Threatening schools with legal action

[daffodil10]

My sons secondary school had received legal papers from a family threatening to sue school and head master if they force a child to have a vaccine.
School has made it plain from the outset that testing is by parental consent and vaccine would be too.
Why would you go to this extent, it just seems crazy to me

Is it a private school? If not, even if children were being forced to have the vaccine on order to attend school, that wouldn’t be the school’s choice.

§legal papers threatening to sue....IF?

is that a thing? and why are schools sharing this with parents? surely its confidential?

So they are trying to bring legal action over something that isn't happening? They won't get far with that.

It seems a little premature to be doing this when there is no vaccination for u18s (except those with certain medical reasons)

And there is no current schools-based programme.

Or is there one in the offing?

It is a state school and was mentioned in the end of term letter to parents. This letter also went through guidance for next term and how the changes post 19th July will affect the kids.

Most likely has come from one of the ardent supporters of U4T. They like to stoke up the fire and make out things will happen that blatantly won't. They are actively encouraged to waste staff time with things like this. It's a shame they could have been a force for good, instead it has just given those who had a 'it's not my child's fault' issue with the school a bigger drum to beat.

Some people have far too much time on their hands.

I don't think the school should have mentioned it to others.

I would like there to be an offence of bullying by the threat of legal action, to cover such people. Not sure how it could be framed though.

So your ds's school have publicly stated that effectively they have a couple of lunatics in their parent population?

Frankly that's a really stupid move of the school to publicise that. Really stupid. Poor leadership. Your head should have his arse handed to him frankly.

As it's clearly never ever going to happen they shouldn't have given it private breathing space let alone public breathing space.

I wonder if it is the parents threatening to sue if they give the child a vaccine on the child's say so, were there to be a schools vaccination programme. Many secondary pupils would be considered Gillick competent for a vaccine, in which case I can't see the parents succeeding anyway. If say their Y9 child was denied permission by the parents, but gave permission themselves. Would be interesting to see what age the courts consider generally competent in this sense. Pretty sure my Y8 daughter would have been able to consent to the HPV one even if I said no (which I didn't!).

Titchy
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So your ds's school have publicly stated that effectively they have a couple of lunatics in their parent population?

Frankly that's a really stupid move of the school to publicise that. Really stupid. Poor leadership. Your head should have his arse handed to him frankly.

As it's clearly never ever going to happen they shouldn't have given it private breathing space let alone public breathing space.*

I disagree. Why shouldn't he flag up poor behaviour by idiot parents. Why should this crap behaviour be acceptable. I really hope these parents read this letter and feel stupid - I fully realise they won't !!

I think there is some online group or website that has produced a badly drafted template letter to this effect, and I suspect that is what these parents are using. So it makes sense for the head to include a fully anonymised mention in the letter in case there are more parents thinking of going down the same route.

Because it's unprofessional.

I assume you'd like your kid's school to be led by a professional rather than someone who enjoys a bit of subtle public humiliation of a family?

Maybe you don't. 🤷‍♀️

This type of parent don't want their DC to be vaccinated (fair enough, their choice), but don't want other pupils vaccinated either simply because it may confer some benefit or advantage on these other pupils and they don't want their own DC to miss out. So they want everyone to miss out. They can't accept that choices come with consequences.
Selfish and harmful to society = parents like those in the OP

That does seem crazy to think that the school might try to persuade your child to behave in opposition to your consent and in doing so riding roughshod over rules around boundaries and autonomy.

Your dc don't go to this school do they?

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4289207-school-conducted-a-lft-on-my-son-against-my-consent?topicid=2724&threadid=4289207&pg=1

Because I am fine with my dc having lfts and, eventually, vaccinations but looking at the support among mnetters to strongarm kids in this situation I can see why those who are not happy might be getting twitchy.

I wonder what these parents think about the mass isolation of 850,000 school children?
Those levels of unnecessary isolations of non-infected and non-infectious children could be hugely reduced by vaccination of school children whose parents do consent to vaccination voluntarily.

These parents are also sub-intelligent because at no point ever in the UK has vaccination of children been mandatory and at no point has it ever been mentioned that vaccination of children against Covid-19 would ever be mandatory.

Maybe there are rumours going round/social media comments, so school have confirmed the position in the newsletter

@ineedaholidaynow

Maybe there are rumours going round/social media comments, so school have confirmed the position in the newsletter

The school would have been far more sensible to say something along the lines of 'we are aware that some parents have concerns blah blah blah. Vaccine is not being offered to children and please be assured that the school would not do anything that contradicts parental responsibility. We work in partnership with parents etc etc.'

Far better to reassure your community of parents than a newsletter stating that someone's parents have started legal action - cos every kid and parent will know it was Duggie's mad conspiracist dad.

You can't argue with stupid, there was a poster on the comments section of my. local paper convinced they had evidence that a, local, "high school" was sending pupils into isolation so they could vaccinate them, the evidence seemed to consist of a friend of a friends cousin said 🙄

Titchy
I agree with you that unfortunately this stance does flag up that a poor child has a nutter for a parent. But those same crackpots will read your example statement and just think that's all lies and won't believe any of it. The sensible rest of us would get it. But of course we are all sheep just towing the line 😂

Doesn't really matter what the crackpots think though does it. He should be thinking about how to reassure his community not set some of them up for ridicule.

I am fine with my dc having lfts and, eventually, vaccinations but looking at the support among mnetters to strongarm kids in this situation I can see why those who are not happy might be getting twitchy

It's made me twitchy I'll be honest.

Should they introduce vaccines in school then I've already decided that the dc will have that day off - just to make sure there's no risk of a 'misunderstanding'.

op the term is "sheepies" & if you disagree with them & are a female you are a "Karen"
I am proudly a Karen in this case & have told people who call me a sheepie to look in the mirror! (Because I am a mean post menopausal woman!)