School exclusion

[Prostolos13]

Today my daughter been excluded from the school for fixed term. When she came home she was extremely upset because she has been accused of being racist. For me it was a shock because we are "mixed race family". She explained that the boy was rude to her so she mocked his accent.
I understand and agree that this behaviour needs to be addressed, but find it difficult to call it racial abuse.
I also can't help but feel that if we deal with things like that through rigorous punishment we are teaching our kids to be victims. The reality is that on a daily basis at work I come across people who find my accent funny or correct my pronunciation. Should I report all of those to the Police? Or I can choose to think differently, as I sure that not all of them do it because they hate me. Aren't we just giving our kids permission to feel offended anytime someone disagrees with them or have a different opinion.
I am not excusing my daughter, but isn't it just rude to mock accent? Especially where 13 year olds are involved?
I am planning to complain to schools Governing Body. Do you think it's worth it or should I just accept it and do nothing?

oh people can be so nasty...there is even someone in my family who mocks my kids's funny foreign name...should I have had her arrested for racism then~?

"Yes she has Bertrand, she said she has had detentions for things like talking in class or not having the correct equipment"

Yeah- but I am extremely sceptical that a school would go from that to exclusion for this incident with no further build up. School's are desperate not to exclude in the current OFSTED climate........

Sounds like we have another Donald trump

Yes, my thoughts too.

There must be more to it than this.
I used to laugh at my mum when she mispronounced words, when I was a child and she had a strong accent.
At work when I speak French I get teased for mangling words.
In neither case was anyone being racist. There is probably more to the story for a full terms exclusion.

Have the school given a full explanation of why your dd was excluded? I assumed schools would do that.

Asked school for more info about the incident on Thursday. Called on Friday. No one got back to me. I don't understand, if incident was treated as severe, why school did not call me on the day? Is that normal for the school to take time to respond or am I being ignored?
Next week school is on holidays. And our reinstatement meeting is at 8am on the 31st. I would hopefully be able to speak to head of year then.

I will be applying for the in year admission to a different school. On the form I need to state reason for requesting the transfer. I am not sure what to put there? Any thoughts?

_"Sounds like we have another Donald trump"

Did you mean me?

Schools are more than happy to exclude for a fixed term, it's permanent exclusion they don't want to get into.

You can appeal to the governors. They obviously can't cancel the exclusion but they can ask for a note to be put on the file if they believe the exclusion was unfair. Have a look at the behaviour policy and make sure the procedures have been carried out correctly.

It does sound like there has not been enough communication about the exclusion, you should have received a letter which tells you what has happened including info about having to keep your child indoors during school time etc.

I think it's very wrong that they did not get back to you as a priority and rather than making the meeting on 31st a reinstatement meeting, I would tell the school you are attending alone and want a full explanation of what went on. Only then can you form a view on whether you consider the school had a point or not.

I checked schools policy and racism is listed at level 4 - which is a Saturday detention, failure to attend level 4 detention may lead to fixed term exclusion. persistent level 4 behaviour would also lead to fixed term exclusion. Level 4 behaviours are: fighting violence, racism, sexism, bullying, homophobia, vandalism, theft, abusive language/ threatening to staff, any act that brings school in disrepute, truancy, failure to attend level 3 detention.

If my daughter has persistent level 4 behaviour shouldn't I be made aware of that? It's all very confusing, but I really hope there is more to the story, otherwise it all would not make sense.

It sounds as if you are pushing all responsibility off your daughter by

• suggesting it was the other child's fault
• suggesting the other child should be punished more severely for swearing at her
• admitting it "wasn't nice" but thinking it's not that serious
• feeling like she should have a lesser punishment.

You are not the person in the best position to make the judgement. You were not there, you only know the context from the point of view of your own child. The adult teacher in the room will have reported this incident and it will have been investigated. Funnily enough, incident statements are not taken from people who weren't there.

If you genuinely believe that any child in the history of the world has come home to say "mum, you're going to be horrified. My behaviour was racist today and the school have excluded me. It was all my fault and I feel terrible" then you're wrong.

They deny it and minimise it and blame others. Your job is to listen to them, but not to agree with them that it all sounds over the top and silly.

I do think the school should have got in touch with you about this. However, they will presumably go through it with you at the reintegration meeting.

You can of course withdraw your child from school and take responsibility for her own education while you apply to another school. But the school will contact the previous one, and they will explain about her behaviour record, which will include the exclusion.

"make a genuine mistake without second thought, feel the guilt, apologies from the bottom of they hear"

I am sure that happens. And people realise that it was a mistake, if the person acts accordingly.

But Mum trying to minimise the issue, and if the dc's reaction was, "swearing is not that bad. And ,sure, she told me that maybe next time she should swear back?! " than I don't know...

then

I can see that it may sound like I am pushing responsibility off her.
I share my thoughts here, but I don't share it with my daughter, as I know if she sees that I am questioning schools action then she may think it's ok to play me against the teachers. I am not that naive.
I am suggesting that both kids are not right and should be punished equally.
I do think that my daughter needs to be made aware of how her actions make other people feel. When she came home she cried because she felt that she has been treated unfairly. When I explained what her actions could lead to she felt guilty (we all know when our children feel truly remorseful)
I do think that sometimes 'racist' actions are unintentional and came into being because of luck of understanding of how severely it may affect the other.
I do think that people can use victimhood to their advantage
I don't think people in authority position are always right
I do think that in a free society we must question things (good or bad)

I don't think that problems could be solved by simply issuing severe punishments.

When I started this trd I was convinced that mocking someone's accent would never be perceived as racist. But I changed my view. It can. It's all about person on the receiving end. Should the "perpetrator " be mindful of others feelings - yes!
On the other side:
Would you be happy if your child had a note on their files for this one incident? Would you be satisfied with all the actions of the school, knowing that she had no intention of racially abusing anyone and she feels guilty for being so stupid in the first place? Would you not be upset if you know your child is doing well at school and then something like this happens? She'll be paying for it for a long time, as the record would follow her everywhere.

I do think the punishment is rather harsh. And I do understand you are very upset.
Only way to rectify this is for her to show what she really is, imo.
She can runaway, but record may follow. But if she stayed and properly apologized and show remorse, people would understand, and get it was just a mistake, she isn't really a racist. I don't believe she is. And I'm sure her friends and some teachers may know that already.

"But Mum trying to minimise the issue"

Do you think then that the punishment in this situation (as it stands at the moment-without schools side of the story) is appropriate?

I can't answer that, without knowing your dd.
I just got the impression from your post that, without knowing the whole story, you are just trying to blame others, society, etc. Thus, I got the impression you are trying to minimise the issue.

I was thinking what if it happened to my ds, it can happen to anybody. But i would like to think I will try to work with school, not to try to blame the other, and try to figure out how to rectify it in the positive way. But obviously it's just the thought. I may react exactly like you do, so I do sympathise.

How old is your dd?

Op says 13, bert.

I am inclined to think there is more to this story than what has been said surely, I am from NZ and have been in England since 1994 but STILL have an accent. I get teased about it almost every day and I most definitely DO NOT see it as racism. Is it because I am of Caucasian descent...maybe. If this is as the op says it is then it is an over reaction and is only fuelling the whole victim society.

I think mocking someone's accent can be taken as an attack when there's intention to hurt someone. Nothing different from hurt someone for skin colour or how they dress or whatever.
I don't get offended by someone correcting my pronunciation out of kindness, or teased with a friendly gesture.
But I do get offended someone uses it as an attack or to humiliate me.

Firstly the punishment is from what you have said in posts a 1 day fixed term exclusion. That is right at the bottom end of what could be given as a fixed term exclusion. The rules around such a fixed term exclusion are that you do not have any right of appeal to the governing body of the school given it is only a day's exclusion. You can appeal for the governing body to consider the exclusion but they cannot rescind it, so I am afraid you need to accept that there will not be any change to the punishment.
Having said that I would be concerned by what you have said in posts about how this came about in a class discussion around racism etc. You need to establish exactly what was going on the classroom and what your daughter did to get the exclusion if the other person involved did not.

It is in-excusable that the school did not come back to you in Friday to explain exactly why your daughter got the exclusion.

The other concern I have is with the punishment fitting the crime. The school's policy says this should have been a detention, whereas your daughter got an exclusion. So either your daughter is not telling you the whole story and things are significantly worse than she has told you or the school have over-reacted and not applied their policy. That is certainly something that you need to establish when you go to school a week on Monday. I believe that you need to have that conversation with the school without daughter being present.

Did you get a letter about the reinstatement meeting?

How were you informed she was excluded? You say you had a letter, was this sent home with your daughter or posted? Was she sent home early or at the end of the day?

It seems quite far fetched that the school did not try hard to make contact. The decision to FTE is not taken lightly - the number of FTEs is important as well as permanent exclusions.

I'd imagine there is a lot more to this.

'racial' is the thing of the times in schools ATM. It's the crack down thing and carries the most severe punishment - whether in reality it was actually intentional racism or misjudged piss taking/arguing.

My DS has ASD and (apparently) used a racist word he'd learnt from a group of lads in class. One of those is black. He'd reported them swearing to teachers numerous times and just assumed the word was swearing.
He apparently used it - called it racism as the black boy present and made out he was horrified and upset.
Ds has really bad communication and said he hadn't said it asked what it meant (was explained).
He was excluded. School admit this boy has poured custard all over DS bag and at the time DS apparently said this to the boy at the other end of changing room to DS who was in toilet - and they acceot he was in toilet having his bag thrown at him and have all the items broken during this.

They refused to believe DS had heard the word from these kids in the first place.

Basically they had no choice to exclude him and if anyone reports him for saying something inappropriate again he's out.

I've no issue with zero tolerance - but only when it's done fairly and everyone is treated the same. It never has the same outcome when kids call DS a retard because of his disability or when the boys make sexist comments to the girls.

The irony is DS is on a trial at this school because he had a knife pulled on him at his last school and refused to go anymore - no one gave a shit about how he felt about that and refused to authorise his absenses due to anxiety.

Life's fucking unfair at times - and it isn't always the people who claim victim who actually are.