advice please, removing ds officially from school pending probable appeal

[foreverton]

Hi, without going into the full story, those who have helped and advised me recently know the rough background story.

Ds is 12, year 7 and has AS.
We lost an appeal last year to a mixed sex Catholic school. One of three in the whole city, other two are 6/7 miles away.
Appeal school is 2 miles away and we live on the border of two boroughs.
All schools involved are in the other borough.

Recently we found out that ds has been getting bullied since October and have been to the school several times, not happy with the way they've handled it, basically they isolated ds from these boys at lunchtime when the bullying was happening and refused to acknowledge the cyber bullying.

Over the Easter break, ds told us everything that has happened and I was sickened by it, they said he had aids/fat/ugly you name it, threatened him, ripped his uniform/bag, took his lunch money. The list is endless.

Before easter, the school agreed to do an in year transfer request to appeal school, I did not see the form, only had to sign the back page.

Appeal school are full so are expecting a no. Hoping we will have a chance to appeal with stronger circumstances. Our parish priest wrote a supporting letter which has been sent with transfer request. He has said he will help us at appeal, as will GP, ASD specialist and CAHMS so confident we have support.

educational welfare officer rang yesterday after I left her a message and said she will find out what's happening and will speak to the inclusion team at the council. Apparently, they assign a caseworker to each family in our position.

I'm not happy that ds if off school, missing out on learning and importantly his routine is affected.
Do I find him a school in the interim? Just so he's in school.
The transfer request/appeal could take a while but there's no way I could send him back to the school he's registered at. This is drastic but I feel I've done the right thing.
I'm also waiting for them to send me their anti bullying policy, nothing on school website and I want to see how "robust their safeguarding strategies are" according to behaviour policy.

Oh dear I'm sorry that was so long, mumsnet has kept me sane the last few months, need another perspective/opinion/advice.
Feel very alone and like I'm letting my ds down, I don't know what else to do.

I am not an expert but these were my immediate thoughts

1. Would your DS cope with a temporary move to another school and then a possible second move to the appeal school or would that be too much disruption?

2. If you accept a temporary move, what happens if your appeal fails? Would you then be stuck with the temporary school?

3)Does the LEA offer online learning or similar for DC who are out of school?

4)I also have a DS in Yr 7 so have an idea what they are doing and I wonder how much learning will your DS really miss for 1 term of Yr 7? If he is unhappy in school he won't have been learning at his best anyway. I suspect much of the content of the Summer Term of Yr7 could be replicated at home without too much effort.

I agree that not sending him back to his current school is reasonable. Your DS needs to know that you back him up (which you clearly do) and that he doesn't have to go back to that situation again. Good luck, its a horrible thing to have to deal with.

Feel very alone and like I'm letting my ds down, I don't know what else to do.

No you're not. No you're not. You are doing the very best for your son.

Removing him from an unsupportive school is absolutely the right thing.

I'm not sure about a temporary placement. One change upon another may be difficult for your DS to manage but you know how best how he would cope with that.

I also have a y7 DS and the way your DS was treated by his peers makes me angry and upset in equal measure.

Can his current school provide details of what is being covered in school? I don't think you will get detailed lesson plans but topics covered should not be a problem - he can then at at least read up on them at home. My DS seems to be gearing up to assessments soon too.

Hope you get good news soon.

Oh and they should have no problem supplying both the Behaviour Policy incl. details of sanctions & the Bullying Policy.

Bullying sadly happens in schools and as parents we expect effective schools to deal with it robustly and quickly, and the way for it to be dealt with is not by isolating your DS. Too often schools resort to this whilst neglecting their duty of care to the bullied child.

The school sounds s**t!

Are you able to supervise him at home? If so could you ask that current school sends a bit of work home and records his attendance as 'educated off-site'? At least officially he won't run fowl of the EWO as he will be being educated.

Not sure safeguarding is applicable to bullying by other pupils. However, can you not wait to find out the outcome of the appeal? How will you find a temporary school? This is just another upheaval and will lead to further problems. It is unlikely a school will want a "temporary" pupil they are investing time and energy into educating for such a short time. If the school is suitable for a temporary measure, then why would you not want it permanently? If a school you like has spaces, why not take a place there, full stop?

Thank you all for your messages:)

I do feel like I'm doing the right thing though the lack of support is quite bad. The school he's enrolled at has a pretty bad reputation but had specifically asd support there which although ds hasn't needed, I believed that further down the line it was there should he ever need it, plus the pastoral care was supposedly great. How wrong .

So the situation is this, if appeal fails we're not left with many options. Most schools in other LA are single sex so i would be looking at one in our LA which was in special measures but has been taken over by a really good academy trust who's other schools in a nearby city are "outstanding"

It seems the school is trying to shake off its bad reputation, has a new name, uniform and is so far making great progress. This is the best of a "bad bunch"

In our LA, the primaries are great but the secondaries not so many parents send their dc out of borough.

The logical thing seems to wait for decision, then appeal and if that fails then we can move forward.
There is a place at the other school and I think ds has had enough to deal with without potentially moving twice.

I am going to ring the education authorities for home schooling advice, certainly don't want ds getting complacent and he is bored already:(

Feel that the original school have let him down very badly and they made no effort at all to keep him there, were very happy to do the in year request asap. Like I've said in a previous thread, it seems easier to get rid of the victim rather than deal with the bullies.

Will update once I hear anything, again, Thank you all.

He does not have statement/New version.
Primary senco said he did not need one and was adamant that it would be refused as he did pretty well educationally. Left year 6 with level 4/4/5 in sats but u believe the new system is more than educational needs and is therefore something I may consider.

Why would you just not keep the place at the "temporary" school if it seems ok and NOT move again. Surely this could be a way forward as you actually have another school to go to. How do you know the Catholic school will be any good? If you consider the school to be good enough temporarily, why would you not give it a longer go? Do you think there are no Catholic bullies? You might be wrong there.