Not allocated a class for English in Y9??

[CardyMow]

Tonight I asked DD why she hasn't had ANY English homework at all this school year. She has told me that her and one other boy have been sitting in the library for their english lessons, unsupervised, just given websites to 'play maths and English games on, or doing wordsearch worksheets'. DD and this other boy both have SN's, and would normally be with Learning Support for this lesson, but when DD spoke to them today, she has been told that they "Haven't been allocated a class yet". We are almost half a term into Y9, why have two children not been given a class to bloody LEARN in?

Who do I e-mail? Her Form tutor is notoriously crap at sorting anything like this out, her HoY has left for maternity leave this week - no replacement yet. She doesn't HAVE an english teacher yet (which is what I want to complain about) and I can't seem to find on the school website who the Head of English is - and I'm not sure if it's a problem from the English Dept or the Learning Support Dept - who I also can't find an e-mail facility for.

I'm so that the school has basically left two SN dc, one of whom is my own DD, with just some wordsearches and a couple of websites as the sum total of their learning in English for an entire half term. What the hell do I do???

Thank you. I will try to amend it in a little while when I have finished feeding DS3. Maybe I will have calmed down a bit by then...

When I speak to the Dep. HoY, I will be insisting it is sorted NOW. half term is next week, I want it sorted before the break.

That gives them 3 days to sort it out. Plenty of time to print a timetable.
I'm assuming that they do know where your DD should be, but have just failed to communicate it to her or her class teachers and not having to go right back to designing a timetable from scratch.

Good luck with talking to he Deputy HoY.

What happens if they DO have to go back and design a timetable from scratch? Will that take longer? You see, I don't know how much of what the Head of English told me about it all was true, given her comment that it was only one lesson when it clearly has been all half term - I know the HoE said that they had just printed the wrong timetable for them, but what if it is that there actually ISN'T a timetable for them? Because the HoE also vaguely mentioned modern languages too...very vaguely, just said they weren't timetabled for the correct MFL lessons too - so God only knows if DD has been in a classroom for MFL too.

HoE was trying to get me off the phone, I felt.

Deputy HoY still hasn't rung me. I can't think why...I am assuming they are scrabbling around trying to find out where DD should be for all her classes before they ring me to try to present it as a 'fixed problem'. However, in my mind, that will not be the whole problem fixed - they need to give DD extra help to catch up on the half term's worth of work that she has missed, AND explain to me how this could happen AND how they are going to make sure it doesn't happen again.

I hope they call you today - I think you are right, probably running round like a blue-arsed fly.

Oh poor you.

I woud insist on an appointment with the Head. Insist. Politely and lovingly, but insistently.

Well, I phoned the school at 3.15pm (as that's when teaching finishes), still no answer from the Dep. HoY. I rang back again at 4.30pm, and finally got put through to her.

It has affected her English the worst, but also her Geography and History. They have given her an amended timetable. They ARE going to provide her with some extra help to catch up on the English she has missed, but they are not sure what form that is going to take - the Dep.HoY. Will call me in a couple of days to let me know about that.

The Dep. HoY is adamant that they have no idea how this has happened, or why it hadn't been communicated to her, and that this 'has never happened before'.

Hunty

You still need a meet with the head and you need to put it all in writing.

Well, I'm going to write a proper letter to the governors (slightly less emotive and inflammatory than the one I wrote on here earlier), and I am also going to write to Ofsted. Why Ofsted? Well, because as my DD wasn't on ANY register for these English lessons, if there had been a fire at the school, no-one would have been looking for my DD - thus it also becomes a safeguarding issue.

If the HoY has sorted it, and is going to get back to me on how they are going to help DD catch up, and is going to inform me about how this has happened (once she blooming knows herself!), and the HT isn't really involved - is there any point in insisting on an appointment with her, when they are as rare as hens teeth, and from all accounts, not much use - when another parent stated that the school's organisational skills were severely lacking (will explain in a sec), the HT turned round and said "If that's how you feel, then why don't you take your son out of the school now?"

That situation ALSO happened this year - her ds is Y8, was in top set maths in Y7, start of this yr, complained to mother that his work was far too easy - turned out that he had been put into BOTTOM set. When his mother complained, he was moved straight back to top set (5 sets difference!), and that is what the HT said to his mother when she complained about the lack of organisational skills...

So it's NOT an isolated incidence of timetable trouble this term - how many other dc has it affected?

I should also point out that the dep. HoY also said to me, and I quote : "It's a good job you pointed this out, as we would never have known otherwise". Which basically means that if I was an uninterested parent, or a trusting parent that assumed that DD had got it wrong - DD would have had NO English teaching ALL Y9!!!

Urgh! I really DO have to insist on seeing the HT, don't I? Would you believe this school is rated Outstanding by Ofsted?!

Oh, Dep. HoY also said this may have happened because DD and this other boy were doing 'pre-vocational' work, which their timetabling programme doesn't have a code for, as it doesn't 'officially' exist, and that may well be how the error occurred - something to do with them being taken out of French to do their English pre-vocational lessons??!!

WTF is a pre-vocational course, and why have the school NOT communicated ANY of this to me?

According to the Dep. HoY, they have never had any dc working at 'pre-vocational' level, so this wouldn't have been an issue before. Pointed way of saying my DD is thick? Or is that just paranoia?

Because she ISN'T 'thick', she has SN!!

I think by 'pre-vocational' they mean that in Yr9 or whenever they start their options, some children will do extra English & Maths instead of a foreign language. I went to a parents' meeting last week about options and the English Baccalaureate and there was an option called 'vocational skills' or something instead of French/German which we were told would be for children who weren't likely to get the EBacc, so that they could concentrate on acquiring enough literacy and numeracy to get onto vocational courses post-16.

Hope that helps - your situation sounds a nightmare and I hope you get it sorted out soon :)

I@m glad you got to talk to the deputy HoY - shame it had to be because you were chasing and not because she called of her own accord.

I think you do need to contact the HT - give her at least one chance to speak to you before you pass the facts to Ofsted.

Your DD could have been anywhere - taken herself off school premises, where ever and nobody would have had a clue.

Exactly, Pip. My friend said the same thing - my friend's exact words were that if it had been HER DD that had realised that she wasn't on the registers for anything except form class, that her DD would have probably bunked off!

I suppose I am quite lucky in a way that with DD's SN, that thought honestly wouldn't occur to her - she will just sit wherever the teacher tells her to (even if that is in the library without a teacher...) although she wouldn't concentrate on whatever she was asked to do without supervision to keep her 'on task'. Hence her and this boy spending their lessons telling each other jokes. .

This is so outrageous I'd take it to the papers. It's not your run of the mill school issue, it's nuts. Forget the deputy head, you need to do letter to head, governors, ofsted and LEA.

What good would taking it to the papers do? It's not like I can take DD out of the school - there is no other school that DD could manage the transport to alone, and I have younger dc that I have to travel by bus to school in the opposite direction to the other schools.

It's this school or no school, and given the HT's response to my friend who complained about the lack of organisational skills of the school management team - DD would be pushed out of the school in 101 ways!

I suppose, although I WILL definately be writing a letter to the governors, and probably Ofsted, I am not wanting to rock the boat too much, as there will just be NO WAY of me getting DD to any other Secondary school. The Next closest school is not quite far enough for DD to qualify for FREE transport, I won't be able to afford the bus fares, and even if I did find the money for the bus fares, there is also a MAJOR road to cross from the bus stop, and DD just would not be able to do that safely alone. It is a school that when I looked around before Y7, told me that they couldn't promise DD more than 10 minutes SN help a week.

So the school basically have me over a barrel, in a way, because I don't want to make DD's education even worse...

Kick up a big stink. I didn't when a similar thing happened to my dd in Yr 5 and I have regretted it ever since: it just sent the wrong signals to everybody concerned. Get everything down on paper, copy everybody in. What they are doing is illegal: check out the supplement to the DDA in education.

How did it go today Hunty? Have they come up with a full explanation and a grovelling apology?

Don't know. Don't care as dd would say.

Funnily enough - for the first time since she started Y9 in September, DD has come home with English Homework tonight. .

The school haven't contacted me since I spoke to the Dept. HoY yesterday. I am printing out my letter of complaint to the Governors, and I am going to drop it off to the school tomorrow. I am considering HOW to write my complaint to Ofsted, because I feel it IS a safeguarding issue if no-one in the school knew where DD was, or even if she was on site - if there had been a fire, no-one would have been looking for my DD as she wasn't on ANY register for those periods!

No grovelling apology, Themumsnot. I am going to ring the Dep. HoY tomorrow to see what they are going to do about helping DD to catch up on the work she has missed. Because I can't see how the school are going to do it - DD can't do it at lunch, the way the lunch sittings work, Y9 is middle sitting, so she won't be allowed to get her lunch at the start or end of lunchtime, and she gets FSM's, so I can't really afford to send pack-ups. If she stays after school to catch up, then she will be travelling home in the dark - and it'd have to be 2-3 times a week until Christmas to catch up on all the English work she has missed, and the only other option would be to take her out of ANOTHER lesson to catch up - which would mean she would be missing work in another subject.

So I have NO idea where the school is going to find the TIME to help DD to catch up, and I want to hear their suggestions!

I just cannot believe that a well-regarded, so-called 'outstanding' school could be THIS blase about a child's education.

I'm sorry I didn't come back earlier today, have had a busy day in RL, as I had a SenCo meeting at my DS2's primary school today.

Can't give any practical advice or support as others have done, but my heart goes out to you and your DD. Your DD is lucky to have such a switched on mother - hope you get it sorted soon

Hi Hunty - last day before the holidays - have you managed to get any more answers (or indeed, a new timetable) yet?

I hope it's not dragging on for you both.

DD has a new timetable, but still no word from the Dep. HoY as to quite how they are going to help DD catch up. I WILL be sitting at the school on the first day back, requesting an appointment with the HT as I have basically been given the brush-off on this part of it, despite the Dep. HoY admitting it was the school's fault. .

And just to top off a superb week - I have been given a letter today telling me that the school is applying for Academy status, and will be going into partnership with two other LESS well performing schools, and sharing the HT that we currently have all to ourselves. This has already happened at some other schools in our town, one HT shared between 3 Secondary acadamies. While it has brought up the results of the two lower performing schools, it has dragged down the results of the higher performing school in the Academy Consortium.

And the other Academy Consortium has huuuuuge form for managed moves to PRU's for any dc with SN - even those without behavioural problems. So I am gravely concerned as to what this will mean for DD's GCSE years.