Any SLT or governors here? Advice RE knife at school

[Nevermindthesquirrels]

I'm going to try to keep things brief. My nephew is 12 and was found with a knife in his bag. One of those multi purpose ones with lots of options. He was told by a group of boys that have been bullying him that they'd leave him alone if he was big enough to do this. As soon as he showed them the knife one of them went to the teachers, they searched the bag and here we are.
This is in the naice home counties but it's massively effected by county lines.
He has been struggling in this school. There is a culture of low expectations and he has been getting picked on for being in top set. I am by no means excusing him as he was stupid but this is important due to the offer the school has made. He has been on the waiting list for a different school locally but it's so oversubscribed. They have similar issues with county lines but they are really hot on behaviour and they have very high expectations, as well as much more kids passing.

Anyway back to the proposal. The school has given him a 3 day suspension given that they are aware he is getting bullied and these boys have made similar offers to others. He hasn't got a single behaviour point and is generally not known to the pastoral team aside from this bullying problem.
Police have not been involved. In the meeting, school have said that they STRONGLY suggest he moves schools and they'd like the parents to come back with a choice of two schools they would be happy for him to go to. Parents want the one he's on the waiting list for but there is only one other, really far away and it's worse than the one he's in.

I used to work in schools so they thought I might know about this but I have never seen this. Is this a managed move? An illegal exclusion? We used to send kids to local schools for 2 weeks but not permanently unless it was a permanent exclusion. The paperwork for that was insane. We used to also call the police if it was knife of drugs. I'm very confused how the school can just find him a place elsewhere.

Are they wanting him to move for his own safety maybe? Hope someone can advise

He is very lucky that they haven't called the police as most schools do operate a no knives policy and do call the police which often leads to a caution. In the circumstances if I was his parents I would work with the school and ask on what basis he is being transferred and how they are able to arrange this.

My friends daughter got expelled on the day for producing a knife at school. That was that!

Yes, they are very lucky. I think it's a combination of school not wanting the paperwork, how the knife came to the school, the type of knife and what he did with it. But yes, I'm much more familiar with the knife you're out policy, which is why I'm trying to understand this and was hoping maybe someone is familiar with this setup.

It sounds very much like the school is trying to protect him from having a permanent exclusion on his record.

Not SLT but work in secondary - school could do a kind of placement as a forerunner to a managed move but assume this would involve full disclosure of knife etc. My impression is they are hoping to move him without this incident being part of his record/reference?

@Bobbybobbins I'm getting that impressions too. They sound like they feel sorry for him a little. He has absolutely 0 behaviour problems. Tons of merits. Top sets. There's been lots of back and forth about these kids bullying him. I'm wondering if the school are just stuck in terms of getting the bullies out. There is another boy that did what my nephew did and they also snitched on him and he is in another school now. He lives a couple of roads down. It seems to be a thing these boys are doing but I'm lost as to the reason.

W managed moves, sometimes space can be found where there isn't space, particularly if there is a child protection reason. There aren't class size limits at secondary - schools can be more flexible if there's a good reason. Not to say that they will do this, but they can.
IME managed moves start w a placement, so the new school can say 'thanks but no thanks' if it turns out to be a nightmare for them. So child stays on old roll for a trial period.
If this is a way for a fragile child to move to a safer calmer school, then it sounds like a blessing.

Managed moves are often a straight swap, especially if the schools are on the same regional panel. I would advise parents to ask the school to support in approaching their preferred school.

@Nevermindthesquirrels have the school mentioned sanctions against the group of boys who dared him to bring the knife in? A move, if he can get into the oversubscribed school could be the making of your nephew, but there has to be something done about the culture in the school he's leaving behind.

Also - did you have a name change fail further up? A poster mentions their nephew, but it isn't you, if you see what I mean.

@PineappleWilson haha yes name change fail. I've got nothing to hide, I just didn't want it to be linked to that username and confuse things. I've changed some details in this so it's not outing at all.
They are not allowed to tell us what's happened to the other boys. But they have said they're dealing with it. I really think they feel sorry for him and want him in a calmer environment. I'm sure they are aware of their limitations and they just want what's best for him.
@sunshineandsuddenshowers This is our hope. I know moving to the other school would be really beneficial but he is 20th on the list. It is local so the cohort is similar but they are one of these super strict schools and this kind of stuff just doesn't go down. He had friends in the other school who are really happy and are very similar in terms of behaviour and interests.

have the school mentioned sanctions against the group of boys who dared him to bring the knife in?

There is no way they will discuss this.

@ThanksItHasPockets I know that they wouldn't say what happened to the boys, but I was hoping, as seems to have been the case, that the school would acknowledge that these boys also had a part to play in this, which should be picked up on separately.

@PineappleWilson They've probably said more than they should tbh. It feels very much like it's being handled incorrectly and somewhat unprofessionally, but in this instance thats to my nephew's advantage.

Hmmmm. They acknowledge that your son was encouraged to bring in a knife, and that he is being bullied. Do you have that in writing?

In my school we would certainly exclude for a period, followed by the max period in isolation for even a one-off, zero behaviour points student who brought in a knife. Without hesitation.

But I'm not sure of the legalities of pushing you to move schools (unless they have said that it is). I suppose it rests very much on what they have stated in writing op.

@Fuuuuuckit they have the bit about acknowledging the bullying as they were trying to sort it out. We have loads of screenshots of messages sent to him by the boys too which include the threat to bring a knife.
Everything was in writing with the pastoral lady regarding the bullying. From the time of the knife incident to exclusion, the only thing in writing is the exclusion.
We've requested the minutes from the meeting where they said he is excluded and to find 2 schools, but they said they didn't take any. So the part regarding new school is verbal. The letter says he's excluded for 3 days and has a reintegration meeting. Nothing else.

I suspect the school know more of the background here in relation to the other kids and are trying to help your nephew avoid a permanent exclusion on his record, avoid any police involvement and get him moved away from any potentially serious trouble.

I would be jumping at this chance and asking them to help get him into their first choice of alternative school.

@User287264 I think you are probably right. I spoke to him today and he was glad he's home and he's got his knife back. He was worried they'd take it and it's his whittling knife :( I'm just so sad, these are kids.

It's a managed move to give him a fresh start away from the others. The paperwork is no less for this than permanent exclusion. If the other school agree to take him, he then has 12 weeks' trial to see what it's like.

The alternative is him still at the same school, still unhappy/at risk/posing a risk and potentially getting put into alternative provision whilst the LA look for somebody to take him through the fair access panel if he is involved in another incident.

It's so much better to get away from where he is now. Before it's too late.

@NeverDropYourMooncup That's really helpful to know. If they agree to take him and after 12 weeks he's doing well, can he stay there?
We've been wanting to move him for ages so it's a blessing in disguise really if they can squeeze him in.

Yes. He would move from being dual registered (still on the register at the original school but attending the other one) to single registration at the new one.

It can break down in those 12 school weeks and he would have to either return or find somewhere else, but if he really does settle in well and take advantage of the extra support they give him, it'll be his permanent school.

If the other child already in another school, that happened a little while ago?

What happened after that? Were the pupils made aware of the likely consequences of bringing a knife onto the premises? Were they were told what to do if anyone suggested that they should do something that would get them into trouble? If that had happened, would it have made a difference to what your nephew did?

(I guess they may not have wanted to admit that there had been a knife on the premises, so maybe the message needs to be in a wider sweep of scenarios. But if they've got some bullying kids using this sort of tactic, they need to be tackling that issue, not just shipping out their victims.)

My DS did exactly the same thing at 12yo. He'd been given the knife for Christmas to use at Scouts, was pleased with his gift and stupidly took it to school to show his friendson the bus. Word got tonschool that DS had a knife. Nothing malicious about it at all, but it's a knife in school and that's a very big deal.

The head phoned me herself (in a large secondary this was very unusual) and basically apologised that she had no choice but to suspend him. He had one day, but tbh I felt he got off lightly and wouldn't have been surprised if it was worse. I was very embarrassed, it never occured to me that he'd be so stupid.

However, whilst they have to take action Iver the knife, I would expect the bullying to be taken very seriously indeed.

Are they suggesting the other schools would be better for him to remove him from an environment that is unhappy for him? That would be managed move, but they can't force parents to accept it and I've never heard of it being used this way before.

I think you've really misinterpreted this. It sounds very much like the school are acting compassionately to give an otherwise exemplary student a way out. There are many many schools where this would be an automatic PX.

The school will want to keep any arrangements quiet as it would not go down well with parents if it were known that a child who brought a knife to school was not excluded.

@Explaintome That's the same thing he did. I was on the phone to him today helping with homework and he actually said he was worried what knife to bring and he decided to take the one he got for scout camp this summer as he thought they might be impressed with how cool it looked.
I'm really not sure as we're not allowed much information as to the bullies and the school have been very kind. We know about the other boy as he lives a couple of roads down and goes to a club with my nephew but is in a different year.
@sponsabillaries I'm sure I have, that's why I posted on here as I just didn't know what to make of the way the school is handling it, and really we're quite in the dark as aside from him having to come back on Monday morning with 2 school choices, we have no idea what they've planned or what happens if those schools don't want him.
He is getting his hopes up a little with the potential move so I'm just crossing my fingers.
Everyone has been really helpful though, thank you!