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.

These full school crackdowns like everything must work well for some kids - but the fallout for the other kids doesn't seem to be considered important. My ds's school had a crackdown on presentation of exercise books with standard punishments dished out. The joy of geography was successfully knocked out of him. I fed back the outcome to his teacher - so maybe they'd improve too and do something different the next time - probably not though, no one likes to hear constant negative feedback.🤔

Speaking from a school safeguarding perspective, a child not in class and hiding outside is a major concern. Perhaps you could ask from this perspective?

As an ongoing issue, you will need to teach her ways she can get places on time. Lateness due to ADHD wont stop a train from leaving, or a plane taking off without her. It will compromise her at job interviews and in the workplace, so she needs some strategies to overcome this.

No the school isn’t. OP says the school already has in place a 5-min buffer for lateness to class - punishment kicks in after that. So her DD is taking habitually longer than that.

Question - I've seen a lot of people mention "leave early" passes where the child gets to leave the classroom before the end of the lesson so they can avoid the crowds in the corridors.
How does that affect the lesson for the rest of the class?
Either the child who leaves early misses the last five minutes of teaching, possibly including what the class will be doing next, books and preparation for the next lesson and what homework they have to do or (and I assume more likely) the teacher has to finish the lesson when the child with the "leave early" pass goes and the rest of the class have to sit there for five minutes twiddling their thumbs and waiting for the "official" end of the class?

There isn't a massive wait via RTC; that's simply not true.
You just need to request an out of area ADHD provider via RTC.
My daughter had her (out of area) in person ADHD assessment in April.
The wait was 4 months, from GP referral to being seen.
You're welcome to PM me for more info.

I was diagnosed with Attention Deficit (inattentive subtype) as it was called in 2006 when I was amongst the first few adults to be diagnosed. All of my acquaintances within the cohort were there having realised their own behaviour had a name - due to their own child’s diagnosis.

So I went through school without diagnosis yet still had all the symptoms including huge issues with timekeeping and organisation. So I needed to get myself to lessons on time as a priority or I would be in trouble. It was ingrained in me that this was non negotiable.

you need to get this message over to your child instead of giving her an ‘out’ . If you are telling her that being lat is not her fault, it’s how she’s wired .. I - as a child would have grabbed that excuse as the perfect answer to indulge my inattention .
Luckily my parents had no idea about ADHD and would have given me an extremely hard time for persistent lateness.

You need to enforce the need to prioritise timely lesson attendance @VividDenimTiger not give her reasons to think that diagnosis with a neurological diversity is some kind of magic armour that prevents her from having to conform with normal school requirements and discipline.

I disagree. It's the school who has the professionals and links to other professionals and THEY should be suggesting strategies that the OP can support.

The OP's DD needs to get to lessons on time, and there need to be carrots and sticks to get her to do that. But in what world is a "punishment room" reasonable?

All that said, I agree with other people who've said she should simply walk with her friends/classmates to the lessons. Unfortunately the world is crowded and she needs to get used to it.

why Is this a “major safeguarding concern”? Exactly what is the risk here?

You do realise it depends on area don’t you?
and waiting lists boomerang between a few months to over a year quite quickly depending on demand. I find it so strange when people extrapolate from their experience to confidently announce the norm to other people.

Does your dr suspect she has ADHD & have they made a referral? If so the school should be directing you to their SEN team - one thing they could do is provide her with a pass to leave lessons 2-3 mins early to miss the crowds and rush to prevent overwhelm. If the school / SEN department refuse to make reasonable adjustments until she has a formal diagnosis then they may inadvertently be discriminating. But you shouldn’t approach it from that angle. You should try to work with the school, try to arrange a meeting with the head of SEN to discuss, if you don’t get anywhere speak with the Head. If your dr hasn’t made a referral you probably don’t have a leg to stand on.

Haven’t read the full thread but this from one of your posts rang so familiar to me: “She thrived in primary but it all fell apart once we got to secondary.” This is true of our son, too, and we were told it is a very common presentation of ND in girls and more intelligent boys. Our school is supporting without formal diagnosis with lots of accommodations (ear defenders, 5-minute pass, wellbeing pass) and they make attendance possible some of the time. But at other times he is just too overwhelmed to take part.

What some posters are not understanding on your thread is that it’s not a choice at the point he is overwhelmed, it is literally impossible form him to go into the noisy, boisterous hallways. As someone who knows him well and knows how much he wants to be doing his lessons and socialising ‘normally’, I can see the true disability - his brain stops functioning normally, he goes into fight or flight mode, and he can’t do the things he wants to.

Suggesting kids just push through at that stage is counterproductive and just extends the overwhelm and leads to further problems (like school refusal). Your school should know all this, should have seen it many, many times, and should be helping you.

It sounds like your daughter’s problem could be solved with a simple 5-minute pass. Something like this must be available for diagnosed ND kids and the school must know the wait for formal diagnosis is forever. I’d challenge them - firmly but without anger - that their approach is not helping, nor would it be expected to if you daughter turns out to be ND. I’d suggest a trial of a 5-minute pass and ear defenders to see if that improves outcomes for your child. If not, there is nothing lost. But if so, you get an anppropriate accommodation in place before her learning is further impacted. I can’t see how they can argue against this?

I’d also - firmly again, but without anger - make the suggestion of a trial in writing and quote relevant legislation. You can get a good summary by googling this string “send support before diagnosis what are schools legally required to provide” - the AI content has text you can use directly as well as links to the appropriate primary sources. You are in the right here and can push this firmly from a position of strength.

If the trial doesn’t help and/or your daughter turns out not to be ND, you will see that and then you must try other things. But this is an obvious first step they really must agree to - especially as you’ve already been to the GP and are awaiting assessment.

Sorry - but people leave classes early all the time - for music lessons and other peripatetic teaching. At the end of the class is less disruptive than arriving late because usually the class is winding up, packing away, being given homework reminders. They aren’t interrupting the start of a lesson, when a teacher is usually delivering content. You simply tell child A they can head off while people are packing up and then the rest of the class leave a minute or so later.

Yes, sorry, I omitted to state this is the case in England.
Otherwise, my points stand and are correct.
👍

@blueneopre the job of schools and parents is to set reasonable behavioural expectations, then hand out consequences for falling short.

I remember the whole class being scorched by my geography teacher for poor presentation - the reason was that we had a major coursework component in our GCSEs so she prepared us for that by making sure we set our our books well.

It was a great habit to get into, and stood me in brilliant stead for my studies later on.

Its MUCH easier to revise from notes that are laid out carefully.

Could she find someone to go to lessons with so she isn't late if her buddy isn't? It is just too disruptive to the class if pupils roll in late all the time. An alarm that reminds her 5 mins before each lesson starts?

Am also in England - waitlist is 3 years for autism and ADHD assessment in my area, so everyone ends up going private. It is dependent on your LA and the NHS waiting lists in your area.

A busy corridor is not a particularly pleasant environment, but it only has to be endured for a short time. Your daughter needs to learn to cope with it for that short time. How else will she be able to deal with public transport, supermarkets, car parks, entertainment venues........?

There is so much misinformation on this thread.

ADHD and autism are disabilities. They aren’t bad behaviour or something you can force out of you.

Can’t speak for ADHD but it’s possible someone with autism might be able to “mask” and cope in certain situations but this can have a knock on effect somewhere - anxiety or exhaustion later.

The suggestion people are getting PIP for “mild” cases is ridiculous. You have to be practically totally unable to interact with anyone or leave the house to get it.

I am going through the process because I am autistic (missed for decades) and successful masking through stressful situations has lead to me developing FND so I am now physically disabled as well. I likely won’t qualify even though I can’t live independently- as I can have a conversation and occasionally cook a meal - but I am trying as I now have to pay for medication and therapy that is not available on the NHS due to it and PIP would help with this.

Then the idea that “the world of work” is totally inflexible and employers don’t offer accommodations.

My current employer lets me work entirely from home as I am not capable of going to the office at the moment. I have flexible start and finish times.

Some large employers have specific neurodiversity policies. They offer accommodations at interview.

Many employers will me more flexible than it sounds the school are being.

In the big wide world that attitude would be classed as disability discrimination under the equality act

Then, as per my earlier post, you can request an OUT OF AREA RTC ASSESSMENT.
I can't explain it any more clearly.

The point is that she is getting zero support in learning to cope. We don't expect children to learn other stuff at school on their own.

It's actually easy enough to someone with sensory issues to cope with your list, they simply avoid them or time their use of them for when they are less crowded.

But the teacher still has to wind up early the child leaving has to know what the homework is, what the next lesson is, and has to pack up themselves. Having one lesson in the week where you leave early for a music class or something is one thing, leaving every class early must be disruptive to the whole class.

What else do you expect them to do? Without some kind of hard and fast rule with clear consequences that are actually painful to the offender, kids would just be wandering in and out as they pleased. I appreciate that your daughter has this disability, but it's to her to get top of it, so that she is ready to move forwards into the responsibilities of adult life. You are not helping her by making excuses for her.

She's not forgetting when lessons start, she is simply struggling massively to cope with the process of getting there through noisy, crowded corridors.

Oh come on, kids get put in isolation for having the wrong socks on, or taking a blazer off because they haven't got permission (and in the next breath someone will be moaning about how gen whatever can't make basic decisions for themselves, I wonder why). And why would a child who doesn't care about disrupting others or messing up their education care about being put in isolation? They don't, it doesn't work, yet schools are busy doing anyway to prove what point? The children AND staff are miserable, staff are leaving in droves and children are increasingly unhappy in school.

it doesnt work for send children either, you can't punish adhd or any other send out of someone.