Contact during school time

[Parent999]

So secured joint residence order for my 4 year old daughter early this year. She started school in September. However during the drafting of the order the ex insisted that 9-3:15 school time be all ex’s contact time. The courts legal adviser insisted we would have to return to court under new application to have this decided. I wanted my days to include school time so if she is Ill etc. They call me instead of going to ex and then coming to me at 3:15.
Rather than go through the whole process again I relented and agreed to all school time being ex’s. I was assured by my solicitor that school events would not be a breach of the order, I double checked this.

So to now, I’ve learnt from another mother at the school that the ex is pressuring the school to enforce the order and exclude me from parent-child activities at the school. The school have the order and I’m wondering if I should speak to them to clarify their position. It’s taken years to get this far and I think it’s too soon to go back to court again. So worried.

Your ex absolutely cannot exclude you from school events, and a court would rip him a new one for trying!

The school have a legal responsibility to work with everyone who is a parent to the child. They would be breaking education law if they tried to exclude you (and there's no way they will try, because it isn't in the best interests of the child).

So you can safely ignore this one. No need to go back to court. And no need to worry.

Yes. I would ignore that too.

Thanks, I’m trying desperately to keep the pettiness out of the school but having lost in court, the ex is holding on to every last shred of control. Parents evening next, joy.

I'm a bit confused. What contact arrangement do you have? It's usually done in days isn't it?

I think from the schools pov they will allow anyone with PR to come to school events.

It’s not 50/50 yet I have every Tuesday and Wednesday and every other weekend fri-mon. When the Monday and Tuesday link up, along with the Thursday and Friday, the ex insisted that the school time remain hers.
I couldn’t pay £180 a time for the barristers to argue the point so relented. I convinced myself that I’d give her the benefit of the doubt but I knew she would try this. There is a lot more going on so going back to court seems inevitable, but I’m desperate not yet. Our daughter is doing so well.
While we are here I have another question please.

I’ve always let my daughter take clothes, toys etc freely to the ex’s home, if it doesn’t come back I just buy another. But the ex insists on keeping it separate. So much so that my daughter now refers to her belongings as daddy’s or mummy’s. I try to correct her and tell her they belong to her but I’m losing a fighting battle. I’ve tried talking to her mum about it but she just blanks me. I put some wellies in the school the other day and the ex snuck in and replaced it. My daughter prefers the uniform that I bought as it’s easier to get off/on for PE so of course the ex has them all now and keeps sending her in the cheapies she bought from Asda. I feel helpless, I know in the long term this could cause problems for our daughter.
Sorry for the rant but all of this weighs on my mind every day, I just want DD to enjoy such an important time in her life.

As @SlightlyMisplacedSingleDad says...

You can not legally be excluded.

My OH’s EW tried this.

Wouldn’t share school information with the kids dad. Wouldn’t ‘allow’ him to attend parents evening. The primary school were great (smaller school and they tend to have a closer relationship with parents). When he contacted them, they immediately put him on the mailing list and he was given a separate invite for parents evenings, events.

The secondary school was more of a challenge. He phoned and wrote to them explaining he was the NRP and would like to receive the same communication as the RP. The school refused and said they only held one email address and he wouldn’t be given special treatment. He referred them to the education act and he would take it further with the local education authority if they didn’t comply. He missed out on the first year of her schooling - EW wouldn’t tell him when parents evening was in etc. Now he’s receiving information.

Be firm and push for it.

Some people are just fuckers.

Then they use their children in their fuckery.

I wish there was a law against this (not that I'd know what or how to enforce one)

I'd keep a note/diary if everything. Not to be vicious and make sure it doesn't appear that way. But rather a "x happened. I'm concerned this will affect dd because ...".

Sounds like you are but keep dd out of it.

Anything you aren't informed of stuff record it. If she does home ill, has an inset day etc Make sure you record where she was. Especially that she's needed to be transported from house to house whilst ill whereas she could have come home from school to resident house and recuperated.

Focus on what outcome you want for DD. Make that clear and make it clear it's for dd.

I am pretty sure that the school will not forbid you from attending school events during your 'non-contact time', as you have PR .

IME, unless there are safe guarding issues then the schools really don't want to get involved in warring parents - they expect the parents to work it out.

It's probably worth you getting in touch with the school to double check that they have all your contact details and they know you both need to be informed of things. Do they communicate via ParentMail?

I'm sorry you are going through this. I have a mental post-it note in my head which says "put DS first" which really helps me to keep my focus and not let my resentment bubble into any action I may want to take like punching ex in the face

The school will soon wise up to who's being a dick, and your DD will too and she will vote with her feet.

Thanks guys, really. Thankfully the school have been great so far, I started off with signing any permission slips etc and then putting a copy back in the bag for her mum but it wasnt reciprocated so when I had to take daughter back home one day to change her for pyjama day and then get back to school, I was late for school and work. The ex turned round and said I breached the order humppffff.
So now the school make sure they give me a copy of everything, I have the parent teacher app etc now so hopefully that wont happen again.
I dont keep a record because I feel its all too petty and surely the court wont be interested in this crap. When we went to court CAFCASS wanted nothing to do with it, no risk or welfare issues, despite her lies.
Even the mediator told her it was already a joint parenting situation and the courts dont like petty cases but the ex was like a dog with a bone. The more she lied the more ridiculous she looked.
I try desperately to hide all this from daughter but she openly told me "Mummy changed the wellies at school because she wanted me to wear hers"

Anyway my worry regarding the original post is that the court order is clearly stated, surely if the ex threatened them they would have to abide by it? it clearly states 9-3:15 is ex's contact time. Its black and white. I want to speak to them but theyve been so good this far I dont want to rock the boat.

Actually, IF you do go back to Court then having real examples with dates etc will be better than just stating you're not happy.
Them knowing that e.g. on the 15th Dec your ex was obstructive in you going to see your DD in the Xmas play is concrete example of how it's affecting your DD.

I can't help with the 9-3.15 contact time - that seems so odd. I mean your DD isn't actually with either of you. I suppose it means they'd contact ex if your DD was poorly and needed collecting. It means you can't waltz in a take your DD out of school, but why would either of you want to do that? In the event she had a dental appt or whatever I think the school should release the child to anyone with PR. I'm no lawyer though.

IF you think you are breaching the CO then write that down. It's OK to breach it if you have 'good reason'.

@theorigrightsofwomen, these are the concerns I have for the future.
I hope this acts as a warning for everyone here that you should absolutely get everything wrapped up on the day of court. The court made the order and then the barristers took months of negotiating the details, it almost cost more than court itself and I ran out of money. Ex has a rich daddy.

But the points you make were the exact things my solicitor and barrister said to me to convince me to cave, which I did. I know Ill get burned at the stake for this but, the three judges, the court clerk, ex's barrister and solicitor, my barrister and solicitor were all women. The pressure to just cave on everything and leave the parenting up to mum was out of this world. We were completely equal parents before the split, its all my daughter has known so Im not going to change.
Im ranting again, this is the first time in years Ive let it pour out. I havent told my family any of this, I hope that once things settled we could be effective co-parents again.