School prom exclusion just before an exam!

[fluffyhead]

Can anyone tell me if and how they have dealt with this situation as it is causing much grief to our family.Our child was told she would not be able to attend just before going into her 2nd g.c.s.e exam. The school have admitted this was wrong but will not back down.

dear all, sorry I was working till late on a deadline and unable to respond. Plus I am a newbie! I have never been on any forum chat till yesterday, so was suprised at the responce. I serched for advice on line and a friend said how helpful this site was.
I must clarify a few points.
I fully support teachers and schools.
My point was not the exclusion but the timing of telling my child.
Until then we had all worked together.
We had not been informed of this final decision.
She was being monitored for being behind on her coursework,bad behaviour in class and the pink slip ladder was a positive way of encouraging her to meet targets and deadlines and improve her attitude and behavior in class.We supported this.
If she did well she got awarded a pink slip if she failed in any way she lost 5.She earnt many but lost many.(ratio of 5to1) but still was close at times to the magic number of 100.
When I talked about proms in general I did not explain myself. I was not infering that parents who spend huge amounts of money should not therefore have their children excluded.I simply meant the whole prom thing was getting out of hand.I agree with children being excluded if that is what the school policy is.I do think proms are a commercialized, americanized idea and there are possibly far better ways to celebrate the end of school days without such cost.
Perhaps run by the parents or sixformers and the profit goes to the school or chosen charity.
I have not spent more than £25 on the silk for a dress and this will still be worn.
My main concern is getting through the next 4 weeks and hoping prom chat is not an uncomfortable issue for my daughter or any other children in this situation. and only wish they had said no in Jan or at the end of exams or with us present.P.s she has never bullied, only stuck up for some one on two or three occasions. Must go work calls,
Thanks, hope this clears things up and thanks to all you great teachers out there!Who says sick?(wink)

I think the whole thing would be made better if "Prom" was changed to "Leavers' Dance".

OP - it sounds like your daughter had multiple opportunities to sort herself out, and she hasn't, so banning her from the Prom is perfectly acceptable.

As for the timing - yes, it was unfortunate, but you have said that the school has accepted that, and as I said in an earlier post, most students in most schools are registered and put into the exam room well before the exam so I find it unlikely that your daughter was told "5 mintues before the exam started". Presumably, that information came from her anyway, so it may or may not be sprinkled with a little bit of teenage exaggeration...

I still don't think I get your point - do you just want people to sympathise, or are you after some way to get back at the school - you do seem to think that the news about the Prom exclusion will perhaps be acceptable reason to complain if your daughter doesn't perform well in her exams, though I may be reading too much into that.

I am a teacher. We have a prom. It's lovely. The students organise it themselves, through a Prom committee, which is comprised of volunteer students, some sixth formers, and a couple of Heads of House (we don't have Year Heads) I teach in a fairly low-achieving school, and we do have behaviour issues, but the Prom is usually a fabulous event. Parents do not get involved in the organisation, and I have never heard of any pressure on the kids to spend huge amounts of money. We certainly don't advocate the "date" side of it - most turn up in big friendship groups. In the main, I approve. Even before the advent of High School Musical, and the big push for Proms which came before that, many schools had an end-of-5th-Year disco or dance - we certainly did when I went to school. It's a nice opportunity for the children to celebrate the end of the year, and I think it's parents, and kids themselves, in certain places, who do the pressurising. It's not universal.

TBH, it sounds like she's been a PITA for months and the school have had to work very hard to keep her on track so she does as well as she can in the exams, which surely should be a higher priority than the 'prom'?

Perhaps the school didn't exclude her from the event earlier in an attempt to keep her motivated, but bottom line, teachers don't have to organise or attend proms, it is their free time and they have to make a judgement call about who deserves the reward. And I would say that would be the children who have had to put up with your DD behaving badly and disrupting their exam classes.

If you knew she had to reach the magic number of 100 and she hadn't, not being allowed to go to the prom was hardly a huge shock, was it?

fluffy head

it does seem totally wrong to tell your dd this at such a crucial time- whether she was expecting it/deserved it/they were wrong to exclude her or not. You dont tell a 15/16 year old girl this just before an exam. I would think it is like going into an exam having been told your wedding is cancelled.

it does seem a bit torturous to hold this over anyones head all year. at my dds school the only consequence to poor attendance/behaviour is the general failing of exams and not being invited to sixth form

it sounds like she is popular so will find this really hard. i guess what is done is done- will she be moving to college after gcse for a fresh start?

thanks ageing its gives me hope to read some one has an understanding of where I am coming from. She is coping with the support of her fantastic friends and great teachers who still standby her and are so upset as to the bad timing of of this matter.We agree what is done is done and it will make her a stronger person.The drawn out process has made her feel very helpless and she is now seeing a doctor for depression. He told her that many young people are going through the same thing.She has got a place at college but it is over subscribed and exam results are important.The teacher that told her 5 mins before her exam that she could not go to the prom was the same teacher that said that said she was very cross and very angry that she had been been offered a place at college and that she had students that were less able but worked far harder so were therfor more deserving!. we were gobsmacked that such a statement could be expressed to us in the presence of our daughter from a teacher.My mum is a teacher of special needs children and always seen the best in her students and taught me not to judge, shall i go back under the bridge! lol

I can't imagine a child being on report for 5 months - for behaviour, in an exam year. She must have been pretty bad and has affected the learning of other pupils and made the lives of her teachers a misery. A child doesn't go on report for standing up to bullies - they go on report for affecting the learning of others.

What did you do when she would come home with a poor report for you to review and sign? Did you reinforce that everyone was against her and she was basically a good kid? Or did you come down on her like a ton of bricks?

It is totally right for her to be excluded from the prom - the school should not be rewarding bad behaviour and nor should you. Given that she has a track record for bad behaviour and nothing has worked so far, they probably can't risk her kicking off during the prom. As you have said, a lot of families have struggled to enable their children to go to the prom and it simply wouldn't be fair for your daughter to spoil their celebration.

I don't buy the five-minutes before the exam thing. She would have known weeks ago that she hadn't earned the right to go to the prom. If she does badly in her exams it is because she has spent much of the year pissing about in class instead of getting down to learning.

Seeing a doctor for depression! Just because she can't go to a Prom! Give me strength.
If she was one of my lot, she wouldn't have seen the outside of the front door for a month, no phone, etc, never mind going to a Prom.
You are making her out to be some sort of victim, but I'm sure if we had the school's side of the story here, it would vary from the version posted here.

"If she does badly in her exams it is because she has spent much of the year pissing about in class instead of getting down to learning."

True.

Also, Y11 are on study leave ATM; the teachers only see them when they come in for exams. So that might explain the timing, rather than vindictiveness.

Withdrawing permision to attend Prom is the final sanction, especially for a child who is leaving to go to College for sixthform. No way would a teacher tell someone in January that they are banned - they would have spent their last bargaining chip with nearly half the year to go!

I hope that you have discussed the concept of turning over a new leaf and re-inventing herself when she goes to the new College in September,

Good grief.
As other posters have said, I imagine the school's point of view would be different.
I would hate a girl like your dd in my own child's class- especially in such an important year.

very strong word hate!and the swearing ,great example. I would dislike to have you as a mum and even more so some of you as a teacher of any one of my children!This is becoming rather nasty and I dont want to be part of this so will be leaving my last post.
Before I go I will just repeat what I have said all along, as is typical of some teachers I have met over the 25 years I have been a parent, they dont listen and like to talk over you or to think they may be in the wrong for once.
I fully support the school the hard working teachers for all they do. I also support my daughter and disciplin her in a constant and caring way,not that she has ever caused me any grief.
You dont know me or her but seem so narrow minded in your judgement of people its frightening!Some of your children must live in fear of you, you sound like bullies to me. Perhaps you should try looking at yourself cos you sound bitter or maybe you got bullied so you take it out on others. Any way I only asked a simple question and have read a lot of assumed reasoning and some very unkind postings about what you all imagine myself and my d to be like I find it very sad because we are all after all only human and she or I would never intend to hurt a fly! Goodbye

I am afraid you haven't really helped us to see your side of the matter, fluffy. You refuse to talk of anything your dd may have done wrong- yet the fact that you have not protested to the school governors about wrongful punishment suggests that she has done something wrong. How on earth are we supposed to be supportive if we don't know what she has done, or how that may have impacted on the other children in the school.

The image you present is of a lovely long-suffering child who, with the support of her friends, is coming through a difficult situation not of her making. The problem is, we don't know whether to believe this picture- and if we don't believe it, that, unfortunately, leaves free scope to the imagination.

And for the record, deaddei, did not say she would hate your dd. She said she would hate having a disruptive child in her own child's class during such an important year. Having heard how my own nephew's education was disrupted by other children, until his parents finally changed schools, I can sympathise with this view: this is absolutely not the same as expressing hatred towards a person.

Thank you cory for making that clear- dd has had 7 disruptive girls in her teaching group this year, and it has been awful. Thankfully the situation has been sorted, but for 6 months it was bad.
I do not hate your dd op.
And we still do not know what she has done.

"Some of your children must live in fear of you, "
-perhaps they respect their peers and teachers.

I wonder where the child could possibly have picked up the idea that anyone who disagrees with you is a big fat bully and just mean and doesn't listen and so I'm going to scweam and scweam until mummy takes me to the doctors...

So there!

Message withdrawn

fluffy I think telling her 5 mins before her exam is bad timing (if that is what happened).

But I really think that if you are displaying this attitude re these sanctions infront of your DD you are asking for trouble.

I have a teenager. He is a pretty good lad as things go. He doesnt joy ride etc either. But if I gave him an inch he would take a good deal more than a mile! If he comes home making wild claims about his teachers I listen, discuss and usually tell him to suck it up. Life is tough and he needs to deal with it. If I didnt God only knows what he would be like. He already thinks he knows it all (didnt we all?)

Be aware that as well as thinking they are the most important beings on the planet, teenagers (even the nicest ones) love a bit of drama and will bend the truth and stir things up in order to achieve it.

Just read this thread and feel quite shocked. It does feel very judgemental.
I am not saying I agree or disagree with the OP`s take on the issue.

Harsh judgements with swearing have been made about someones daughter and OP`s parenting with hardly any information.

Is this not bad behaviour as well!

Some post say more about the poster than the OP...

I feel people should be civil or not post at all. The OP is entitled to her opinion. Different perspectives should be offered with tact and empathy.

littlejoe, we have repeatedly asked the OP for more information- it is not our fault if it has not been forthcoming

Ask yourself why you need this information. For whose sake was it? The OP does not have to be forthcoming. It was not a supportive safe thread was it.

Littlejo - How can we offer the advice requested when the picture we are being given is confusing and incomplete?

littlejo67 Fri 28-May-10 20:59:46
"Ask yourself why you need this information"

To be able to judge whether the school is BU or not, of course. The OP's problem, as stated in the OP, is that the school will not back down over the prom, so this presumably is where she wants support. To know whether she is right to ask this or not, I would need to know why the school has made this decision. I cannot support anyone in something if I don't know if they are right.

If the teachers are just being petty then I would be full of sympathy and support. And I do know that teachers can be petty: I am absolutely not of the opinion that teacher is always right.

Otoh if the dd's bad behaviour had been such as to disrupt the teaching and ruin other people's chances of getting the grades they deserved, then I would fully understand why the school wouldn't want her at the prom.

Also, if they thought there was a risk that her behaviour might get out of hand at the prom. They would have to weigh the risk of other pupils having their enjoyment spoiled against the disappointment of this pupil.

The timing, I agree, was bad, though how come the OP's dd had no idea that she had lost enough credits to be in the danger zone? I would have thought if she knew she was being monitored that she would keep a careful tally.

Ideally, of course, the head should have called her a little earlier, when it looked as if she might fail, and given her a stern talking to and warned her that one more incident and that would be the prom gone. But that presupposes that the deciding misbehaviour didn't happen just before the exam- and again we don't know that.

One of my tutor group has been banned from the Prom, after many discussions about his behaviour. Not a decision taken lightly.

He's gutted - I'm gutted for him. However, his behaviour's been appalling, he's had clearly explained to him what he'd have to do not to get banned...

As a publican, pre-teaching, I can confirm that Proms are usually booked by a student committee, but venues will then expect a teacher presence - this will include pointing out anyone attempting to gatecrash to the venue's own security.

From the venue's POV - they can't sell booze to under 18s, so they rely on ticket sales. Usually these are non-refundable, so they'll be perfectly happy to see students who've been banned refused entry. Also, they expect a number of drunk 16 year olds to be throwing up in the bogs - again, they rely on teachers to know the kids & help deal with this.

So whilst I can see where you're coming from re: end of year 11 parties organised by students/parents - you'll be lucky to find a venue that'll have you!

Obviously it's come as a blow to your dd, & yes, if she was told 5 minutes before a GCSE examination then that was uncalled for (should've been done by letter or formal interview), but I think she may have to accept it as a consequence for sustained unacceptable behaviour.

ive had three kids go through year 11 and banning any child from the prom is a decision not taken lightly at all.

reading betweent he lines i'm saying that in your dd's case popular means gobshytey - mens disrupting class, means making peoples lives a misery.

to be on behavioural report for months is astounding.

she may well have stopped someone from being bullied and that is a nice thing to do. that doesn't excuse ruining school life for many students who wish to learn.

I don't think the teachers should have told her before an exam.

i wish your dd all the luck in the world at college - its a big change - it means going becuase you want to be there - only needs a small fuck up and your out on yer arse - they don't give a shit.