Private school refusing to authorise leave

[Springhare76]

DS2 is 15 and just started year 11 at a private school. He has just been offered an 8 week trial at a premier league football academy which would involve him missing 2 mornings of school a week. I have emailed the school for approval. Not heard back yet but I think they are going to decline it which means that he will miss out on a massive opportunity. He lives and breathes football so this is huge for him. What are my options if they do refuse leave?

I haven't said anything bad about him, I have just said that your prior descriptions help make sense of his school taking a hard line.

I was on the thread OP. Trying to be supportive. It was quite a memorable one

Agreed. Literally just that. Nothing against him personally but it might go some way to explaining why this head seems perfectly fine with the op withdrawing him over this

Have the club confirmed that all ok op?

If you trawl through my posts then you would have read that this is school policy that they apply to everyone. I have been told that directly and indirectly. It's not personal, it's their policy. Stop trying to turn it into something nasty to satisfy your need to be horrible.

He's not ok with him being withdrawn. Do you enjoy making stuff up? I've had productive and respectful communications with them over the last few days and I understand their position.

I highly doubt that! Quietly absorbing information to use it against someone later? You sound like a psycho! Quite disturbing that that's how you spend your time. Do you do that in RL?

Trying to extract more info to fuel your enjoyment? Enjoy your Friday. I have better things to do than interact with a psycho.

Heavens…. Ok Op, I’ll leave you to it. All the best

Yes that's the school Ethan went to. They have links to Arsenal and I believe Watford. The Head is absolutely focused on football and the football boys at the school. It's also fairly academic and fees are cheaper than other independent schools (because of their football links as I understand it). Also absolutely beautiful grounds. We're no longer at the school but I always regretted leaving.

Not sure about state schools sorry.

Really hope the club accepts OP. It sounds like that would indeed be a good compromise. Fingers crossed for you.

As I said you need to look where you are at what state schools have partnerships with football clubs such as Raynes Park and Fulham

The reason the club needs approval from the 'home school' is because of Safeguarding. The home school your son attends remains the main registered school, so the home school needs to ensure everyone your son comes into contact with his safer recruited & the home school must track attendance- it will also need to be passed by the LA attendance officer. Most schools have a process and policy for this. But it may be that this is happening in the back and you're not aware. They're probably waiting for approval. Most parents don't even know about this.

Hopefully you managed to resolve this and your son is doing the trial this week.

I very much hope for your sake @XelaM that it’s been sorted and he can attend the training!

🤔 I don't get the joke?

3 thumbs up emoji reactions would indicate others have!

Clearly some kind of in joke I don't get... 🤷‍♀️

OP I hope you've sorted it.

Those thumbs ups might be from people who think you are being supportive of the OP rather than trying to get another dig in.

Fruitlips the weirdo

Thank you Xela, we have thankfully! Not going to post more here as it's giving Fruitlips too much enjoyment. Such a shame that an otherwise helpful thread is sabotaged by morons like her.

DC at a premier league academy - there are trialists coming in and out all the time. I've seen them being flexible and extending trial periods when children were travelling during trial period.
Most clubs are in contact with the school and follow the children's grades. At mine, when their grades are not good they are not allowed on training during day release until they improve. That's until GCSEs, A- levels are another story.
I also know of children (already in contract) who changed schools when their grades were good but school refused to release.

For the trial, I would try and accommodate, miss a few days of school in the initial weeks, and tell the club that the school/you can't accommodate more full periods at short notice - I assume they have after school training as well on the periods he would have to miss, and at least another training day plus matches? They usually can figure out quite quickly who is going to make it to the team and if they think the kid is good they try their best to accommodate.
Academy football is like hunger games - most won't make it to professional, and kids that are the star of the team one year disappear the next. I would always give priority to school (mine do, and miss day release and matches during test times etc).

Sorry - just noticed I had skipped the whole thread without noticing and my advice is useless - hope he managed to trial!

@Springhare76 There are some posters who seem to follow others around on various threads and bring up something they might have posted years ago! It’s utterly bizarre. Then if name change they work out it’s you and it starts all over again and it’s often personal so “you are too old to know anything about this”, or “your dc left schools x years ago so you have no up to date knowledge” and similar are common put downs. It’s designed to belittle you. Don’t let it is my advice. Report any post that belittles your right to post as a mum. After all, we are mums - that’s the point.