Threatened with court due to low attendance

[JohnnyMarr]

Hi, having already attended a meeting with the EWO 6 weeks or so ago I received a letter this week summoning me to yet another meeting, the purpose of which is apparently to try and prevent me going to court.

Is anyone able to advise whether court is realistically a likely outcome when I've spent the last 4 years meeting with school /ed psych (at my insistence and even then ridiculously belatedly!) CAMHS, the GP, paediatrician etc etc?!!

School have been singularly useless, and spent two years blaming DD's problems on "defiance", "attitude" and her "refusal to engage", there's been a marginal improvement since she's been diagnosed with emotional difficulties, a processing disorder and ADD - this is purely down to me refusing to back down, but frankly any help they're now giving her is to little too late, she's completely overwhelmed by the prospect of her GCSEs (all of which she's set to fail despite being
bright) and so is getting to school late (hence marked as absent, even though she's actually not) and has today walked out at 2pm.

There's far more pertinent information, but I started off writing a novel that I really can't imagine anyone's going to feel particularly inclined to trawl through, so this is the short(ish!) version!

Any help, advice of offers of gin greatly appreciated

Sorry to hear you are going through this.

I doubt they will take you to court. You may however find that they will encourage you to exercise your right to home educate your child -using the threat of court action if you do not. This will allow the school to off roll your child thus ensuring that poor GCSE results do not impact badly on their stats.

Agreeing to any kind of deal which involves home education or managed move to another school should be avoided as it simply allows the school to do what they want, which is nothing.
You and your daughter do however have to understand that her being late into the school does count as not attending. If she arrives within a few minutes of the official starting time of the school then she will be counted as late but in school for attendance purposes. If she goes past the point where the registers are closed then she will be marked as late and not counted as being present for the morning. That time period is normally not more than 30 minutes and could easily be 15 minutes after official school starting time.
You need to get her to school on time, so at least the attendance information will not lead to any major issues and that will get EWO off your back.

Thank you both for your replies.

Unfortunately home-schooling isn't realistically an option. And whilst I appreciate that of course she should be at school on time if it really were that simple I wouldn't be in this predicament! I wake her up at 7am every morning and attempt to chivvy her along at 15 minute intervals, but frankly the more I coax the more she digs her heels in. Obviously I can't physically man-handle her (and she's bigger than me anyway!) and I have to be at work for 8 in order to keep my job and pay the bills which is clearly also my responsibility as a parent. On top of all this, whilst I absolutely am doing my utmost to get her in to school, I feel for her having to spend 6.5 hours somewhere which makes her feel like "shooting herself in the fucking face" 5 days a week It's hard.

i had depression and anxiety at school which i only really accepted years later as it came from school bullying and family issues. they made my mum come in and they said how could they get her to go into school. my mum said she is being bullied and they said they couldn't do anything about that and so it was like well she can't go in then. this school i went to is seen as one of the best schools in the country because they hide all the problems. i didn't know about home education but i know now that there are online courses and groups to go to. my mum worked 9 to 5 and i stayed at home from 14 most of the time but still from when i did go in and from contact with the school worked mostly from home and went in for the exams. i did okay considering. i'm now 24 and am a teaching assistant currently. i did a levels later and got really good results with fab teachers and am going to australia next year to travel and i'm doing lots of acting. i did a foundation drama degree in london. i remember one teacher telling me when i left school knowing how hard it was that the world was my oyster. your daughter won't have to suffer with school forever. my mum worked 9 to 5 throughout it all as well. your daughter is lucky to have a mum who cares so much. if you have parents nearby that could look after her throughout the day while she learnt online that would be best but if thats not possible like it wasn't for me there are some homeschool groups out there and from 14 she can be in the house on her own even though its not ideal but none of this is her fault. mental health is an illness and the school sounds so uncaring. schools are meant to be places where they support children in their learning and growing