan wasn’t working so they abandoned, what did you do when it happened ?

I think it would be better if you had another meeting where you could discuss why the support plan is no longer being used. Do they not have a summer uniform of short sleeve blouses/shirts?