problems with daughter and teachers.. help/advice please

[suzieQuattro70]

Any advice welcome...

So daughter is 15 and in year 10 at school. She is doing ok with her GCSE subjects.

The problem we have is with her behaviour in school. I have to attend a meeting with the year head next week to talk about her behaviour points this school year currently at 55. Daughter had been told she will get an exclusion for 2 days. Behaviour points are for uniform, being late, forgetting rules and equipment, truanting pe, one incident of swearing, make up and generally messing about and chatting in class.

Whilst I don't condone her behaviour it does seem a bit harsh to exclude her. She has never been violent and by my reckoning a third of the points are for forgetting rulers and other minor things.

We have talked to her about it and she feels she can do nothing right and is singled out. I have explained to her that if she just behaved she could save herself all this aggro but she says school teachers wind her up and go overboard at the smallest thing.

Does anybody else have experience s similar and can they exclude her?

I can see both sides of this - I hated school, and being regimented. Some children feel really trapped by school and play up in accumulating minor ways to show their unhappiness - because, be clear, she is unhappy. She is unhappy because she is spending every day doing something and being somewhere that she does not want. How many of us adults could stand that every day? All day.

But it is equally clear that her behaviour cannot be tolerated because it is not just her own education which is at stake, but all the others in the class.

The feeling of being picked on arises from the fact that the teachers are aware of how she behaves and quite reasonably come down on it at the first sign of trouble.

I guess you will find that she will do much better in college - it may suit her style better. She will still have to pipe down in class, but there are fewer small rules (I hesitate to say petty) that are such an irritant to teenagers and detract from the important rules about having concern and respect for others. Whilst the school is troubling itself with uniform issues, they often fail to notice that this pupil is kind and popular. I firmly believe that if they bunk off PE it is because the lesson is crap - if they were to do dance - street dance or line dancing - the students would be queuing up to do it. And it would give them just as much exercise. If someone was forcing me to go to the gym I might cut up a bit!

It is interesting that she is doing OK in her GCSEs, so you need to hang on to that positive element.

When I was obviously bored in lessons my A level French teacher gave me the syllabus and told me to get on with it in my own time and my own way - which I did. He could see that the school setting was not my kind of thing and responded accordingly - I did fine in my A-level by the way.

I think that the school need to meet her half way - they need to acknowledge that she is doing fine in her work, and to listen to what it is about school that she finds so hard to deal with. If the school listens to her, she is more likely to listen to them. I think your position needs to be that you understand that there is something about school that does not suit her, praise her for her good work, but also be clear that she cannot disrupt others' learning.

I have always felt that herding young people together with lots of their same age group en masse is not a good way to proceed.

It's more the treat of having mom or dad in class

I have just excluded a year 13 pupil for being rude. That's all, just being rude. She missed her last day of school, all the festivities. She'll be back in just for exams.

All that for the pleasure of being rude to me and generally thinking the rules didn't apply.

It was the last in a long line of incidents, all small fry. However the rules are the rules, and if exclusion is the consequence then suck it up.

In fact, your Dd imho deserves the exclusion more, because evidently she's had a million warnings and a million chances to NOT forget things, be late etc etc etc. As opposed to someone who loses their rag once.

Ds2 really wants to learn and do well in his lessons. His Sen means that he really needs to focus.
Your Dd may still be doing ok but low level disruption really fucks up ds2 education.
55 behaviour points! I think the school have been quite lenient.

Your DD is a pain in the arse.
She is disrupting other girls and stopping them learning.

From the school's pov, constant defying of the rules, with its attendant effect on the other pupils, is just as disruptive as a single incident of lashing out. If your dd talks in class and makes it difficult for the other students to listen to the teacher, that may just make the difference between somebody being able to access the career of their dreams or not.

My ds, who according to teachers is very polite and has never truanted, was put on report for talking in class and it was quite clear that he would be in serious trouble (read exclusion) if he did not pull himself together. I explained to him why I fully supported the school.

I get what Mishaps is saying: at the same time, unless you have good qualifications you are not going to be able to choose an adult job where the same doesn't apply; you are likely to end up in the kind of job where you get sacked for not smiling brightly enough at the customers

I wish we could film students like your daughter and show it back to them with their parents. I do think both child and parent would be shocked at how they appear from the outside. Low level disruption is the thief of education.

Oh yes.
Like others on here, I see this sort of thing every day - I log every incident because of the wasted learning time for the others.
if it get to 55 you can reckon that will be minimum 5 mins - prob more like 10 including the teacher's time to log and deal with.
And by your reckoning, that's ok?
The kids whines 'but I did my work' and the parent parrots the same. But 29 others ( or in some classes up to 34 others) have their time wasted because of the is colossally entitled and self-centred attitude.
It is because of people like your DD that I advice anyone with a hard-working child who can afford it to go private, to avoid timewasters like this

minimum 5 mins - prob more like 10 per incident - between 5 & 10 hours

I she forgetting rulers, or rules?

If most of her points are for forgetting things, you need to take her to a doctor.

Don't straight out take her, talk to her about why. If it's a "I don't know" then tell her you will take her to a doctor. She may have an actual problem and if she doesn't then you need to have something in place.

Either way, start a routine to stop her forgetting things. With teens like this it isn't helicopter parenting to be on their back about it. Sit them down to do their homework, afterwards make them pack their bag with a checklist that they tick off as they put things in (you may or may not have to watch them). If you get a diagnosis of a problem from the doctor, then you can form a plan around that and you can inform the school so that measures are put in place to accommodate her without disrupting the class (eg. teacher leaves a pot of pens on the side she's sat and sits her closest to the side etc.).

I think exclusion won't help all too much but is a fair punishment for this, however teachers should have spoken to you before there was a need for that sort of measure. I know that teachers have a lot of work on their hands but the wellbeing of students and their classroom is their job. Even a phone conversation saying "This is what's happening, how can we change it" would have done.

take her to a doctor
Yes, get her 'signed off' with something, and set the pattern of a lifetime.

Behaviour points are for uniform, being late, forgetting rules and equipment, truanting pe, one incident of swearing, make up and generally messing about and chatting in class

And these 8 different misdemeanours happening several times each would not interrupt anothers learning? Your child is one of those low level annoyances that my son would hate.

Sorry but you as a parent should be backing the school in every way here and nipping this behaviour in the butt

Take her to the doctor? I think a harsh talk and some consequences would be a good start. This does not sound like it needs a doctor it needs a reality check. Wow do some of you forget what it was like at 15...given an inch will take a mile

Whilst I don't condone her behaviour it does seem a bit harsh to exclude her. She has never been violent and by my reckoning a third of the points are for forgetting rulers and other minor things.

Minor things that stop other students learning. She has presumably been at school now for 10 years, ample time to learn rules and what equipment is needed.

I recently had a couple of students ask if they could take their work to another class to do because of 4 students 'chatting' and singing and being generally disruptive.

I guess you will find that she will do much better in college - it may suit her style better. She will still have to pipe down in class, but there are fewer small rules (I hesitate to say petty) that are such an irritant to teenagers and detract from the important rules about having concern and respect for others

Maybe, maybe not. My DD's college L3 BTEC is being disrupted by kids chatting and not listening or getting on with their work. I think it is incredibly selfish behaviour from so-called young adults.

OP , in the kindest way, your DD needs to get her act together and realise that lesson time is for learning not socialising. She may be doing fine with her GCSEs, but for kids like my daughter people messing around disrupting lessons can have a big impact on their learning, and my DD needed all the help she could get.

Its a wake up call - not only is persistent disruption and failure to follow rules/instruction grounds for exclusion, it can be grounds for permanent exclusion.

Surely the school has notified you and involved you with the incidents leading up to this point? What did you do about it?

I'm sorry OP but she and you both need to take this more seriously. It's not difficult to stick to uniform and make up or jewellery rules. My DDs are heartily sick of having their education time wasted by so called low level disruption. It gets in the way of everything. Your suggestion that it isn't significant because she hasn't been violent is deluded. It affects the whole class.

The immature, bad behaviour (and that's what this is) will never stop unless the shit parenting stops. Stop making excuses and get a grip on this. No wonder she's a brat with you letting her and making excuses.

55 before detention?

Wow. That's amazingly lenient to me.

Here it's 3 for report to HoY, three reports, after school detention, three after school detentions, longer detention. So the point your DD has reached would have happened at 27 infringements. And I think (but don't know from experience) that parents are sought out for active collaboration on behaviour management when the pupil is approaching second after-school detention).

My son was excluded (one-day internal exclusion) for 'one incident of swearing', about three weeks into a new school. And his excuse that 'no one would have bothered at my other school' didn't go down well at all.

The Head asked, 'Do you want to be in a school where people swear at you? No? Neither do my staff. Your word that you won't do it again.'

He didn't.

please stop making excuses for her

spoilt brat

Tedd, that is really harsh.

Plenty of people have come on and said, yes you need to back the school and why. There is no need to be so nasty.

at ds school, she would get a behaviour point (sometimes 2) for each incident. 12 points means a meeting with head of year which will result in detention/internal exclusion, parents at school.

So, she has got away with a lot for a long time by that standard.