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.

You've said the main issue is the school has denied the fact they excluded your son from the last 3 days. But here it says they explicitly stated that your wife's covid status caused the school to 'take action'. Which implicitly admits action was taken? So which is it?

Off topic, but you’re not “responsible people”, in my opinion at least, if you’re sending your son to school when his mother has Covid.

That they will take a little more care with something like this in the future. The school are completely up their own, what else do they get up to. What kind of mental case is it to exclude the child because the mother is ill. Nobody is that dim and if they are they shouldn't be running the school.

Everyone who is easily led "nearly died" of covid.

Surely you have something more useful you could be doing with your time, Ian? Some housework, perhaps?

"She doesn't even go here!"

The child wasn’t excluded. They were told to stay at home because the mum had Covid. Huge difference between the two and I think it’s Ian’s fixation on conflating the two that’s the problem. He wants them to apologise for an exclusion that simply didn’t happen and of course the school aren’t going to do that. Exclusion is the process of removing a child from school either temporarily or permanently as a form of punishment for poor behaviour. It’s not this!

So the school did something that you didn't agree with, they acted on your complaint and changed that decision, and a year later you are still whining about the original decision?

Somebody made a mistake. Not a very big one, and most likely in good faith.
If you’d wanted to punish them for that, then you have - you’ve cost them huge time and stress, detracting from their work in educating and making good decisions for the next cohort.
Yes, people should own their mistakes, but maybe as per a previous poster they have been worried about it getting blown up further if they say the wrong thing.
You don’t need to pursue this further. Let it go. Leave them in peace.

OP seems to really have a tight grip on right, wrong & unfairness. He has to let this go. His son missed 3 days of year 6 almost a year ago and is no longer at the school.

His poor wife worked at the school and has had to leave her job.

OP - it’s unhealthy to hold onto something minor for so long. Consider therapy to help learning how to let go of things and stop harassing a school that your child no longer attends

I assume you wouldn't contest that? The point is that the action they took as a result was incorrect

You have the DfE and the LA both effectively acknowledging that the school was in the wrong. You could flag it up with Ofsted - they won't take any immediate action but when they inspect they may check whether the school's health policies are all up to date. I think that's about as far as you can take this.

Presumably the law requiring children to receive full time education?

Nice bullying of a child.

However you feel about OP's approach, I don't think that a school that has been proved to have been telling lies can be described as a "poor, poor school".

This is wrong. What the OP describes is clearly an exclusion.

Any time a school stops a pupil from attending lessons is an exclusion regardless of the reason and regardless of the process followed. The fact it was due to the mother's illness means it was an unlawful exclusion. The fact the correct processes were not followed also means it was an unlawful exclusion. OP is correct that her son was unlawfully excluded. If the school does not accept that it was an exclusion it is the school that is wrong, not OP.

He wants them to own up to lying about them excluding his son. He’s fixated on “exclusion”. What they actually did was ask them to keep their son at home while mum was ill with Covid. Their son was never excluded from an educational setting in the proper sense of the word and as per DfE processes. But try telling Ian that.

Nope, still not an exclusion.

But lying about it is.

But all that’ll do is get him some documents he likely already has. And what’s the point?

I rather agree, except that MN is capable of being just as shitty to women posters. There's a really odd attitude on MN that schools can do no wrong, teachers are living saints, parents who are anything less than totally supportive are entitled and their children are horrible badly brought-up brats. Dare to suggest a school or a teacher is fallible and you are solely responsible for teachers leaving the profession.

Exactly this!

I thought an exclusion had to be on disciplinary grounds and that the majority of remedies would be to get the child back in school.

the child in question has already missed the 3 days at the end of term and has moved schools exactly what can be achieved here? A change of policy - for what the number of parents who test and then report a covid test as so few and one suspects if they do report it it will be in order to keep their child at home to stop the spread.

so all the OP wants is a PERSONAL apology where actually in all of this he is the one who hasn’t had to stop working there or indeed missed his leavers week

Except that isn't an accurate depiction of the thread.

Education Act 1996 - requirement that all children receive full time education.