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.

If you saw the quality (or lack of) of the chair of governors report which contained several statements which are blatantly untrue it would be hard to accept it. The governors panel then upheld the chair of governors report. Why would I accept that?

You don't have to accept it. But you also don't have to keep on with your fool's errand when it's clear the matter's closed.

If you would just free yourself of this torment Ian, no more harm can come to you.

But what do you want the outcome to be?

So where is the stress? He moved on.

Jumped the shark Ian

as you don’t have a child at the school there is not a rat’s chance in hell the gives a flying fig about your complaints and they will be deleting your emails and laughing at you,

everyone gets disappointed sometimes.

time to move on

You need to move on as all the stress is been caused by you pursuing it.

I would expect them to amend their policy which they have done.

It's not helpful to anybody for to become obsessed with them admitting they are at fault

Lol !

reeled in

They didn't know what the law said. That's a bit disappointing wouldn't you say? When i told them what the law said they couldn't admit they had made a mistake and instead said that they hadn't excluded my son at all.

Oh no! Not cool activities!

What's your aim? Monetary compensation? For your son's old school to invite him back and give him three days of cool activities?

Here's your opportunity to model a positive approach to your son. 'It's sad you missed the fun of the last few days at your old school. But sometimes life doesn't turn out the way we want. You still see/are in touch with X, Y and Z (insert names of friends) and long term friends are more important than 3 days of fun. There will be lots of opportunities to have fun with your friends in future'.

Alternatively you can tell him his life has now been ruined beyond hope of repair.

Your choice.

To a 10 year old it means alot. I had him at home 3 days really upset.

An apology isnt going to get your sons last three days at school back.

Put it aside and put your energies into the now.

How / why did they know his mum had Covid ?

You’re fighting over your son being upset about missing ‘cool activities’ almost a year ago?!

Give it up OP, the game is over.

And this is why no one wants to be a teacher anymore! Congrats Ian!

WHO TOLD THE SCHOOL HIS MUM HAD COVID (FFS!)?

Yes, mildly disappointing.

Not something to be anguishing over and contemplating legal action over months later.

This is a completely accurate response to the original post…if the family were in a newspaper I can just see the ‘compo face’…!

@Annascaul I’ll take that starter for 10

How did they even know she had COVID!!

You still haven’t said how the school came to know that his mother had covid.

I get that. Do you think that there is no point in asking someone to apologise for their actions? An apology never erases their actions but it does feel like you are getting some kind of closure. I'll think on what everyone has said on here as maybe I've not been able to let it go but when you sense a conspiracy to withhold evidence or blatantly present information contrary to evidence then it's hard to just accept.

This reminds me of that poster who was obssessed with finding out who had won an online competition being run in her local area. He/She'd entered online and the deadline of the comp had passed 24 hours previous and the winner's name hadn't been updated on the website.

I wonder if it's the same person under a name change...