daughter banned from her Prom, very unfair headteacher

[scruffy68]

I am looking for some advice from you guys as I have a meeting with my daughters head teacher and am feeling a little overwhelmed by this.

I will try to keep it brief but basically my daughter has been banned from her school prom and the only reason the school will give is that she has shown poor behavour in the past but will not give us any specifics, time or dates! in fact I had a meeting with my daughters head of year only weeks before they informed me of the ban and he said he cant wait for the first dance with her. After this meeting I bought my daughters dress and shoes at great expense.

I was informed of the ban when a standard letter was sent out with some key dates on it and at the bottom in one sentence they said " it should be noted that due to recent poor behaviour ............ will not be able to attend the prom"

I phoned immediatly and on numerous occasions since and have also been into the school 3 times but have been fobbed of continually. It was only once I finally wrote to the head with all my concerns and telling her I was informing the govenors that she eventually wrote to me,6 1/2 weeks later, inviting me in to discuss my concernes but that she would not change her mind about the prom.

I have known for 8 weeks now and have been fighting all this time to try and find a resolve as I feel really badly treated.

I would be gateful if anyone has any ideas as to what I should say or ask at the meeting as Im feeling pretty burnt out by it all now!

Her prom is next week!

Thank you if you have taken time to read this long post!!!

You need to get full detailed account from school about exactly WHAT incident and WHICH behaviour made this ban come into effect.

I would speak to DD before though and ask her for her full account of what led to this and see if she can recall anything she was pulled up on and warned about not being able to attend the prom.

Kids lie. Especially when they think they are are in trouble. You need to be frank with your DD and ask her to be honest and frank with you, explaining you cannot possibly "defend" her or "fighte her corner" if you are not in full possession of the facts. Tell her - where as you are willing to go to te school to try and resolve matters - you will be in no position to persuade the school to let her go if they come out with some facts you are niot aware of.

She may have nothing to hide and may have already told you all she knows, but teens are teens and dont be shocked or suprised if she is keeping a few key facts from you.

The few occassions I have needed to go to school to resolve issues with my DDs I always make it clear to them I will be mightily peeved and cross (and reluctant in future to stick my neck out for them) if they dont tell me the WHOLE truth first, leaving me ti be embarrassed when confornted with info they didnt tell me upfront. So far its worked.

Do you know if any other children have been banned? How does your dd rate her behaviour against theirs? Or are there children that are considered to be the naughty ones in the year - have they been banned? Anything to see if your dd is being singled out or not (ie if head banned everyone who had more than 4 detentions from the prom and your dd has five then not much you can do other than set up a different not-prom for everyone not going to the actual prom. But if kids that have had lots more detentions than your dd or who have been suspended for part of the year etc are going then it is very different).

Is it worth speaking to head of year if he was under the impression that your dd was going - would they be able to give any reasons of how things have changed to make the head so adamant that she won't be going? Any chance head could have mixed your dd up with someone else?

Maybe, if it was persistent and she didn't respond to requests to stop being late to lessons, they felt it was the only threat left to them?

Yes, you need more detail from the school - how can they just say 'we can discuss it but we will not change our minds about the ban" ??

Is anyone else thinking this has something to do with her getting on too well with the head of year? - sorry I do not wish to cast aspersions but it is just something that is screaming out from the page.

Just checked with my DD and she said that if you were persistent in either of those things at her old school would would've been banned from the Prom. She said any after school detention in Year 11 would've led to an automatic ban.

Thank you for your help, im off now but will check in later and keep you informed of what happens. Feel free not to read any more posts if this is annoying you. I am a hard working and good mum who is looking for some support not nasty comments!

I think in most schools, pupils are told well in advance that it is a potential punishment, and they are usually given loads if opportunities to get the privilege back.

I really feel for you scruffy. Missing a prom, whatever one thinks about them, (and I think they're a pain in the a*) for a girl, is a MASSIVE deal and I think communication between the school and yourself has been woeful. Your first port of call should be form tutor (perhaps by e-mail to establish what's been going on), then Head of Year, then Head.
Good Luck

Your DD is 16. I imagine that she has been give very many warnings that her continued poor behaviour/bad attitide would mean a ban on attending the prom. She is of an age where perhaps the school did not feel the need to inform you every single time she does/says something a little out of line, but they preferred to reason with her about the consequences of her actions. Perhaps it is an accumulative thing rather than any one incident serious enough to warrant phoning you.

Maybe they though that as a young (almost) adult they could appeal to her better judgement and let her take responsibility for her own fate where privileges like prom are concerned. After all, it is entirely optional and at the school's discretion and is in no way part of her entitlement as a pupil, nor an an expectation on the part of the school.

I am going to take a wild guess that your DD had had repeated warnings about being banned from prom that she chose to ignore as she didn't think the school would carry out their threats. It may be that she knew about this before she let you spend money of the outfit. She was probably being a bit of an ostrich and now you have had to pay the price.

Sorry OP - I hope you don't think my comment was nasty, it certainly didn't mean to be.

coconutty I was referring to their reluctance to go into detail and the head of year's wish to have the first dance with her, - I just thought it was a bit odd and wondered whether there might be inappropriate familiarity between them. Obviously just me then, but it did happen when I was at school and nothing was ever done or said about it, just covered up until the girl left school.

In my defence I am quite ancient and stuff like that seemed to happen in those days, and I certainly didn't mean to offend anyone.

Your DD must know a lot more about what this is about that she's told you - you need to tell her in no uncertain terms that she has to be 100% honest with you about what has led to this before you go to the school, otherwise you could make a real fool of yourself going in defending her without being in full knowledge of the facts

I imagine the school have a strict and well known policy about not being allowed to attend the prom, which your DD must know about

Well, I'm an old gimmer (and a teacher) and I would automatically interpret "been silly" as "absolute pita."
Sorry.

If they are going to ban her from the prom, they should tell you exactly what for.

on X date she did such and such, on y date she did such and such. Or even examples of this behaviour, such as she has been swearing in class, she drew willies on the blackboard...

They should, Hecate, but if the school has organised the Prom, its entirely up to them who gets an invite. And if leaving out a few badly behaved individuals will make sure everyone else has a good and safe time...then that's just exactly what they'll do.

In my experience, it isn't just about being a punishment but actually also about looking out for the majority who have had to put up with crap from a minority for a long time!

I agree the school should be able to tell you why she has been banned but I don't think "being late to lessons" is a "silly thing".

It shows enormous disrespect to the teacher and her feloow pupils and will disrupt the class ^every time she does it*. That's aside from the work she's missing.

Once employed she could be sacked for persistent lateness so by comparison missing a dance is nothing. If the ban is for this reason then perhaps it's better to learn the lesson sooner rather than later.

I too think the 'cant wait for the first dance with her' remark was a tad ..well... creepy really - sorry.

But l too am an old gimmer and when my kids were at school they didnt do these 'proms' - they were only seen in films about American high school kids yes l really am that old so l thought it was some sort of tradition so I'll keep mi trap shut.

I think it is very unfair of them to be so evasive about the reasons but without knowing the reasons it's impossible to say if it's fair or not. I agree threaten tell your daughter she must be fully honest with you or you wont be best pleased if something comes out while you are fighting her corner.

Good luck with it.

Going to the prom in many schools isn't a 'right' though, it is a reward, for those who have earned it by being on time, sensible, and respectful of the school's ethos and rules. Your DD chose not to do those things, so she doesn't get to go. It's a good lesson, as others have said, and much better that she learns it now. It's not as if this is a huge surprise - I'm sure she was told every time she was late that it was a problem, why it was a problem, and what might be the consequence. she just thought she would get away with it.

I agree with migratingcoconuts. I'm a teacher. Proms are organised by staff in their own time. We have to put up with naughty kids day in, day out. 'Being silly' and lateness to lessons are the things that make our lives difficult during the working day. If I'm staying at work until 11 o'clock one night, I am not going to want to put up with a badly behaved child. If she doesn't listen to me when I tell her to put her blazer on, what chance do I have of stopping her drinking secret vodka in the loo? And why should I have to?
The school should tell you why, but if she's had detentions etc then she shouldn't be allowed to go.

If my dd was badly behaved enough to warrant a ban from prom I'd be asking why the school havent got in touch with you to discuss her obviously unsatisfactory behaviour.

Its like being sacked after having a perfectly good performance review.

Sounds like the school are shit at communication with parents.

This is a pretty standard rule at any school where I've worked. And it's a really great motivator for kids to behave.

OP, I am probably reading your post in an entirely biased way (as I'm a teacher), but I would be making a couple of assumptions:

1. The only parents who tend to have meetings with the head of year in the run up to the exams are ones of students where there is a concern. Particularly a behavioural concern.
2. I don't know a child who has been banned from a prom without really good reason
3. Our head of year would also make a similar concluding remark. He would mean it in a comedy, motivational way, to show that 'you will get through this, I'm supporting you and all will be forgiven' kind of way. Our heads of year would definitely make a point of dancing with all of the naughty kids, because then it's ironic and comedy (roars of laughter from the onlooking kids). It would not be funny if they danced with the good, A* kids.

The head of Year 11 will definitely have other things on their mind at the moment (GCSEs? Their Year group?) so will be running round like a loon and not seeing replying to your letter as a priority. If you mean that you've addressed the letter to the head (blimey! I reckon that would never get answered in my school), it would be fairly low on their list of priorities too.

"Its like being sacked after having a perfectly good performance review."

No, it's not. Not unless every parents' evening the OP has had glowing reports about her dd. Doesn't sound like that's the case here.