Victimisation - has anyone ever claimed this, or felt victimised?

[cheapskatemum]

DS3 & DS4 have both attended the local state secondary school, which is an academy and rated outstanding by Ofsted. When DS3 was in year 9 they appointed a new Deputy Head, in charge of key stage 4 (years 10 & 11). He wrote DS3's option booklet & I read it in order to help DS3 (who had a statement for language disorder) make decisions on which options to take. In doing so, I came across several things I wished to query & so rang this new Deputy to discuss them, as it invited me to in the booklet. In doing so, I unearthed 3 inaccuracies (eg it said the Religious Studies course led to half a GCSE, when in fact it led to a full GCSE). I think said Deputy was a bit annoyed about this.

DS3 started Year 10 & this guy was onto him from the start. It was like he couldn't do anything right. It culminated in him having to sit outside the deputy's office for every Engineering lesson of the summer term in year 10 & he got a 15 day fixed term exclusion in autumn term of year 11 for silly (but run of the mill male teenage behaviour) on a field trip. Not surprisingly, DS3 couldn't wait to leave school once he got his GCSEs & has completed the first year of a 2 year level 3 qualification at college.

Now DS4 is at the end of year 9 and under this guy's jurisdiction. He has had to see him 3 times in the last 3 weeks (he never had to see the Deputy in charge of KS3) about behaviour issues - one was his reaction to seeing his friend physically assaulted by a member of staff at lunch break! DS4 is very good at drama, but has been told by this guy that he can't take it to GCSE because it's over-subscribed & his behaviour in the subject hasn't been good. Yet DS4 knows other children whose behaviour is worse who have been allowed to take it. I feel my DSs are being victimised by this Deputy.

Any exclusion over six days must be accompanied by alternative provision and therefore schools rarely exclude for this length if time.

In fact as someone who is involved in exclusion decisions, I have never excluded anyone for 15 days. It must have been something very serious , something you have clearly not taken seriously. Therefore I wonder if your lack of support for the school is the issue.

I have a 12yo who has been getting a few detentions lately and was threatened with an inclusion the other day.

But he knows perfectly well that the one thing I will not be interested in is whether he can dig up one or two other boys who behave even worse and don't get caught. If my son behaves badly enough to disrupt the education of other children, then I want that behaviour stopped, and that is all I need to know.

For whatever reason the Deputy Head seems to have labelled your son as having behavioural problems. The events at the field trip seem to have contributed to this view, so even if you did annoy the guy to begin with, I don't think it is just a simple vendetta. Are you being realistic about your son's behaviour? If you really think he is picking on your family pursue the complaints procedures, but it sounds like you may not get very far.

If there anyone else in the school you could turn to like the Senco or even the Educational Psychologist to discuss how you and the school could best support your son in pursuing his options?

And incidentally, yes I do believe ds' reputation works against him and because he has acquired a reputation for low level disruptiveness in the past the teacher was more likely to believe his current misdemeanour was not an innocent mistake (as it possibly was).

But that, too, is something I want ds to learn- because I love him and want the best for him- that if you make a nuisance of yourself enough times without an excuse, people will get fed up and stop looking for excuses even when you might deserve them.

I just don't think you are using this to help your ds forward. Do you really want him to go out into life thinking that it doesn't matter what I do if somebody else does something worse? How do you think that will help him in the workplace? As a family man?

This is the time we have to help our teens acquire the skills they are going to need to become men.

OP, in answer to your question, I would say yes - on any given day, probably about 90% of children who are in trouble at school.

The number of kids who think that "but x was doing x" is an excuse for their own behaviour is ludicrous. When parents use the same reasoning, it makes things worse.

I agree with Cory - as a parent, if you want to support the school and your DC's education, then the behaviour of other children is totally irrelevant.

15 days exclusion? Bloody hell. He must have done something pretty bad. It would have had to have been supported by more than one person for that level of seriousness. There is no way that was 'run of the mill male teenage behaviour'.

OP, I'm not sure that your kids are being victimised because you pointed out a couple of mistakes. I suspect they are not being victimised at all.

Cory, you sound like a great parent.

Only a head teacher can exclude so it won't have been the deputy's decision to make. I have never heard of anyone being excluded for that long so I really can't see how it could have been a run-of-the-mill incident. And presumably he was excluded from engineering lessons because he was a complete pain in the arse and made it impossible for the engineering teacher to teach. Unless the engineering teacher is the dep head, I'm not sure why this is the dep head's fault.

Perhaps your DS really is poorly behaved and is being 'picked on' for his poor behaviour rather than because the deputy has it in for him over something minor that happened a couple of years ago.

I have never, ever seen a fifteen day exclusion and I work in a very difficult school.

Then again, academies can do what the bloody hell they like.