After School Detentions

[hippppy]

Please do not come in on the attack!

My son is at a secondary Free School, they are in temporary accommodation and tucked away. They have no bus route and are not near a train station.

The days are very long already. They HAVE to stay for an hour of clubs every day. Unfortunately these clubs do not seem too much fun... Juggling, Magic club, textiles.. (thats another story!)

My son recently has been labled G&T, and now G&T underachieving and SEN (because he is G&T) his behavior at school is getting out of control, he is rude and cheeky to teachers and is very bored in class.

He is grounded at home, no internet or phone. I have constantly tried to work with the school, I am in no way letting him off for his poor behavior at school!!!!

I have told the school I am going to remove him and put him into a normal state school. Unfortunately this will take up to 10 school days and I feel this has upset the Head.

He was suspended on Wednesday for being rude to teachers and the Head insisted I collected him. I do not drive and my son comes in a car share. I am a single parent on a very low income with two children and all week I have not been able to go to work. (self employed) A taxi back from the school is £30.

A couple of weeks ago the head insisted he came in on inset day, this resulted in two trains and a taxi. After this I wrote the head a long email stating that I simply cannot send him in taxi's home and I thought the school had accepted that.

He was naughty on Friday (I AM NOT TRYING TO EXCUSE HIS BEHAVIOUR!) and the Head rang me very late in the day saying he was going to KEEP my son and he would miss his lift home. I tried to explain I do not have the money to put him in a Taxi but the Head was very firm and insisted I would just have to find him a way home.

He is only 12, I do feel uncomfortable sending him in a taxi with a stranger. I had to ring four taxi companies as everyone was booked up and ended up putting him in a car with a firm I am not familiar with (CRB checked etc) He didn't get home until 6.45pm)

I do not think this school is the best place for my son. He is very unhappy there! I have spent hours on the phone trying to move him somewhere else. I have had many worries about the school but as it is new I have tried to work with them but its all getting out of control.

I do not have the money to put him in a taxi and i'm worried that this will end up costing me my job. This is costing me a fortune!

10 days left (ish) Can I refuse to allow the school to keep my son after school? Or can I home ed until he gets a place in the other school?

Thank you in advance

I don't think you can blame the school for your child's behaviour. Rudeness to adults etc is never acceptable.

The school promised the earth!

You know what they say about if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

As well as moving your DS, you need to have a serious talk with him about the behaviour you expect once he's moved. If he thinks for a minute that you're blaming the previous school for his poor behaviour, he will never get back on track.

You can move him to another school and the same behavioural issues may continue.
Maybe it's him not the school. Are you simply changing the scenery?
Was he a different, better behaved pupil in his previous school? Why?

Generally though, most pupils behave despite the school they attend.

You have my sympathy OP. It is a bad situation and 10 days of escalation between DC and school are not going to help anyone. If the situation is as bad as you describe, it sounds like there is a real risk I someone getting hurt. Take your son out today - I can't see you have much of an option. Inform the LEA and see if you can accelerate the process. It sounds like you took a risk with this school to give your DC a leg up. I'm sorry it hasn't worked out that way.

Also, would you feel it's acceptable for you to teach English to children that are working at GCSE/A level or above when you have only an A level yourself? Not trying to higher the horse but really this wouldn't work!

I am grade 8 piano, I would not try and teach someone grade 7 as I wouldn't be good enough. Surely in a school this would not be acceptable?

The English teacher is not an English teacher. She makes spelling mistake and puts capital letters in the middle of words..

Sorry but this can't be normal..

I'm hooking him out and it's for the best. I understand that he will be watched by the next school and I hope that this move will be in his best interests.

It's a tricky situation!

Thank you trapper.. I will phone LEA in the morning :)

It's not normal. It's a free school and one of their principle ideas is that they so not need to employ qualified teachers. She may not even have a degree.

The English teacher does sound poorly equipped to teach the subject. I hope that your son finds his feet quickly at his new school and settles well.

Are you asking me or being hypothetical? I have an English degree so would be perfectly fine teaching GCSE & A Level English, thanks, despite currently being "only" a drama teacher. How do you know your DS's doesn't?

Free schools can employ whoever the hell they like, as already pointed out.

On a side note, though, plenty of schools employ teachers who teach something other than their degree subject. One of my colleagues has a performing arts degree and an English PGCE but teaches Child Development, and does so bloody well.

Here are the DfE rules:

34. School staff should not issue a detention where they know that doing so would compromise a child's safety. When ensuring that a detention outside school hours is reasonable, staff issuing the detention should consider the following points: ? Whether the detention is likely to put the pupil at risk. ? Whether the pupil has known caring responsibilities which mean that the detention is unreasonable. ? Whether the parents ought to be informed of the detention. In many cases it will be necessary to do so, but this will depend on the circumstances. For instance, notice may not be necessary for a short after school detention where the pupil can get home safely; and ? Whether suitable travel arrangements can be made by the parent for the pupil. It does not matter if making these arrangements is inconvenient for the parent.

So £30 for a CRB checked taxi isn't good enough reason for a head to not give an after school detention.

At my school setting off the fire alarm gets a fixed term exclusion. The head sounds a bit inexperienced if he is only issuing a detention for this, especially on the top of all the other poor behaviour.

If he is at a LA school next and lets off a fire alarm expect a hefty fine from the Fire Brigade, and I think it is around £400. That is what they charge the school for a 'prank' call out, they are obliged to attend if the alarm goes off. So £30 was a small cost. You need to explain this to your son. The behaviour you describe is very unusual and not naughty but rude and disruptive. I can only remember the alarm at my school being set off once in over ten years.

I would spend the ten days getting him ready for the new school by taking him out of the old situation and reinforcing what you expect behaviour wise. It is a fresh start but he will be watched carefully so needs to impress. However he might be so relieved to escape that he will be angelic but he might have got into some habits that will not be accepted. Good luck, I hope it goes well.

It wasn't a crb checked cab. As I already said I had to go with a last resort taxi home as I couldn't get him any other way.

Thank you. I know that half terms are the best and he always seems so more positive after a break.

My son loves studying and I have already found him some things of interest to do in the break between schools.

This is really not a great situation, I know he is really unhappy at the free school but is not keen on the school that really is our only other option at the moment.

He has been naughty, I get that!

He has spent the day in his room (a brief trip to the woods today) but he is very academic. Sat doing online grammar tests and reading.. It's his thing.. He isn't the average kid and struggles to fit in..

As I said, it's awkward.. And I'm trying my best..

He is not 'naughty' he has by your own admission broken the law, caused disruption to the whole of the school and is rude. Don't worry about the other children, worry about your son.

If he is aware of the trouble he is causing you and is still continuing with this unacceptable behaviour then he has serious problems that are not going to get better by sending him to a different school.

OP, have I missed something or did you say you work long hours? If so, how are you going to HE him, even for just five days?

Hello Hipppy, I'm sorry that you are having so many problems with your son's behaviour.

However, I don't think you realise the seriousness of what he has done. You say he set off the fire alarm, and call it "naughty".

I'm afraid it is far more than that, it is a criminal offence, for which he should have been arrested and charged. This would been a massive fine for you, twenty times more than the taxi fare you are so worried about, and a permanent criminal record for DS. A detention was ridiculously light a punishment. I don't think you are going to get very far complaining about that.

Incidentally, you cannot really have an A level in every single subject that appears on your timetable. I would have had to have taken about 25 A levels, if that was the case!

I hope it goes better in his next school, however it is likely his behaviour records will follow him there, and if a child exhibits that puts other children at risk, the school cn turn him down, and having been caught setting off the fire alarm would count as justification for this.

Also, he really does need to know that in a different school, there is no way he would get away with merely and after school detention for that. There cannot be more than a handful of heads in the whole country who would take it so lightly.

best wishes.

It sounds a rubbish school. I agree that you should take him off the school roll now and home educate till he can move to the new one. I would also suggest that you contact Ofsted and the DfE to report what is going on.

This would been a massive fine for you, twenty times more than the taxi fare you are so worried about, and a permanent criminal record for DS.

No it wouldn't. A parent can't be fined for something their child does when not in their care. In practice the chances of a prosecution for a one-off incident for a child of this age are vanishingly small.

No comment to make about the boy's behaviour, icimoi?

Maybe you think it's the school's fault?

You are wrong Icimoi the contract schools have with parents entitles schools to charge parents for damage/fines their child incurs. We do and the choice is to pay up or take your child elsewhere. Who do you think should pay for this child's criminal damage? The public purse? The fact this is described as 'naughtiness' ignores the fact that as the FB are attending a false alarm at a school someone could be in danger from a real fire.

Yes what he done was really bad!

My point is, is it reasonable to issue an after school detention so late in the day knowing full well I am a lone parent with no car. And also my financial situation.

My son missed his lift. I phoned 4 taxi companies and had to send him home with a stranger in a taxi that is not CRB checked.

What if I didn't have £30? Sometimes this may be the case. What would happen then if I simply could not get my son home safely? Would he be expected to walk for miles down county lanes with no public footpath so late in the day?

What if after a week of not working and 3 after school detentions costing £90 ment that I didn't have food in te cupboards or electric on the meter?

Simply I cannot afford to send him back there!