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.

You didn't answer the question, where was he supposed to sit while the teacher was supervising the rest of the class?

Your reaction to these 'punishments' seems extreme. He was asked to sit on a bench, not run laps in his underwear.

If he's inherited your attitude I can see why the school are having issues.

It’s interesting that you don’t want to hear other people say they don’t agree these actions amount to degrading. Surely that is what the panel will look at - was the punishment really degrading? Most people here don’t think it was. I genuinely want to know what kind of punishment you think would have been appropriate for your son’s misdemeanour (which we still don’t know about which makes it even harder to judge).

Maybe if he doesn’t want to have to sit on a bench missing out on a trip as his mates walk past, he might like to try behaving in future?

What happened in the office, you said the Head is denying, so will be your sons word against 3 professionals. It is reasonable to believe the professionals.

The sitting on the bench - why is the important point to that. Was it done with the sole intention of humiliating or was there another valid reason? The former is a definite complaint. Thr latter probably not - there may be questions about alternative options.

In terms of the panel meeting, I doubt you will come out feeling satisfied.

I'd suggest just moving schools. Sounds like you do not trust the head.

What were the alternatives that included adult supervision? The rest of the class needed to be supervised by the teachers and TAs, presumably - would it have been better to send him into another year group's class, where they would have all known that he'd been barred from attending? Or maybe sending him to sit outside the Head's office for all other year groups to see?

Sometimes there is no better alternative than to sit down and wait with any other kids that won't be going so that they can be collected at once (and the registers taken to ensure that nobody sneaks off for a day hanging round the town centre because they've not been marked present and are thought to be on the trip or absent).

A complaints panel will listen to both parties, consult the behaviour policy and make an appropriate decision, which could also involve determining whether this is something that relates to the Head's conduct or whether it is displeasure at an inevitable consequence of a student's behaviour and this would have been the case, whatever the school had done.

PS In the vast majority of secondary schools in England, it is absolutely normal for staff to be addressed as Sir and Miss, particularly when somebody is speaking in a way to a member of staff which doesn't come across as polite. So that's unlikely to be something they agree with you on.

Thanks I have no issue with the actual punishment. It was just the intimidation of a normally extremely polite boy with no history of problems being tripped up to say ´sir’. At the end of every sentence when faced with 3 adults. What is School report? He is well known as extremely polite and part of the school culture they are often expected to say sir.
that i have no problem with. The
clear departure from this suggests anxiety and not insolence . It was a power imbalance and it was very intimidating.

being made to miss a school trip is fine. To be sat in public view visibly upset infront of his peers is not

If you intend to take @FunnyThing2 advice, I’d make sure that you have permission to record the meeting.

Are you intending that your son continues to attend the school? Whatever the outcome of the meeting, if you are, you need to navigate a way through, so that he has a positive start to the new school year.

Yes, I agree.

I also think there's a reason why OP doesn't want to disclose the backstory or answer very fair and relevant questions.

Btw, OP, you responded to one poster saying "You don't know". Neither do you, you weren't there.

Good point, thank you.It was his last year anyway. It is more a real concern of the way the new head has conducted this punishment (as well as other wider concerns other parents have had which are beyond the scope of this post)

You have no idea about me or my son, who has beautiful manners and wonderful disposition. I might have an attitude when it comes to snarky MN commenters yes

You definitely have an attitude. And if you go to the school with that attitude you’ll get right up everyone’s nose.

if he’s left, why do you care?

Yes , because I don’t want to be identified, and also it isn’t the real point of my post.

Because I have standards and expect institutions to uphold good values .

I haven't been snarky. I asked some questions that I felt would help me understand the situation and offer advice. I was quite surprised and disappointed by your response.

Clearly your son doesn’t share those standards or he wouldn’t have contravened school policy. You should take steps to address that with him.

Quite. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree I think.

We don't allow anyone to record meetings. You should be able to attend with a friend or impartial "witness" who can take notes and the meeting should be minuted by an impartial person, usually a clerk to the governors or a school admin but as a previous poster said, these do tend to be quite bland.

I wouldn't find it acceptable for a child to be left crying on a bench in front of all of his peers in order to act as a deterrent to other children. I would find it acceptable for a child to be told he won't attend the reward trip and then asked to go to the office/library/pastoral staff/whatever if he was too upset to continue the lesson. I would find it acceptable for the teacher to say to other children "unfortunately Josh won't be able to join the trip because he did x to y" as a learning opportunity. I would find it acceptable for staff to remind Josh that he needed to address staff correctly if he wasn't doing this. Having 3 SLT in the room sounds a lot, and suggests that what he did was quite serious. The outcome of the panel will depend on what he did, what the behaviour policy says and how the school responded.

I'm a governor and sometimes chair complaint panels. One of the things I would be asking you is- what do you want to happen as a result of the complaint? Sometimes parents don't have anything in mind here apart from getting a teacher in trouble. If you make some notes about why you think what happened was a problem, and crucially how it was not in line with a school policy, that will help.

School have always prepared quite carefully and are usually able to provide us with a lot of context and background.

Is it an academy or a maintained school? Our clerk is very good on what can and can't be referred to as part of the hearing and will note take and support with an outcome letter. We are able to make other recommendations on policy and practice which we usually follow up in committee. If an action has been taken in line with a policy, and the policy is not illegal or discriminatory in any way, we'd be unlikely to uphold a complaint, but could suggest a policy is revisited if the hearing brought issues to light.

Just be calm and professional about it. Governors give up their time for free to do this and it's very time consuming with the prep, hearing and outcomes, so we appreciate it if everyone makes it easy for us as we all have our own full time jobs. This includes lodging any written notes or paperwork in a timely fashion.

God out in force tonight!

I wonder if he has taken on your attitude when responding to people?

Because your replies to people here have been very argumentative and chippy.

I think if you are going in to a panel you need to decide what outcome you want and work productively to get it.
It doesn't seem to me any of it was awful and degrading but you have clearly made up your mind that it was, I don't really think you are going to get what you want out of this and I would just walk away if I were you.

You won’t be satisfied by the outcome as you are too adamant that you are right and everyone else is wrong. From what you have described, I cannot see the complaint being upheld.

I’m an atheist.

I would like to be queen of the universe but sadly I’m not. Yet.

I don't like power and authority personally and it's not the way I parent. This is the way secondary schools are and have always been run though. To be honest unless it was some small exclusive private school the power imbalance is probably needed, some teenagers have really poor behaviour and don't respond to the nice and gentle approach.

I think the only thing I am after is an admission that they didn’t handle it well. The head’s response to me was very defensive and actually plainly lied about what he said.
he is new, not popular with the parents for a number of reasons.
my son has been at the school for 9 years without any incident. It was too much to act the way they did for what he did. Over the top and too heavy handed