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.

Why so nasty?

Why wouldn't a child in their last week of primary be doing things they think are cool?

Just change schools. Write a bad Google review of the school (as long as it's factual)

I don't understand why you went to such a massive load of effort to try and reprimand the school for following what may well have been slightly out of date COVID protocol.

You make it sound like your kid was wrongly imprisoned for axe murder?

It's three days off school when a family member had an infectious disease. They changed their rules once you challenged it.

What more could you possibly gain from any of this? I swear it'll drive you into intense paranoia if you don't forget about it.

But by that logic he should have been kept at home.

I suspect they were giving you an attendance out, you told them they assumed you were telling them as yiu didn’t want to send him in!

My son missed a load of his leaver's programme. I shrugged and got on with life. What a waste of so many people's further time and energy trying to extract an apology for time that cannot be got back.

3 days? How dare they? Demand a parliamentary enquiry!

I agree with both the last statements. Firstly If your son was ‘excluded’ then I presume they provided you with paperwork to state that and the work that he missed.

or was it that he was asked to stay away due to possibly having a contagious illness and could have taken down the rest of his class during their last weeks in school? He could have infected any number of staff. In fact I have been reminded tonight I am due a Covid jab in half term due to being immunocompromised.

I find it hard to believe after going through so many complaints, governors etc that no one has just said sorry. We made a mistake?

This all seems rather OTT for 3 days off.

There should be a level of trust between a parent and their school of choice.
It appears that this has irrevocably broken down in your case.

Have you considered moving him?

How old is your son?
Is he bothered by his 3 days off?
Is he embarrassed by your actions towards the school?

If your kid is anything like you, they probably just wanted a three day break from him.

"I've probably lost all perspective."

You really have. It sounds like you've become obsessed.

Quite how they knew your wife had a cold is difficult to fathom, but that aside, they had clearly continued following out of date guidelines. You are like a dog with a bone and are destroying your relationship with the school over something that happened a year ago and which can’t be reversed, but which probably didn’t harm your son. Move on.

My wife worked at the school so she was responsible in letting other staff know that she was positive. The school told us not to bring my son into school which we accepted but we later learnt that the law doesn't allow the school to do this. Rather than admit that they hadn't followed the law they said that they hadn't told us not to bring our son in even though we had evidence contrary to that. It's the sheer audacity that flabbergasted me.

It’s really upsetting that your son missed out on his last days at primary school but what’s done is done.

The school did what they thought was best at the time.
An apology is not going to fix anything.

You are making things worse for your son by dragging this on for so long.

You should instead teach him that it’s ok to be disappointed but to find ways to deal with it, instead of dwelling on it.

What Ian wants.

I simply don't understand why you even made the school aware that your wife had COVID? Unless she worked at the school, why does it matter? You say you are responsible people but if the school shouldn't have excluded your son (and you weren't expecting them to) what was the purpose of telling them?

She works at the school? Fuck me. She must be so embarrassed.

Have you had fallings out with many other people or organisations?

Do you think that there is no point in asking someone to apologise for their actions?

You can ask but you won't always get.

It was a year ago. It was 3 days. Your son left that school the same week.

Let. It. Go.

My wife worked at the school

Well that's an interesting plot twist.

Does your wife still work there?

Cross-posted with your last post. So she DID work at the school. How does she feel about you carrying this on for the last 10 months?

Let it go.

I understand where you are at (not in terms of the specific issue you are fighting but your overwhelming NEED to keep fighting it). Someone posted a reference to the two monks zen story the other day (google it) and I think it applies here.

Just let it go. It feels amazing.

Is this continued nonsense the reason she no longer works at the school? 😬

You sound intolerable if I'm honest. The kind of parent professionals dread

She was still testing for covid in 2024? She made a rod for her own back then, but if she thought it was important to test then she really ought to have expected the response to be stuck in aspic too. Next time she should just say she has a cold, because that’s what coronaviruses cause.

Plot twist!

Did you have written evidence?