Fight to get full school record and illegal "unofficial exclusion"?

[Vallhala]

Please willl you look at THIS THREAD and tell me if I should expect to see more than a school report, a statement and witness reports on a particular incident and a copy of DDs attendance record in her entire, full school record. Should it not also contain copies of emails that I have sent the school and their replies, DDs admission form, details of whom to contact in emergency and all the other things you'd expect a school to have saved on file?Or should I be asking for something else/terming my request differently?

Also, has anyone had experience of illegal, unofficial exclusion of a pupil, whereby the child is told to stay at home but the parent is given no formal written notification of this and no paperwork as to how long the exclusion is for, why, who to contact and so on?

Get in touch with the parent partnership person in your local authority. They are fantastic in giving you advice and support. Good luck.

Have you tried to get through to IPSEA? There is advice on their website about exclusion.

There should be records of grades and attendence throughout the year, and maybe records from previous schools. But although you can request to see them, the school can charge an admin fee to photocopy it. There shoudk also be records of any other events for which your DD has been disciplined, and any strategies implemented to help her cope with school.

Thank you mummytime. So the school are mucking me around then, from the sound of it.

Jeez, here we go again...

Never heard ot IPSEA but will go and look right now cornsilky, thank you.

you could also try ACE they have some stuff on their site & a helpline

ACE also have stuff about access to records on this page - apparently you are supposed to write to the chair of the governors?

It is unlikely you will get emails and replies as these are not usually filed unless they are of a particuarly serious nature.

Ah! Thank you mnistooaddictive. That helps for a start (and stops me going off at the deep end asking for the impossible!).

There are however emails that they definitely SHOULD have on file. I also want to know if there is any info on file about the unofficial exclusion. (Or, how well they covered it up/what lies they have told!).

I've emailed the Chair of Governors now, as Betty suggested, so fingers crossed.

Schools are not allowed tosimply send a child home and not class it as an exclusion, not even for a half day or "cooling off" period. Parents should be informed of any exclsuion, how long for and the reason why. After 5 consecutive days, the school have a legal obligation to educate the child,either in their school, another school they may have an agreement with or a PRU.

May not be allowed to, andy, but they did.

Oh! Just thought how old is your DD? If she is over 12 she has to make the application, or she might be able to give you permission to make it.

(I'm not sure Andy but I thought for some reason it was 6 days.)

Hi Valhalla. Not sure what's what with the student record thing, but definitel look at the IPSEA website and if necessary ring them (it can take a while to get through). Unofficial exclusion is illegal. Write to the Governors and the LEA (they will usually have a dedicated exclusions officer) and demand to know why your child is being illegally excluded.

I'm a bit confused. So would you rather your DD had been excluded officially then?

cece, that's not really the point. The LEA have a legal obligation to educate all children in it's schools. Schools cannot, legally, just send kids home when they feel like it. That would be a very dangerous path to allow them to go down.

If there is a problem , and a child needs to be excluded, this must go on record, so that the parents have good notice (usually 24 hours), alternative provision can be found if necessary (lots of boroughs have behavioural improvement partner schools where excluded children can go rather than sit at home watching Jezza Kyle) and the school and parents can sit down if necessary and agree a plan going forward, to ensure that whatever led to the exclusion doesn't happen again.

Are they sending work home for you DD/

It seems to me that the relationship between you and the school seems to be breaking down, if it hasn't done so already. Can't you get her into another school?

Sorry, I'm not being very helpful. Had a half-joking moan about the HT on AIBU, and ended up explaining as it got more serious:

VERY long story

The basics:

DD2, (13), a child with immature and challenging behaviour, went to secondary school A for one year, until Easter term 2010. Her primary school behaviour record was exemplary but social integration skill problems noted. On day one she was bullied at secondary school A. I complained, nothing was done, and so it continued. DD2 retaliated - school A had been warned she eventually would as she is scared of school, having been assaulted by a parent in a past one and having been let down by that HT. I got ignored. DD2 in big trouble for retaliating.

Year Head suggested a possible AS condition and said they would test DD. After 6 months of me begging, asking and fighting all DD got was a standard academic assessment. This identified a minor learning issue (handwriting speed).This issue was holding her back academically and she would need extra time in exams, the school said. Although she's of above average intelligence this kept her back in a low streamed class with kids who bullied her. I asked school to get her up to speed (excuse pun) and offered to support this at home using whatever method the school told me to. School refused to help DD.

I was told DD2 would have an Ed Psych appt as she was in a state - temper tantrums, under the GP for sleeplessness, coming home crying and being sick, refusing to go to school out of fear, aggressive responses, immature behaviour, playing with matches, inappropriate social boundaries, the works. I waited 9 months and then got told the Ed Psych wouldn't see her.

There's loads more but if you're not all asleep by now, I'm sure you get the picture.

Luckily we moved this Spring, and DDs moved schools. I told new school (B) all about the past, that DD2 could be challenging, asked them to read her full notes, and asked them to consider where and with whom they placed her carefully. Got told they wouldn;t worry about that now, and that she'd be fine.

She was unofficially excluded for verbally retaliating to abusive name-calling the very day after she started! School said as she had been out of school so long, she needs to re-integrate. ("So long" being the Easter hols and about 2 weeks either side, which was unavoidable).

ACE told me to ignore, send DD in, and they bet the school wouldn't challenge her presence. ACE were right!

All calm-ish until 2 weeks ago when DD2 was permanently expelled for having a knife on her in school (not her fault, I had chucked it into her school bag as I hurled bits into all our bags when packing after a weekend away. DD2 had taken her bag with her to do homework, the knife was a multi-tool and been used by our hosts as a corkscrew, btw).

DD2 was confronted by staff and tried to be allowed to hand over knife/explain away from peers, who were jeering. Staff first refused and there were a few words. Child (one who DD2 had complained of bullying her in the previous week), accused DD of threatening to stab him. it's his word vs DDs.

DD2 hauled into inclusion room, went ape at being in small, confined area, was moved, was angry at being accused of threatening other child, angry at being punished for having knife by mistake etc and swore at and walked off on staff.

Now, I have NO ISSUE with the decision to expel. DD2 is in the wrong and must take the punishment.

BUT... when I attend the Governers meeting wrt the exclusion, I want to tell all, as the LA inclusion officer will be there, in order to get DD the help she needs in the RIGHT school and explain that had school B listened to me this may not have happened.

I want all of this on DDs school record so that someone might actually consider the POSSIBILITY that my DD has extra needs, CERTAINLY that she deserves the academic help refused by school A, and possibly too might begin to help her.

Plus, I'm buggered that I want anyone else's child go through a back door exclusion either!

So, I need every document going to PROVE that I warned the school, that the 1st exclusion actually happened and so on.

REALLY sorry this is so long guys!

Seeing as you ask, our cat had fleas last year and we employed a firm to treat them. We're talking smoke bombs, fumigants, pesticides etc. Our school saw fit to send home my Reception aged daughter 5 minutes before the men were due because they found a cat flea on her person. I told them the home was going to be unsafe temporarily, but they insisted and walked her home (noone wanted her in the car), then told me to lock her in the garden if it was unsafe for her to be in the house.
I had noone to look after her at such short notice, so she stood in the garden crying for an hour and a half whilst the guys filled our house with industrial pesticide - it was a nasty infestation. It was that or expose her to the chemicals. I couldn't be with her as was up to my neck in it in the house and needed to sort the carpets out for the guys. Rather she was sad than ill, seeing as I had to choose, thanks to the school.
A MAJOR row followed with the head. She lost 2 days of school and there was a lot of lying going on from the SMT. I involved County, Social Services, the school nurse, environmental health - all the people the head claimed to have sought advice from (which was false - none of them had advised her to exclude my daughter.) It only got resolved when we threatened to go to governors.
I was mostly upset cos they'd sent her home into an unsafe environment and I'd told them time and time again that it wasn't safe for her at home whilst the men were on site.
Had lots of grovelling from the head afterwards and I let it drop.
But yes, that was an illegal exclusion. We don't exclude for head lice but for cat fleas... Never mind that humans cannot host them nor are they deemded a commumicable disease by the dept of health.

Jeez, Henny, I'm not normally roused to violence but I'd have wanted to slap the HT!

What a dreadful thing to happen.