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?

School will worry about their league tables. Have you outlined how you will get your son to make up the lessons he has missed?

I said that we would make sure he caught up on any missed work and the club also offered to supervise him doing school work. I would have provided more detail had he asked. We have tutors lined up in literally all subjects he needs as DS1 did his GCSEs last year.

Do you want to take back your shitty comment about a 15 year old not amounting to much? His grades and predictions are very good and it's an academic school with a tough entry exam. Take your nastiness about a teenager elsewhere.

This boy? How dare you. Get off this thread and stop insulting my child. In no way is your comments necessary or relevant.

Presumably she didn't need to ask previously for the very reason that the trials were delayed

The original start date was in the summer holidays so we didn't need to ask school. He gets 8 weeks over the summer and he was supposed to go in early August. TheFirstDelicious thinks I am making all of this up to amuse myself! Nasty piece of work.

Sorry, very last word on this. I was curious and went to look at our school's info on student athletes and thought you might find it interesting.

I'll stop now. Other online schools are available and are probably very good too!

The No.1 School for Athletes | Minerva Virtual Academy

Op I was on your Teen thread. And what you said was pretty heart breaking and sounded incredibly hard… for you

How far away is training op? Will he be back for the full afternoon?

Well if the school don’t agree the club won’t take him

I'm sorry to hear this and really don't understand why the school is being so difficult. Most clubs do day release at this age do yes unfortunately it would be the same thing. Apologies OP but I don't know any schools that haven't released. It's a shame the trial didn't happen in the summer as training is in the day - but I think you mentioned your son was injured....

Maybe negotiate the trial time and then agree to meet with them once a decision is made? They tell you absolutely nothing through the trial so it's hard to get an idea, but you should get a feeling. As mentioned, we were lucky as my son knew after about 3 weeks so by the time he started to 'guess' the decision was made for him.

Otherwise, and it isn't ideal but can your son move schools? You could 'interview' another school with this criteria in mind? I know this is getting ahead of things but you will need the school on side as there will also be mid week games that your son will need to leave early for and nationals which will require time off etc.

It would also help to know how he does academically as this can make a difference.

Have a meeting with them asap and talk this through. Consider your options and that you may have to tell them that you may consider walking away. Also, I know private schools can require Saturday attendance for sport etc. If your son is U15's he is fine as they will play on Sundays, but if he is U16's they follow the 18's schedule and play on a Saturday so it might be good to know this before.

Very best of luck to you and I truly hope everything works out.

The govt have just changed the rules on attendance so that they also apply to private schools, not just state schools, so the school will be mindful of that. I’d ask for a meeting with the form/year head and the head of sport rather than just send an email.

I think a big part of your problem is that this is all happening so close to the exams. Really, though we talk about GCSEs and A levels being 2 year courses, they are only 5 terms of teaching and I know my DC had finished some syllabi well before Easter. So you're kind of at the stage where things are likely to be most disruptive - there'll be a lot of new concepts still being taught now and not a lot of time to catch up on missed work or deal with the fall out if things go badly wrong.
Finding a new school at this stage would also be hard because even if you find somewhere that will authorise the absences, can accomodate your son and offers all the same subjects with the same exam boards they won't necessarily have taught the syllabi in the same order so there could be gaps, and he will have all the disruption of getting used to new teachers, making new friends etc. I honestly am sympathetic to why he wants to do it but personally I don't think I'd risk a major upheaval like changing schools at this point.
Is this really a now or never thing? Will there be more trials this Summer? If so, would there be an option to negotiate with school for a plan for year 12, or to look for a new, more supportive, school for 6th form as that's a natural break when a lot of kids change school anyway? Maybe there is some intermediate type programme he could do this year as a compromise?
My DS's programme didn't involve missing much school but he did have training 150 miles away on midweek evenings so that meant some very late journeys on school nights whilst he was doing A levels. The deal we had was that he had to go into school next day come what may, and any sign of lack of effort or deteriorating grades meant he'd have to drop out of the sport programme. Then nearer to exams we negotiated with his coach for him to back off on his training until exams were over then he put in extra time to catch up. It needed a partnership between him, me, his coach and his school teachers and that was so much easier to put in place prior to the start of year 12 than it would have been later.
I think it is always a hard balance as we want our children to have every opportunity to chase their dreams but not to risk their "normal" life too much, but the timing of this particular offer makes it even harder for you. I hope you find a solution that works for everyone.

Thank you, this is very very helpful! So was your son successful? We've been told that in the U16 team they make decisions very quickly so he may only be there a few weeks. He is good but it's highly unlikely he will be successful, however, it will stand him in good stead for other clubs. The club have suggested doing just one training session this week (which the school have approved) and then a match this weekend. I have proposed to the school this pattern over the next few weeks so he would only miss one morning. Do you think this is workable from a trial or is it just putting more pressure on him as he will have to play matches with only one training session with the team plus they may make a decision quicker so he may not get as much leeway.

And yes, the school does require attendance at Saturday morning sports so we had to fight that battle last year and probably will again this year. And if this does't work out then hopefully he'll have trials at other clubs. He has already been offered one which is not where we live so he would have to miss a couple of days of school again to attend.

Why is the school being so difficult?! The whole point of paying for private school is that it's more flexible and I don't know of any school that would deny their pupils this kind of opportunity. It's very poor of the school.

The issue with moving is matching exam boards - is he I gcse or gcse for example as movjng in year 11 is a tough move

@Springhare76 do you have programmes like Fulham with Raynes Oark or (and yes for the women’s side) Chelsea and Blenheim

I know children on both programmes and is really useful at getting a sixth form education and none of them were signed up to it before

@Springhare76 The hybrid model is release from school. That suggests mainstream school and what about his coach/club negotiating with the school?

The club spoke to the school directly and they still said no!

No problem at all. Yes my son was successful and enjoying it immensely thank you. It's been a great road and I hope your son is successful too!

You don't tend to see decisions before the 8 week trial, but then we haven't had any kids trial at u16's so far. I'm sure you son is talented and best of luck to him. The great thing is they will video all of the training sessions and games so they can start to build a picture for him to send to other academies (as they can ask for this) should he not be successful. There are also many many many scouts at each game who take a record of each kid, so they are aware of all of the players. Also as a tip (and you don't have to take it from me!) is they will take your son based on where he is now but also his potential, his coachability (how quickly can he take direction and adapt) and how he progresses through this trial.

Honestly, I think you need to do every session at the trial - this is when the club get an understanding of how serious he is and how it will go with the school. There may be kids that do one morning who aren't at the affiliated academy school so you could ask to join that group of kids if that helps? It is pretty unlikely they will play him after only one training session. Even if a kid is sick in the week and hasn't trained they won't do this - higher risk of injury. However good your son is he just won't be ready. The gap between the highest levels of grassroots (JPL?) and cat 1 is enormous. That isn't to say you son can't do it, they just wouldn't want to throw him in like that. From memory I think they also have to see him in three games (again from memory so this may have changed) so they can take an accurate snapshot and not base it on one game before they make a decision- opposition is different and intensity is high. For example my son could easily play saturday and sunday at grassroots but academy in some uber intensive games he was wrecked for a few days!

In terms of other clubs as I don't know where you live is the rule is you can trial at any club but you can't live further than 1.5 hours away (detrimental to school and person) but you can sign and then stay with hosted families. The FA does check on this.

Best of luck!

Private school so could you pay for extra work (or tutoring) to keep up with whatever he misses? Does he have friends in the classes he will miss, who he can get the notes from, and discuss what was covered. Private schools can be very accommodating, if he is willing to put in extra work and keep up, they may allow it, be proactive in finding out what he can do to mitigate the problem, for instance are there after school supervised homework/remedial classes he could attend to help cover missed lessons?

Thank you again. Are you able to share which academy he is with? Was he with an academy or on trial with other clubs beforehand? He sounds very talented!

Yes, the club checked distance to training and we're ok. He is the only U16 trialist which is a bit weird. Understand it's going to be massively challenging! He has played against cat 2 and 3 academies fairly regularly but never a cat 1 academy (only development/elite development).

So what would you do with school? No way are they going to allow him to miss 2 mornings. I have asked for 1 morning so he can attend one session a week. Do you think that will put him at a disadvantage, assuming it's agreed?

Yes, we can and would do all of that but at the moment the school have said a flat no. Not sure they will change their minds on 2 mornings.

They can't stop you from taking him out of school. They're VERY likely to mark the absence as unauthorized. Your ds is also VERY likely to be impacted by 8 weeks of missing 16 mornings of education in y11.

They can't stop us but they could potentially treat it as a disciplinary offence AND the club won't/can't take him unless the leave is authorised. FA rules.

That's crazy. I would stop paying those school fees! I have never heard of a private school being so inflexible