School lateness punishments, neurodiversity and the law

[VividDenimTiger]

Posting here for traffic really. DD 14 has had issues in secondary school- we suspect ADHD to be honest. I am unravelling my own mid life ADHD traits at the moment too.

For DD, one of the things that manifests in school is persistent lateness. She just can’t organise herself to get to lessons on time. The school has now brought in a punishment for lateness where anyone late more than 5 mins gets sent to a punishment room for the lesson. Needless to say DD is now missing loads of lessons because of her lateness.

I know that it’s annoying for teachers when kids are late for lessons but it feels like this policy unfairly targets kids, like my DD, who might or do have some issues with timekeeping because of other things going on.

Aibu? I am trying to unravel some of this for DD (and myself) but I am really angry about how punitive this policy is- it feels like it disadvantages kids who genuinely have issues with organising their time and themselves. The corridors are really busy in school and she gets upset and overwhelmed and that doesn’t help all of this.

Thanks 🙏🏻

I don't have transport, I'm a solo parent, physically disabled, scarily low income etc, but I did what it took to get my daughters diagnosed.
I guess it just depends how hard you're prepared to fight.
And, it's you that's being the arse, with your snotty first reply.

Is it the right school for her? A couple of schools we visited have supervised silent transitions between classes - they pride themselves on it and made sure that the tour of the school included us witnessing the 10 minutes between classes. If the chaos and noise is causing her problems there may be another school that would be more suitable

This is a really interesting perspective, thank you. As a mum at the start of supporting a kid (with autism, they think, not ADHD) what things / people / supports helped you to develop those strategies? Would anything have helped you to develop them faster if you had to work them all out on your own? I feel constantly on the knife edge of providing support without allowing a sense of incapability to set in.

Just heard today that kids with adhd are corrected over 20,000 times more than their peers by the age of ten. The only way for fairness in this system is a complete overhaul of the Victorian schools system we are all still suffering under.

I have ADHD (diagnosed) and so I appreciate the difficulty however there are no excuses regarding punctuality for school.

Get up earlier - an hour earlier if needs be. It's not good enough to just blame ADHD. You are aware of the challenges so should help your DD with these and find a coping mechanism. You need to set her up for success rather than self pity/excuses.

You cannot expect the school to allow this behaviour.

I don't mean to sound harsh but you are the parent so parent.

Or facing constant consequences can make a child give up completely as they always fail so Whats the point? A child is not going to be able to work out her own strategies without guidance from someone who knows what they are talking about and without wider support from school to ensure that they are supported to follow those strategies and also have some leeway when they fail.
Just because you managed to sort yourself out doesn’t mean everyone can or will be able to do it. Clearly the OPs daughter can’t and the punishments are not an effective tool to help her change her behaviour. In fact they are the opposite and are leading to school refusal.

Yes and it's so tiresome and has a negative impact on the other kids.

It's becoming its own version of the two tier systems so widely complained about in the police and health sectors.

I am obviously going to get flamed for saying this but (a) it's true and (b) I am in no way minimising the genuine and significant mental development difficulties that some children face and the need for better SEN provision away from the regular secondary school environment.

Sure, depriving herself of sleep is going to help her get between lessons faster.

Go to bed earlier

It's a shame that it sounds like the school aren't really being flexible or creative enough in finding a way forward other than "you must fit in this exact box or we'll punish you".

My initial questions about what she's doing or where she's going have been answered in your reply to someone else. She's overwhelmed by the crowds so goes outside? Your suggestion is that she leaves lessons earlier so she can move to the next class in a quieter corridor. This sounds sensible, doesn't involve any extra staff at school, but I can see why they'd be resistant as that last chunk of a lesson can be important for summarising, giving homework, checking in on where everyone's at in their understanding of the learning objective etc. But I'm not sure why school won't trial it for a couple of weeks.

From her age, I'm guessing she's year 9 so starting GCSEs next year, so a few less subjects maybe but it's still a jam packed timetable. Will her subject choices help? e.g. are they in smaller classes or a lot in a quieter certain area of the school?

It's disappointing that the SENCo hasn't responded. What's been the process there? I don't know exactly what the set up is in England but from a Wales perspective, I'm confused as to why she wouldn't have an IDP (Individual Development Plan) as a living document to give you all something to check in on, have an agreement on things put in place to try and address those barriers to her learning. She shouldn't need a diagnosis for that.

If it's the overwhelm from noise, does she have those loop earbud things? Are there alternative routes she can take which aren't as crowded?

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Ah, yes, of course, ADHD and puberty don't impact circadian rhythms at all, and starting the day earlier is going to be SO helpful when it's 11:05 and OP's DD has 5 minutes to get to her French lesson.

Welcome to the real world.

These suggestions are so sensible and reasonable and are exactly what need to be tried. The OP has said she has suggested all of these to the school and they have refused. It’s absolutely ridiculous.
Yet despite the OP explaining this, the majority of posters have basically said thar the OP and her daughter need to suck up and “just do better”That right there is the issue. And I makes me so bloody mad.

School should be able to allow your dd to leave class a couple of minutes early. My ds had an early pass although it was because he was in a foot cast so needed to avoid the rush but the same principle should apply. And it didnt disrupt any learning as they're usually packing up at the end of the lesson.
I'd speak to the pastoral staff and head of year and insist on this.
Surely they'd rather let her leave a few minutes early rather than having all the detentions and missing classes anyway.

Exactly this. And all the posters saying about needing to function at work / in real life - she’d be able to have access to the suggestions made here, plus other things she may find helpful in specific environments. And as an adult there is a lot more choice about what you do - I’ve certainly never worked anywhere as inflexible as this school seems to be.

I think a lot of posters just want to stick the boot in for no reason,

Everyone saying the school isn’t being flexible - did you miss the bit where OP said they already allow up to 5 min lateness to class but it’s after that time is up that punishments are handed down? How much more time should her DD be given?

As I said before, home school her then 🤷🏻‍♀️

It’s not just the timekeeping. They’re not even allowing her to use things like Loop earplugs according to one of OP’s posts.

I think what really helped me was understanding what was making me feel overwhelmed and anxious (noise, crowds) in certain situations and then practicing different techniques to help calm myself, a big one for me is I am very easily distracted and overwhelmed by noise and crowds, so I wear headphones with relaxing music on a lot, even at work where possible, and that helps massively and I practice breathing techniques.

Finding a career that works well with ADHD was a huge thing for me as well, I changed careers in my late 20s as my previous role was just completely unsuitable for someone with ADHD, and as such I was making a lot of mistakes and underperforming.

I am very forgetful so I set reminders and alarms constantly on my phone and with my emails etc, and I have developed very strong routines which help me stay on time, if my routine is disrupted I can run into problems. I also start getting ready much earlier than I need to for things, because I lose track of time (and also massively overestimate how much I can do in a certain amount of time) so end up late if not.

I also give myself little rewards for doing things ahead of time as well, because I would always leave things until the last minute (because I am motivated by fear of consequences) which caused a lot of stress and anxiety. Just something simple like if I do half an hour of ironing I get 5 minutes on TikTok, sounds silly but it works.

Once I put these strategies in place it literally changed my life, I feel so much less anxious now and have more confidence than ever and have achieved a lot academically and career wise, so I’m a huge advocate for developing your own coping strategies.

This.

Even if/when you get a diagnosis, there’s no easy fix. Working on coping strategies is the most helpful thing to prepare for adult life. There is so much information freely available out there these days. Even suggestions on this thread like trying loop earplugs, fidget toys, pairing up with a buddy etc. Talking through the aspects of school that she struggles with and looking at cognitive behaviour strategies that might help.

I am late diagnosed neurodivergent with a diagnosed neurodivergent child. I find the school is far more receptive when you go in and say we’ve tried this, this is what works, this doesn’t work, this is what would help as an adjustment, rather than just going in and expecting them to adapt to your child. Being repeatedly five minutes late disrupts the learning for everyone in the class and that’s not fair.

So hard not to rise to the challenge to make this part of wider culture wars but where exactly would you draw the line between ‘normal’ and ‘not normal’ so your presumably normal kids weren’t impacted?

My kid has no intellectual disability whatsoever but needs to slip out of class a few minutes early to avoid sensory overload in crowded halls where he’s been hit and shoved repeatedly making school feel impossible to him. I’d argue your normal kid’s learning is far more impacted by neurotypical kids (like the ones repeatedly pushing and hitting in crowded hallways) acting up than by my timid son quietly leaving classes early.

History shows that cultures swing right-wing in times of difficulty and want as it is human to want to protect our own and people can easily feel accommodating those who are different will take away in some way from what we have ourselves. Some vested interests make loads of money peddling this idea. But humans are a social species and I genuinely believe we thrive more in unity than division.

Of course some kids do need special schools. But there are also common sense accommodations made in schools and workplaces that remove barriers for many people for different reasons and they are not a threat to people not requiring those accommodations. We will all need help of some sort at some time in life and a functional society provides that support when it can.

If she already has 5 minutes grace, why does that not work? Does she forget time while she is outside? If so I would suggest to set timers for when she has to go back in. Set them to 2 minutes before the lesson starts, then corridors will be empty but she won't be late.

THIS

Schools can not give students carte blanche to just rock up when they want . It would be pandemonium.

My DD was like this and I am suggesting she pursues the ADHD RTC assessment .

I think you need to work with her on some organisation /coping strategies whilst waiting for a diagnosis / medication .