Complaint against school

[tubsters]

Posting with a name change to protect my child’s identity. Has anyone had experience with a Level 3 complaint panel hearing at a school?

My 12-year-old son, who has never really been in trouble before, was given what I feel were punitive and degrading punishments. For example, he was made to sit alone on a bench in the yard for about an hour, as all the other children walked past knowing he’d been excluded from a trip – a clear act of public humiliation.

He was also called into a meeting with the Head and three other teachers, where he was pressured to end every sentence with “sir.” He was clearly nervous, and this only heightened the power imbalance and distress he felt. he is usually very polite and would always use ‘sir ‘ in normal circumstances

I accept that children need discipline and have always supported teachers, but the way this was handled felt oppressive and unnecessary, especially for a child who posed no danger and was already anxious.

The Head has denied much of this, so I escalated it to the governors and it’s now going to a panel hearing. I feel quite daunted about going up against the school, but I strongly believe this needs to be addressed for my son’s sake and for other children in the future.

If anyone has been through a panel hearing and can share their experience or advice, I’d be really grateful.

No, it wasn’t appropriate for either of them to be sat on a bench

As someone who has been through complaints processes about something far more serious than this, my recommendation would be to use it as an opportunity to express what you feel you need to and is important to you, but to also view that as the main benefit/outcome. You ultimately have no control over whether they acknowledge the issue, apologise, or make changes. Pinning your hopes and satisfaction to something beyond your control can be a dangerous path. You can be proud of yourself for advocating for your son, but it probably won’t have the external outcomes you seek.

One of the issues with the bench punishment is that the humiliation was the experience of the student, not the intention. After working with many 12 year old boys, I can confidently say that some of them would not respond by feeling humiliated or distressed. They would have relished in the moment and thought it was a demonstration of how cool and edgy they are. The meeting with the teachers sounds potentially overblown, particularly if none of the teachers were involved in the incident. I’ve never known a school (public or private) where there are staff twiddling their thumbs to the point that 3 of them are required to have a disciplinary conference with 1 student over an incident that didn’t involve them. However, it is unlikely to be viewed as problematic enough to get you the apology you are seeking. Again, this is beyond your control….. take comfort though in the fact that even if you don’t get what you want, you probably have annoyed them enough that they might reconsider that quietly in the future!

Do the day students go on evening trips?

“Very happy with my child’s manners”… for goodness sake OP, raise your parenting bar.

So not drugs, not bullying and not harrassment/sexual. What are you and your so. expecting people to believe, that he got excluded for missing one piece of homework? Clearly a private education doesn’t buy common sense.

thanks so much for this insight. I think I want to be heard and feel that they can’t just get away with it. It feels like an abuse of power in this instance.
as my friends have advised me , sometimes the catharsis is the main point. And perhaps yes they will think twice before having a punitive and idiosyncratic punishment for another boy. This isn’t the first time this head has done that in the year group and in a very very tight school community it has caused an erosion of trust and divisions, which is bad for the whole community.

OK, OP, you refuse to answer my question as to your insulting me and questioning my professional competence. Obviously you are incapable of doing so, or else just love to throw verbal punches...

Beginning to see a pattern here of a self-opinionated, over-protective mother.

Well, OP, I wonder what your reaction towards the school would be if the following happened to your child, rather than some small, or even imagined slight.

Aged 12, my son, a chronic asthmatic, went on an outdoor ed trip with his prep school. DH used to go with him on every outing, owing to the severity of son's attacks. I'm not talking the lightweight asthma I see all the time - I mean hospitalisation, unconscious, blue, not breathing-type attacks. School would not allow DH to go, as parents were muttering about some fathers being privileged, denying others the opportunity...Friend with asthmatic child knew the drill well, promised to take care of him, asthma stable at the time, DS desperate to go and not to be "different"...so he went, with his nebuliser, prednisone tabs, peak flow meter, attack plan, inhalers...

Next day, school contacts me by phone to tell me that my son was in ICU with a terribly severe attack. The camp was 30 miles from the nearest hospital, very remote. Turns out the boys were in cabins of 4, no knowledge of where the staff were sleeping, only the Gapper. DS's best friend woke to hear DS trying to start nebuliser, then falling unconscious...had the presence of mind to start the machine, then the other boys raced around the camp in the dark, trying to find the staff. Gapper told them to go back to bed, as the staff didn't want to be disturbed.

Long and short...son was seconds from dying, school took no responsibility, friend was absolutely distraught...
"Lessons will be learned", apparently.

Doesn't that make your gripe against the school somewhat...trivial?

I work in a school. All children have a right to be treated with DIGNITY. Regardless of what ds did or didn’t do, IF he was made to sit on a bench purely for humiliation as a tactic to discipline him then that is not okay. The DfE states that punishment must be reasonable, proportionate and NOT be degrading or humiliating. The sanction should be to encourage positive behaviour, not to humiliate.

Perhaps it’s not your intention, but you seem like a vulture circling for tit bits about my child; although scintillating for you , I’m just not going to disclose any information that I don’t think is relevant

Yes ! Thank you! This is what experienced people have told me!

The staff sound like bullies. You are paying for this, OP? Find somewhere much kinder.

Sadly this sort of thing is rife in the state sector now and others don't have the choice. I'm glad my DDs are out the other side. Schools have absolutely lost the plot and are actively harming sensitive and well-behaved children. We need to completely start again as Finland did.

Sorry that happened.
it isn’t a competition!

Oh my god that is utterly terrifying! I hope he’s doing well now 💕

Sorry that happened.
it isn’t a competition!

Not my point, OP.
Your complaint is trivial. End of.

I see you can write in response to this post but not to justify your insults.

Could try harder.

But what is so disappointing is that for 13 years I never had an issue with anything the school did . With this new head the culture has changed . Punitive and erratic

I'd love for you to explain what exactly you would have liked the teachers to have done differently.

They were loading the buses for the kids to go on a trip. Literally ready to go.

Your son and his friend do something - you won't tell us what - that is considered sufficiently naughty to make the teachers decide in the moment that they couldn't go on the trip.

But they've got however many other kids right there who need to be loaded on the buses, counted on, names ticked off registers, medicine checked, seatbelts checked, etc. That would easily take up all the attention of the staff there in the moment.

So what can they do with your son and his friend?

Can they send them off, unaccompanied, to another part of the school to wait, not knowing if a member of staff will be in that room/space to supervise them?

No. That wouldn't be safe.

Can one of the teachers who is present and accompanying the trip be spared to take the two boys inside, and wander around for a while trying to find an appropriate member of staff to supervise them, while the other teacher/s loads the buses?

The teachers in the moment clearly decided that no, they couldn't spare that teacher, for the safety of the other students.

So, the most expedient solution was to have the two boys sit on the bench where they could be safely supervised, while the coaches were loaded with the other students, registers taken, seatbelts checked, etc - and then they would deal with the problem.

Totally understandable, totally acceptable.

Your son created an issue by misbehaving. The teachers then had to deal with that issue in the moment, in a busy and stressful situation, as best they could, considering the needs of all the students for whom they were responsible.

It's unfortunate that your son started crying, his friends saw him, and he was embarrassed.

But that's the price he chose to pay for misbehaving. No one made him misbehave.

He wasn't deliberately humiliated. He wasn't forced to sit on the bench to make a point.

He was sat in the only place that was convenient and safe for him to be for a few minutes while the teachers sorted out the situation.

That is it. Not worthy of any kind of complaint. The apology in this situation should really be coming from your son, for causing inconvenience and stress to his teachers, for goodness' sake!

It depends on whether extra supervision is actually available. It seldom was when I worked in the state sector.

In my experience, however, state school SLTs are reluctant to exclude children from school trips. I did think that discipline in the independent sector was rather more robust.

I recall an instance where a group of pupils went shoplifting on a school trip. Subsequently, one of them applied to join a school trip abroad. My colleague refused to take the pupil on the trip, but was overruled by the HT.

Predictably, the child decided to go on a shoplifting spree on the ferry to the continent and was caught. My colleague had to retrieve the boy (aged about 15) from the purser's office.

Unfortunately, it wasn't possible to return him home since that would have left the trip short-staffed. Instead, he was told to sit at the back of the coach once they reached France and other pupils were instructed not to engage with him.

That’s fine - your simile used to insult me, as descriptive as it was, still doesn’t make you a decent parent and it doesn’t make your son above the rules of civilised society.

I honestly don’t know how you can ask for opinions on this without telling people what your son did. You’re acting like I’ve knocked on your door to discuss this and hound you for details as opposed to you posting about it on a forum on a Saturday night.

If you don’t want honest opinions, discuss it with the child’s father and don’t ask for the opinions of honest, hard-working parents.

But that wasn’t what happened. They alleged misdemeanour was the day before it wasn’t as if he had suddenly misbehaved at the time that they were loading school trip he was made to miss it just because the teachers were deciding on what to do outside in front of the school tripreally not knowing whether he could go or not

A private school may not be inspected by Ofsted but ISI; I'd find out first.

In state schools I've worked at, a 'restorative approach' is used and as such, shaming has no place in that. My head is really hot on this and has outlawed it in loads of situations. The whole drive in state schools today is towards nurture, understanding and pre-empting possible triggers (although those are more for known or suspected SEN, so not really relevant to your DS).

Having said that, as a private school, policy may be different and I agree with checking these before your hearing.

I have known many parents 'know' their child is incapable of a behaviour, then had a hard lesson when shown video of an incident. I hope you are correct but please be aware that many, especially very clever, children are able to manipulate others to protect themselves.

I hope it goes OK for you - I agree your DS has been treated pretty harshly.

Things I don't understand, having read the entire thread:

Why does the OP keep talking about 'humiliating punishment', when she herself has said several times that the time on the bench was not part of the punishment but was while the teachers were deciding what to do (with her son and his friend)?

What does the OP hope to achieve from the panel, as her son has now left the school?

What is the relevance that some other parents seem to dislike the new head? Surely that will always happen, as new leaders will do things differently and a new regime will take a while to settle in. Why would other parents' dislike have any relevance to this situation?

Edit to add: What was the actual punishment (I think OP said the official punishment was the following day)?

That’s fine - your simile used to insult me, as descriptive as it was, still doesn’t make you a decent parent and it doesn’t make your son above the rules of civilised society.
I honestly don’t know how you can ask for opinions on this without telling people what your son did. You’re acting like I’ve knocked on your door to discuss this and hound you for details as opposed to you posting about it on a forum on a Saturday night.
If you don’t want honest opinions, discuss it with the child’s father and don’t ask for the opinions of honest, hard-working parents.

I agree. Were cannot safely staff trips anymore ensuring all children going and those left behind are safe. Therefore trips don’t happen.

Yes, the unintended consequences of the ops son’s actions were that he caused himself to feel anxious, upset, and humiliated when faced with punishment/consequences from authority figures.

Those are actually all normal human reactions, and feeling things like that for the first time, and not enjoying those feelings are often what encourages us to behave better, or differently in future.

Is it actually possible for some children to learn right from wrong or to follow social norms as adults without experiencing those negative emotions?

Im very much about gentle parenting and focusing on positive behaviour rather than negative behaviour but there will be times when our children have to feel ‘bad’ or upset to learn empathy or to learn that things like hitting or stealing are wrong.

I do think it is interesting that op is so focused on the emotional impact of her DC experiencing consequences for whatever the bad behaviour was. Rightly or wrongly, the two examples don’t come across as ‘degrading.’ It can be argued that the bench incident did cause humiliation but was the humiliation caused by the school or self inflicted by the son’s own actions?

Isn’t it natural to feel humiliation when you are caught out doing something wrong or experiencing being in the wrong for the first time?

After every sentence though? That’s more than a “yes sir”.

That's exactly what happened at my old school - trips stopped.

The colleague in the anecdote above quit his HoD post and obtained a similar position in the independent sector.