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.

That’s really poor behaviour from the school and it is galling that they have so little respect for their customers. However, realistically I doubt there is anything that you can do legally.

I would leave a bad review stating exactly what happened, and then draw a line under it.

It isn't ok, and in an ideal world we'd all love that apology in those situations, but sometimes it isn't going to happen, and we have to accept that.

I get why it's important, but in the grand scheme of things, it's time to let it go, to move on, and stop allowing it to take up space in your life.

You have too much free time…

My experience of teachers is that they could never apologise and admit they were wrong, It's almost a personality trait - they are always right, even when they are wrong. But for your own good I'd suggest you move on - you can't push water up a stream!

I agree! You went out of your way to tell the school when your child didn’t even have it. The school probably didn’t know what to say as no one else would have bothered therefore told him to stay off school.
You brought this on yourself! Just give it up.

And also a father who isn't fully present rather than a futile mission just for an apology.

I understand your frustration but you won't get the outcome you want. The more you challenge the school, the more they will dig their heels in and it just becomes a battle of egos to prove a point.
The more you focus on this, intead of what is really important, the more damage you'll do to your mental health and likely your son will pick up on it, thus affecting him more than the original issue.

Pick your battles - life has its ups and downs and this really isn't worth losing months of your life fighting it.

Complaining to schools is a lost cause. As you have found out Govs just cover their anrses and the DfE/LAs don't give a shit. Is it a LA school or academy?

Yes it's a bit different when your loved one is no longer in their care.

The first thing I asked was would my dd be suspended because I was questioning the report. To pre empt the backlash to shut me up.

In the ideal world you would be free to call things out, some of which is illegal and goes against the send code of practice in my case. But as can be seen on this thread, I'm not going to stand up and risk backlash on my child when 99% of other parents wouldn't.

You play the stupid imorale game.

If that's what parents want then maybe it can also apply in reverse, no gossip about teachers at the schools gates and especially not in a club where alcohol may have been imbibed! Maybe parents don't know the minutiae of teachers' lives and problems if we're going down the predictable lists of excuses for their behaviour.

It might be, if the school had been following a lawful policy in saying a healthy child whose mother has Covid shouldn't come in. However, it wasn't. Having a relative with Covid is not a valid reason for decreeing that a child should not receive their entitlement to full time education.

Schools can't escape from the fact of having imposed an unlawful exclusion simply by saying "Oh dear, we made a mistake".

Or maybe they have enough real work to do without bothering about a petty complaint form a would be Perry Mason.

So that would be lawful and not an exclusion It doesn't change the fact that what happened to OP's child was an unlawful exclusion.

If that is how you interpret either of those posts, you are seriously lacking in basic comprehension skills. It is very clear that neither of us is saying that any time a school sends a child home it is an exclusion.

He hasn't. Read his messages.

Except that isn't what happened, if you bother to read his posts.

A school that views an unlawful exclusion as a petty matter is a failing school.

@BunnyEaster

Sounds very similar to my situation. School have already suspended leading to child leaving/excluded 2 children before they are 6 years of age in DD’s class Plus attempting to reject my DD’a placement.
They can write bloody awful things, cut and paste, lie to get funding, and justify spending that funding on their high SLT wage while ignoring the needs of my DD because she is quiet.
Schools should be there to serve their local community. We shouldn’t be pandering to them/sucking up to them/treading on eggshells because they wield power to exclude.
I hope things are changing. OFSTED are penalising schools that try to off roll children. I’ve found the Local Authority/law are on my side.

And cause more people to hand their notice in.
The level of self-absorption of parents on here is astonishing.

Or the school could just have said sorry, we messed up - like I'm sure they encourage kids to do on a daily basis - why is it so hard?

You sound like my husband. He spent years fighting a public body because they were wrong - they were btw. All his spare time and attention was focusssed on it and it overshadowed everything for about 2 years. It was finally resolved in his favour, which encouraged him to fight another 'injustice' in similar single-minded way for about 8 months until he won.

Then he was prescribed sertraline. THANK GOD FOR THAT!!!! He's a changed man. Is much more settled in himself, has returned to being human.

I'm a man.
I'm a primary school teacher.
I make a point of apologising to a child if I genuinely need to- I model this behaviour- I don't have a problem with this.
Like most of my colleagues I'm only human though, and I react better to parents/am more likely to go out of my way to accomodate them if they are polite and professional in their dealings with me. If you shout and swear at me, although I wouldn't dream of taking it out on your child (I'm NOT being sarcastic here, I geuinely wouldn't) I can honestly tell you it's less productive than being polite to me.

I don't think Ian is helping either himself or his family, even if he is right.
It's a bit like driving, it's better to give way to an agressive driver even if you have right of way, than to be in the right but also dead as your car is smashed up.

Is it an exclusion if a school tells a parent that they must keep their child at home for 48 hours after a vomiting episode?

@OneFunBrickNewt

Hope it’s ok to point out that accommodate is with cc and mm.

…or perhaps not. Because if I attempt to challenge - the governors will decide that spelling is not important, I’m a pesky parent and my child needs excluding…