Missing school trip as extra punishment - fair?

[Khaite]

DS (15) is going out with a classmate. Today they were caught coming out of a disabled toilet together by HoY.

HoY didn’t say whether there would be a consequence for this, but DS confessed to me anyway.

Late this afternoon HoY emailed me and said DS would miss the practice Duke of Edinburgh school trip on Monday and have an internal exclusion that day instead. Then I was to come in for a meeting on Tuesday morning.

i completely accept DS having an internal exclusion. However it feels an extra punishment that he has to miss the DoE trip. He’s practised for it. His year have had no whole-day school trips at all , ie throughout years 7-10, because of Covid and then the school being crap about it, so he was really looking forward to this.

Do you think it’s unfair he has to miss the trip? I want to ask if he can do the day’s exclusion on Tuesday instead.

@TizerorFizz no the school hasn’t informed any other body. At least, that wasn’t mentioned and I assume it would have been.

I think the Safeguarding Lead is very diligent about seeing all possible safeguarding issues ever. There was once they reported something my child said (nothing bad in fact the opposite if anything) to me as a potential safeguarding concern. It wasn’t in my view at all, nor in the view of the head of yesr who hadn’t thought it needed bringing to my attention, but the safeguarding lead is somewhat over-zealous. Which, you know, isn’t a bad thing. The way they talked to DS today was kind and they clearly care about his welfare.

The very important missing pieces of the jigsaw puzzle are the other child's perspective and the perspective of their parents. The safeguarding lead will have visibility of those, but will not be at liberty to share them. Hopefully they, like @Khaite and her son, are pragmatic and grounded and libertarian. But if, for sake of argument, the other boy was afraid of his parent's reaction, and told them he was coerced, then the consequences could be much more serious. This is the risk that the school needs to mitigate. Lesson learned.

The timing in relation to the DoE trip was unfortunate, but presumably just bad luck rather than an additional punishment. The suspension day gives some breathing space for statements to be made and parents to be spoken to.