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Secondary education

Connect with other parents whose children are starting secondary school on this forum.

Original poster

Sixth-form girl living alone

523 replies

BoboChic · 16/03/2017 10:13

Do you think that a private mixed sixth form should admit a new pupil who will be living alone in a small rented apartment during the week, returning home to her parents at the weekend?

OP posts:
NerrSnerr · 16/03/2017 13:07

I'm interested to know about informing the other parents about living arrangements. I went to an inner city sixth form college and there were all sorts of arrangements going on. House shares, hostels, parents away etc. Should our parents have been sent a weekly list of who is living where? Or does it not matter as much because they're not paying ££££ for their A levels?

Original poster
BoboChic · 16/03/2017 13:07

You aren't following the thread, AnneSmyth. Stop winding yourself up about things that haven't been said!

OP posts:
CountryCaterpillar · 16/03/2017 13:08

I don't get that either. Why should the other parents be informed? Surely a students set up is completely confidential. I really don't understand your post.

Do you think anyone not in optimal circumstances shouldnt be admitted?

Annesmyth123 · 16/03/2017 13:08

I am following. Could you answer my questions? Thanks.

Parents haven't known where their upper sixth were partying since time immemorial. This is not new !

Original poster
BoboChic · 16/03/2017 13:08

Read the thread...

OP posts:
NerrSnerr · 16/03/2017 13:09

Um, OP, you said 'none of the families were informed of the situation'. Your words.

Original poster
BoboChic · 16/03/2017 13:09

I cannot answer questions to elucidate things that haven't been said 😂

OP posts:
Annesmyth123 · 16/03/2017 13:10

I have read the thread.

Why would other families at my daughters school need to be informed of my living arrangements that I mad for me and my DD?

Original poster
BoboChic · 16/03/2017 13:10

Read the thread. No point having a conversation about things that never took place.

OP posts:
Annesmyth123 · 16/03/2017 13:11

I did read the thread.

Try reading my posts.

Why are you being so rude to me?

hippyhippyshake · 16/03/2017 13:13

Lol at 'risk to year group' !

LooksBetterWithAFilter · 16/03/2017 13:15

It's entirely possible and more likely than that they knew it wasn't right that the girl was asked not to tell anyone for safety reasons. They may have felt that a 16/17 year old girl was more vulnerable than one who lived with her parents. For similar reasons to not advertising to the world when you're on holiday or that often children in the early days of being left along in the house are told not to answer the door. I think it's most likely they just didn't want to advertise she was living alone rather than believeung it was wrong for her to do it.

ealingwestmum · 16/03/2017 13:16

This is one of the weirdest threads ever. Only responding because it was in Education, but it should be AIBU.

And all this deduction from OP based on a gossip conversation the night before. But claims that these are, what, facts?

School may be rubbish (who knows, none of us here) but it's is still the girl's parents responsibility, no one else's based on this girl being a sixth former. We'd be outraged if someone asked a DC at admission "and how do you cope with your mum being a single parent" or ''should we admit you as you also act as carer for your parents'. Just as discriminatory as ''we think we should reject you because we're not sure how you'll cope living alone'. Pass me the crystal ball though...

Plenty of sixth-formers living with parents at home who go off the rails. More fool us for sending our children round to party with them.

SparklyUnicornPoo · 16/03/2017 13:16

I'm not sure what you expect the school to have done about it. The parents should have known if the girl was mature enough but once they'd made that decision it really isn't up to the school.

I lived on my own for 6th form, as did a few of my friends. admittedly we had the odd party but not actually that many, house parties are great when mum and dad are on holiday and you know worse case scenario you are going to get a bit of a telling off before your parents deal with whatever damage has been caused, but when it's your own flat and you are the one that's going to have to deal with it its just not as fun. I did have friends round a lot but only ones i could trust not to upset my neighbours/wreck my flat, and we didn't get up to anything we wouldn't have done at their houses, in fact often we used my flat for revision because there weren't younger siblings being a pain.

Obviously not all 6th formers would be sensible or cope but the school wouldn't have known which category this girl fell into and having a blanket rule would be really unfair, not everyone can live with their parents, for various reasons. The decision was down to the parents, who should have known their own daughter well enough to know if it would work.

As for the other students who did badly, that is their fault and their parents responsibility, assuming she wasn't kidnapping people and forcing them to party with her it really isn't her problem.

confusedat23 · 16/03/2017 13:17

Sorry OP but have you considered that maybe the parents of the other children are as much responsible for ensuring their children arnt out partying at this persons house, as the parents of the girl were for ensuring she want having parties?

Notwhatiexpected · 16/03/2017 13:17

Annesmyth123, don't worry, it isn't you.

The OP seems to have heard some gossip about something which may have happened under circumstances she doesn't know the details of, but is defending her POV, which seems to be inspired by her profound knowledge of how parenting should be done. And despite referencing the state school background of the child and the private school several times, that is definitely not a contributing factor in her assessment of the case.

BillyButtfuck · 16/03/2017 13:18

Maybe you should read the thread OP

Original poster
BoboChic · 16/03/2017 13:19

What's the difference, LooksBetterWithaFilter? The fact that a pupil was being required to dissimulate her true living arrangements, for whatever motive, means that the school knew that he living arrangements were far from optimal (this can of course have multiple repercussions).

OP posts:
Pallisers · 16/03/2017 13:23

I think the parents made a very foolish decision to leave a 16 year old live on her own.

I think the school should have flagged this arrangement at admission and I would expect a good school to have said to the parents "we doubt this will be an effective arrangement for your daughter and we worry about her vulnerability and lack of support, please think again". But I don't think they have an absolute duty of care to manage her living arrangements.

I think her living alone probably contributed to her bad results. At a time she should have been learning and supported in how to structure her study etc. she was on her own.

As a parent, I have no need to know what another student's living arrangements are. I know where my teens are at night and if I don't it is my own affair.

I doubt very much if the entire years' results dipped because of one student having a free house.

Can't understand why people are so engaged and enraged at OP not declaring her link to this girl. Why does it matter?

AlexanderHamilton · 16/03/2017 13:24

This became an issue st the school dd attends. It is a boarding school but 6th formers (or upper school as it is known) don't board, they stay with landladies or in student type accommodation.

During an inspection they got marked down on safeguarding etc issues purely because of this. As a result all under 18's now have to stay with school vetted DBS checked landladies/landlords only, not shared houses/flats or with privately found landladies/lords. The inspectors visit the lodgings of randomly picked students to check.

Annesmyth123 · 16/03/2017 13:25

Why do you think parents of other children have any right to know of the living arrangements of another pupil in the year?

Haven't you heard of confidentiality or data protection?

spiney · 16/03/2017 13:26

If the living arrangements of one pupil was having a profound effect on the year group as is being suggested - to the extent that there is a blimp in results, then I think the school should have been talking to the parents of that pupil.

If the other pupils didn't let on about party flat central they were just as responsible for their own behaviour.

Original poster
BoboChic · 16/03/2017 13:28

Interesting, AlexanderHamilton. I suppose that "safeguarding issue" is the right frame of reference for the school's role and responsibility in this.

OP posts:
ealingwestmum · 16/03/2017 13:30

Why does it matter?

I think it's disingenuous to make claims to a situation based on gossip. If the OP was taking the story from another individual that is also not related to the sixth-former - then all of this is hear-say only. Not fact. And we would also have no idea just how the school handled the admission in the first instance.

And what difference it makes on whether the school was state, or private, who knows. But OP keeps bringing it up.

Original poster
BoboChic · 16/03/2017 13:30

spiney - the other DC would have been protecting the girl's undertaking to the school not to reveal her living arrangements. Once the school asks a pupil to lie, it gets very complicated.

OP posts: