Deceitful behaviour from school - don't know where to turn

[godofthunder24]

Hi,

My son's school denied him access for 3 days last year due to his mum having COVID. Following our own research we determined that it was unlawful for the school to deny access for this reason.

Once we presented the legal advice to the school they changed their advice and altered their criteria for allowing my son back into school. It seems very clear to me that they were concerned about the repercussions of unlawful actions and tried to misrepresent their original instructions.

I complained to the school and I've gone through the complaints process with the chair of governors, a complaints panel and the DfE.

The governors have consistently provided inaccurate information during the complaints process which I strongly believe is their attempt to cover up the schools original actions. The governors have access to all of the evidence which is in email form but they continue to misrepresent that evidence.

The DfE have confirmed that the decision to deny access was unlawful.

The Local Authority are not willing to do any other than ensure the school is adhering to the complaints process from now forwards.

I am literally sick to death of feeling wronged by the school and not having a channel that will listen to me and go through the evidence in sufficient detail.

I don't really want to go down the legal route myself but feel like I'm running out of options. Would be great to hear any advice from someone in the know or someone who has been through something similar.

Many thanks,
Ian.

I’m going to echo everyone else and say that you really need to get over this and move on for your own sanity and the good of everyone around you. You’re clearly like a dog with a bone and even if you’ve been wronged, sometimes you do just have to let things go.
Im reminded of my friend’s brother, he had a similarly trivial wrong doing against him (it may not seem trivial to you but in the grand scheme of life and death, it really, really is just not that important). He just could not let the matter go and for over a decade tried everything to prove he was in the right and get an official apology. He ended up alienating most of his friends, with most people who knew him thinking he’d completely lost it. This level of persistence is just not worth it. LET IT GO.

This.

I think that you've raised your complaint. Had meetings with them so they've heard what you had to say.
you say that you want an apology.. but really what is a (probably insincere) apology doing to do.. Give you closure? Only you can give yourself closure on this one.

All in all, he missed three days at the end of term and was very disappointed but is now at another school. It really is done and dusted. I think you've done all you can and should drop it and move on for your sake and your son's sake. Maybe the school did act wrongly and then wouldn't admit it but it doesn't seem like a hill to die on.
Covid is very contagious and can still make people very unwell, particularly if they are immune supressed and so perhaps it was a good thing if your son wasn't at school for those three days. Either way.. there is really nothing that can be done about the event now.

If you are worried about him missing out. Why not organise some fun things for him and some of his friends this half term... which would raise his spirits and put all this strife and anxiety and upset in the past where it now belongs. He's more likely to remember and get confidence from something good happening in the present.

I haven't read the whole thread but I'm guessing you've had some negative responses.. my first reaction on reading your post was that you should pick your battles. This one seems like a no win situation, exhausting yourself and your family over a grievance that nothing can be done to change. Respectfully, there is a thread on here at the moment with a woman whose disabled daughter has been excluded from an end of term trip which cannot accommodate her disability yet the school are proceeding with it. This is actually against the law and far more of a thing to get upset about.
Maybe it would help you to talk about this with someone in RL, is there something in your past, some injustice that really affected you and is still bothering you?
I hope you are able to move on from this as it seems to be causing you so much anxiety.

Ian have you thought about maybe getting a hobby? This is complete madness - you are on a crusade against a school your son doesn’t even attend anymore over some extracurricular activities he missed a year ago. All this time and energy and effort you’ve put into being angry at the school and what has it achieved? Nothing. That’s all focus that could have been given to your son, and to enjoying your life. You have nothing material to gain from this, so stop letting your pride make you ridiculous.

In our experience, a school will close ranks and present you with an impenetrable brick wall. You will not get anywhere.

The staff will lie through their teeth to protect one another, while at the same time leaving you unable to prove anything tangible. It was professional negligence, procedural fuck-ups that should have never happened, and a lack of duty of care on the part of the school that dc suffered and looking back, we really should have taken legal action but dc was not in a good place because of it all and adamant that they couldn't face it. So we had to put their mental health first and walk away.

I agree with the comments but am absolutely boggling at a school saying a pupil couldn't attend due to a parent having Covid. That was never a thing even in 2020/21, when schools were open. You'd get fined if you kept them off for such a spurious reason as a parent. Just really odd.

FWIW DD2 never got a party, school journey or school play due to Covid, none of her cohort did. I think it played a large part in her not settling at secondary school either so she never got a prom either as she ended up doing online school and is sitting exams privately.

Hi Ian,

I work with school complaints. It is time to let it go. There are likely a lot more things behind the scenes that you are not being told, eg the DfE likely have this complaint on the Ofsted file for their next inspection and the school would need to show it is not happening again.

My advice is to let it go because you have achieved a lot even if you think you haven’t. You just won’t be told every thing that is or has happened behind the scenes. You have highlighted an issue and there may be training for governors happening that you won’t be told about.

It is hard to accept when you’re in the right and don’t get an apology, but you have exhausted the complaints process, and the DfE / Ofsted will be aware. It is stalemate now as there is nothing you can do to force an apology, and if they haven’t issued one so far, you won’t be getting one. All it will do is waste hours of your life with all your feelings towards the school.

I completely understand your position and upset, but it is time to let it go.

This is like going back to those crazy Covid times. Covid isn’t what it once was. Would you have shared that she had a cold to stop the vulnerable from getting it? Why people are even still testing is beyond me, all this could have been avoided. That being said the school behaved in a very bizarre way, again, covid isn’t nothing more than a type of cold nowadays, how would they think keeping your son away was appropriate!?

I don’t blame you for being a massive thorn in their side tbh, just for their sheer stupidity I wouldn’t be letting it go.

I deal with employee grievances and I can categorically tell you that almost noone is ever going to say "yes, we broke the law". They may as well just write you a blank cheque.

They will cover up until and unless a judge sorts it out. Then they will "learn lessons".

But, I will echo everyone else. In the scheme of things, this is pretty minor and you really do need to move on.

Don’t you have anything better to do with your time?? Seriously. Why are you making such a big deal out of this? Let it go.

If I were you I would draw a line under it and move on. Everyone has more important things to be getting on with.

I truly and sincerely wish that wasting my time on vanity projects such as this was my biggest concern in life. How lovely for you.

Did your son miss an exam or something? What are you hoping to achieve?
In general not just this case, think about whether something is worth the stress and effort you are putting into it.
You will live a much happier life if you learn to let things go and not let them consume you. All the time you've spent on this could have been used on something you enjoy doing or time with your son instead. Even time doing some extra learning to catch up on those 3 days if need be.
Life's full of enough stress without going looking for it.

My god I’ve never come across anyone so obsessed with being ‘right’ to this ludicrous of an extent, wow.

Have you met the guy on the Christmas dinner thread? They’re made for each other.

@godofthunder24

I’ve been through an awful situation in DD’s school.

1. They initially rejected her placement
2. She has had no lawfully clear provision in her EHCP for the last 2 years and the school failed to inform me that the legal timeframe for her EHCP had been missed by 4 months - with this eventually being completed missing the legal deadline by 8 months
3. Shouted at me for asking to see evidence of speech interventions
4. Described my DD as having a ‘tiny, squeaky voice’ and ‘just sits there not taking on instruction’. Except she knew all her phonics, excels at maths and could recite the register in name order when this observation was written.
5. Do not spend the additional £16000 per year allocated for her provision on her and a simple action on her EHCP (a reminder to go to the toilet/DD is extremely quiet but compliant) was not done/met with huge resistance.

I want to complain - but I 100% do not think the complaints procedure would be impartial.
I have brought it up with the Local Authority and Director of Children’s Services and they have supported me and are ‘on my side’ with future school placements.

I do think you made a very good point about it being impossible to complain properly/cover ups/smokescreens which are fundamentally wrong - even if it’s an issue that others could perceive as fairly minor.

My advice would be to explain your situation to the LA and find out the email for the Director of Children’s Services and explain there too. I don’t think the issue is so much your initial complaint, it’s the way it was handled.

It may help to build up a bigger picture.

Oh I don’t know - the OP on the thread you got your name from was a bit of a mad one too 😂😂

If you think that’s what they talk about during breaks - hahaha.

Honestly you are wasting your time, the Local Authority is the place to go next if you are not satisfied with the Governing body's response. However it sounds like they are guilty of having an out of date sickness policy which isn't illegal. They will have details on theor website of their policies and when they are updated. I don't know what guidance the government provide on sickness, some policies the school are able to control and write themselves and they may have done that due to a vulnerable person on the school for example. But having an overzealous policy is unlikely to be an issue the LA will concern themselves with - unless you have been fined for unauthorized absence incorrectly as a result for example.

Frankly this is going no where, it isn't serious regardless of your efforts to make it seem so and trap people who wouldn't have made the decision into backing their head and their policies. What an embarrassing situation for your wife. Let it go.

Yes. I did last week, to find out whether I had Covid or just a nameless coldy bug. It wasn’t Covid, so when I was due to go to an important event I took some medication, masked up and went (taking care not to sit or stand too close to others). If it had been Covid I wouldn’t have gone, because I don’t want to be the selfish person who spreads it to others, some of whom may be vulnerable.

I hope I didn’t pass on my bad cold, but if I had I think the recipient would have recovered within a week or so, as I have. I know a normally healthy person who nearly died from Covid, and another (a formerly healthy young mother) who still hasn’t fully recovered five years later.

Let it drop. I get why you’re annoyed but you won’t get a satisfied response, it won’t ch age anything and you’re wasting everyone’s time and energy/

Lost. The. Plot.

Ian, this isn't a hill to die on, it really isn't.

It can't be good for you to pursue this, it must be all consuming.

For the sake of your health and sanity, and your poor suffering wife, drop it, move on and save yourself for some other perceived injustice.

Your wife worked there for many years, yet handed her notice in immediately that your son was asked not to come in for three days?

Why not go for constructive dismissal as well?

I get your frustration. My daughter had to miss an important end of term because someone else had Covid. My son had to miss a school trip because his sister had Covid. It makes me quite angry when I think about it but it is all part of the awfulness of Covid. It is hardly surprising your son’s school didn’t get everything right. You need to let this one go as you have let it get out of proportion. If your son gets wind of your response to this, he will never tell you anything about school again because he won’t want everything to be made into such a big deal.

Are you like this about other things or just Covid related stuff? I am generally a calm person but for a while I felt irrational rage(never revealed to the person) when I saw someone wearing a mask. It has faded now which is quite a relief.

OP clearly mentally ill or suffering with effects of a personality disorder. School need to deal with him politely but assertively. Family need to tactfully steer him towards some therapy or relationships will break down. These sorts of obsessive crusades to prove a point often precipitate family breakdown as loved ones become exasperated. Sad