Saturday school

[howdydude]

Hi. I am considering a secondary school for my son which has a lot of boarders. My son would be a day student. However for personal reasons I do not want him to attend Saturday school. Do you think this is possible? Thanks.

If it is timetabled lessons they can't opt out. Do they run a school bus or might another parent be able to help out? Your ex needs to step up too.

Wymondham College?
I don't think you can avoid the Saturday mornings. Terms are shorter so to make up the legal hours they do lessons on Saturday mornings.
Is there not a school bus from your area to the school.
How will your child get to school Monday-Friday?
Can you husband not do the Saturday school run very other week when you are working? Presumably he will have the children part of the week/ very other weekend.

Ah, that’s a shit situation, sorry to hear that 😕

The obvious suggestions are that his father takes him, or your mother.

You could also consider leaving him home alone in the morning and having a taxi collect him from home?

In the circumstances OP I wouldn’t panic, but would wait to speak to the school.

Given the difficult personal circumstances and your job, the school might be able to suggest some alternatives for you. I have found them to be flexible and understanding when it came to issues that were around child welfare and personal circumstances.

Don’t rush to withdraw him, let things settle and speak openly with the school to see what can be done.

Sorry about your split- that obviously sucks.

But honestly, you don't want him to opt out of Saturday school even if school say yes (extremely unlikely) - he could be missing a pretty significant chunk of lessons - it's not just art and drama (no offence re those subjects but you can live without them) - could just as easily be double maths, double science. Plus he would miss all the sports matches and never be able to be in a school team.

I would look at the following, assuming STBXH is not an immediate option

• School transport - nearly all the "saturday schools" near us run minibuses 6 days a week
• Failing that, taxi
• Failing that, see if you can get friday night boarding on tick for a term until you've had time to negotiate with STBXH

This is a very specific circumstance in your later post. Don't panic about what the usual rules are, wait and see what they say in person. Official policies are written so everyone jumps through the hoops but that doesn't mean grace can't be given for special circumstances like family crises or SEN.

I think it might help if you ask for temporary grace and show willing to get him into school on Saturdays when the dust settles. You can then try to extend it later if needed.

I agree that your update sounds like a very different scenario than your original post suggested. I understand not wanting to get into specifics with strangers about such a nightmare thing, but "for personal reasons I do not want him to attend Saturday school" suggests you would just like to keep your DS home or want to leave the day open for family things so I would definitely not phrase your inquiries with the school the way you did here. "We've had a family crisis arise this week and my plan for transporting DS to and from school on Saturdays now isn't an option. Is there someone who could me with other options for him at least in the short-term?" And then (unfortunately) you'll probably need to explain to someone the basics of what happened and work with them to find solutions.

I'm so sorry you and your DC are going through this.