TEmporarily excluded from secondary school

[Piffle]

DS yr 7was this morning excluded for an undetermined time
This morning he filled his blazer pockets with the contents of his pencil case as the puppy has chewed his case.
In that case was a craft knife he uses for manga cartoons
Someone saw it when he met up with his friends before school. DS was suddenly aware he had made a faux pas and ran to school and locked it in his locker.
One of the kids told the teachers.
DS is now home.
He is likely to be exckuded from the national quiz final he and his team mates have worked towards for 7 months, on sunday.
Paying for naivety
I'm swaying between it being bloody unfair and that the school have no choice
Either way my ds is destroyed.
As am I

Sorry he had a tough time, at least he says he was expecting it. You sound such a good mum, think easing off on him for the rest of the week is a good idea. Have you got anything good planned for the weekend when he should have been doing the quiz?

Sorry to hear he's had a tough day Piffle. I hope it soon becomes "yesterdays' news" and he can put it behind him and move on.
Thinking of you all,
R

apologies for the wandering apostrophe

skim read thread and rushed for time as have to see my son#s head of year early this morning (and that's another story).

Just wanted to say I am sorry you and your ds have had this shock, while seeing the school had to stick by this rule as MB says.

My son has come a cropper recently when he was taken off the one-day house cricket tournament. He was captain of his team and absolutely gutted and humiliated to be told to walk off the pitch. The reason was, he tripped a boy up on purpose. The boy did a lot of fake rolling around on the grass and was not actually hurt, but that is beside the point - he could have been injured.

The reason my son had tripped him up was because the boy had subjected him to a barrage of 'sledging' during the game - calling him a fat C**t. When the teacher asked my son, in front of everyone why he tripped up the boy, my son was too embarassed to say.The boy had no punishment, my son got taken off the game, told off and threatened with a long detention.

We wrote a letter and I got an immediate phone call from the teacher in question. He was sympathetic, cancelled the detention and said he would speak to the other boy as his language was totally unacceptable. He said the tripping up, though, was a health and safetly issue - I agree. My son has hopefully learned his lesson -says he has, anyway.

His house awarded him a 'player of the match' award and his team mates have been very supportive about it.

Much as it hurts, I hope you and your son get over this soon. At least you don't have the prospect of a 'little chat about his report' with the year 7 teachers awaiting you this morning

tigermoth
Your poor ds, it is oen of the things I talked about, the approachability of the teachers inc cases like you describe
One problem I know have is that my 6 year relationship with dp (not ds's dad) is now in serious meltdown as in my eyes he has behaved appallingly, I actually want to walk out right now, am really struggling to keep the anger and disappointment under control. He works away 5 days, is back tomorrow.
Not sure whats going to happen, he says, you're too emotional, I'm too practical. But he actually did ds a huge disservice and I cannot cope with that.

piffle, are you ok? your last post has made me worried for you. I am surmising that your dp have different views on all this and has not been very understanding.

I did feel gutted on behalf of my son, so thanks for your concern. But as he is in another two cricket teams, this was not the be all and end all of his cricket season, thank goodness. The incident happened a week ago and it seems old news already. I was going to post here about it at the time, but was up to my eyes in work and job applications.

Piffle - I hope you sort things out with your dp, and together manage to put all this behind you.

Tigermoth - I haven't 'spoken' to you for ages. Are you OK? What is your "reports" comment about? Is your ds1 doing OK?

(sorry for quick hijack piffle)

Hi Roisin, I'm OK but living in uncertain times at dh's father is very ill and this adding more urgency to our plans to move to Devon, hence me sending off job applications. Work is full on - lots of events management stuff as it is the summer.

DS1 is happy at school - too happy! At the meeting with teachers they say his attitude at school is ultra relaxed. He contributes well to class discussions (sometimes a bit too enthusiastically), is very personable and not horribly behaved, but when it comes to putting stuff down on paper he isn't bothering enough, both at school and for homework.

His end of year mark for 'effort' was appauling - his form teacher said in all the years he's been teaching there he's rarely had to give such grades. The teachers say there's no question over his ablity to do the work - it's his lack of motivation (some might say laziness). At school he lives for breaktimes, when he can go off with his friends (of which he has many) and play football or cricket.

So the teachers say he has to attend homework club on non cricket match nights. Ds is not at all impressed with this but it's his own fault. I try and check his homework but in the end I have to trust him to do it all and do it up to standard.

I said that if the teachers think, but the end of term, that ds is behind in basic knowledge of the subjects, I will organise some extra tuition catch up classes during the holidays, which ds will do rather than the holiday cricket course that he loves.

I deliberately let ds1 find his own level at school this year, as I was breathing down his neck so much in the run up to the 11+. We struck a deal and I told him I would ease off as long as he did the basic work at school - I was not expecting anything more. I hate pushing him - it is such a strain, but it looks like I am going to have to push it bit more again.

[apologies for the hijack piffle]
Tigermoth - thanks for the update: great to hear from you, and fantastic that ds1 is so happy and settled at school and has loads of friends.

I hope you find the 'key' to unlock his self-motivation for school work, so that you don't have to end up doing all the nagging/badgering/cajoling/persuading. I find at our school so few kids are motivated and self-disciplined to work, even the yr10s&11s when they have deadlines approaching. Generally there seems to be so much more spoon-feeding in education these days. So I think it does sound positive that his school is expecting this now, and tackling it when it's not happening.

Message withdrawn

The quiz has been and gone, the team came 3rd they got beaten in the semi by a team who has just been discovered were cheating by being fed answers, so there is an official protest. As their team would have made the final and in all likelihood won.
But ds is happy as it means the team did well without him so he has not let anyone down, but also that no one has to stand up and accept a trophy which he feels he earned a large part of.
Dp and I sorted it as much as we could, in the end it was between him and ds, and they are cool. I'm certain I will handle such things (god forbid they ever arise again) on my own initially in future.
DS is feeling better, he has suffered from insomnia, loss of appetite, stomach cramps and general tearfulness, but he (touch wood) seems alot better today, the scandal at school is dying down bit by bit and he can see a day where he might not be reminded about it.

Tigermoth, you face a right challenge with your ds. I had to leave ds to find his own feet and he thankfully has managed to do really well thus far, I know my ds would lose interest if I forced the issue, so I do not envy you your task.
Is the school likely to prevent your ds being on a team if his work fails to improve?