appealing against a fixed term exclusion

[fiftyshadesofmum]

my son has just been excluded for 15 days for taking pictures/films of general stuff going on in school. Nothing nasty just stupid 14yr old kids stuff. He has never hurt or intended to hurt anyone, nothing has ever been posted online, the school has not been brought into disrepute, he has never been aggresive or violent, he has never placed himself or anyone else in danger and has never damaged school property. This exclusion starts as he begins yr10. Right at the beginning of one of the most important years at school. Other students at the school have had 5/6 day exclusions for fighting/bullying. One other student launched an unprovoked attack on a ASD kid kicking and punching him and only received a 5 day exclusion! I know he has broken the rules and when I spoke to his year head I myself suggested he was put into internal exclusion as punishment but a 15 day fixed term exclusion means that he cannot start his year 10 until 26th September!! How is this teaching him anything? He just thinks he is having a 9 week summer holiday!! I want to appeal but feel so helpless, especially as the school totally disregarded my thoughts and concerns on this. Has anyone got any advice on what to do next?

I taught in a school where a "supply teacher" was actually a plant from a channel 4 documentary. She filmed classes with a camera hidden in her bag. She deliberately wound classes up and didn't use the school behaviour management system. That, combined with editing, made it look riotous. Channel 4 got their footage and made their point. The HT was, quite rightly, livid when became apparent what had gone on. She was unable to do anything about it though. It was shown on channel 4 on 7/7 though so very few people bothered to watch it.

As a teacher I would expect my employers to severely punish any pupil who filmed me without my permission. The ability of pupils to use such filming in an extremely offensive and altered manner should not be underestimated. Pupils are fully aware of the rules about such issues and the OP mentioned more than the filming of one teacher earlier. This would imply to me the OP's son was involved in something more serious. Strange as it might seem schools' have no wish to exclude pupils but this does sound serious to me.

Wow!! it was great reading all these posts. My son has just received a Fixed term exclusion for the first time and I was so down about it that I started pouring the internet for answers as I want to appeal. He only got 3 days so I now don't feel as bad. But an exclusion is an exclusion and noting to be happy about. He got it for chasing a boy after school in a threatening way. 3 other boys were present two of which chased the boy and ripped some of his clothes while my son and another boy ran off in a different direction to try and get away from the scene. I want to appeal as I think my son was coerced into this activity by a domineering friend. I know he should have known better. But sometimes its so easy to tell a child to "walk away" when they are scared of being beaten up for doing so. The school is allegedly an "outstanding School". But as was said in an earlier post; when they are outstanding they will go to any lengths to just get rid of kids out of the school. My son will miss 15 lessons in total and yet he was only given a scrappy piece of paper from English to read. This all happened at the end of school on Friday, so obviously there was no time to get work together for him. I'm thinking of ringing the school and asking whether I can pick some work up on Monday. Also I was mortified to hear that they sent my son home in a taxi and then called me to tell me he is on his way home. They said they were worried that the "bully boy" was going to attack my son so that's why they called for a taxi. I said to them why didn't they call me as I drive and even if I'm at work they should have let him remain at school till I came and picked him up. I later saw my son returning home on foot!! So much for the taxi. I agree that my son should be punished; but also in an earlier post a better punishment would have been an "internal exclusion". There is more to this than what meets the eye which is why I want to appeal to the governors as its clear my son was bullied into the actions. No appropriate work was given for the 3 day period. And we were only notified of the whole incident after he had been put in a taxi when the school knows that both me and my hubby drive. The head of year said she didn't call me as she thought I was at work. But then this means they couldn't have been that concerned about his safety if they were happy to send him to an empty house!!

Your son was bullied into bring a bully? Yeah right!