Daughter denied prom attendance.

[Paul87]

Morning all, first time post for me.

my daughter has a long standing stomach condition that school have been aware of you some years.
unfortunately this has caused her some time off.
she has also had problems with bully’s focusing purely on her appearance.
the school took ages to finally resolve this only after we discussed moving schools and I had told them I’d be looking to hand this to my solicitor due to the ongoing issue.
a vicious circle really, the bully’s exasperated her stomach issue and the time off school made her fall behind and being behind in her work also exasperated her issue.

school said with a note from her doctor to explain this medical condition she would still be permitted to attend prom.
School has since told her, due to her attendance she will not be permitted to attend prom !

Am I looking too much into this or does it seem like she’s being discriminated against due to her ongoing complaint.
thanks.

My daughter has a long term chronic health condition that means she could never meet attendance targets even if she didn't have a single sick day - just the sheer number of days she has to be away from school on going medical treatment and consultations takes her below the target. I got into a big argument with the school about their threatening attendance letters

Thank goodness her school didn't have silly rules about prom but I am in a support group for parents of children with her disease and many many kids are discriminated against in this way at prom time.

And to the person asking if they would even be well enough to attend prom - I never knew until the day of prom that she would be well enough. We did a full make up and hair trial and did photos with her dress a few weeks before in case prom day came and she wasn't well enough. Thankfully on prom day all went well.

Linking attendance to the ability to attend prom, is just pointless and so unfair. I feel your frustration and would be raging!

imagine if a workplace told an employee, they couldn’t attend the annual work party that all the company were invited to, because they’d been off sick (with the type of health condition that would fall under the definition of a disability under the Equality Act)?!? They just wouldn’t .

i don’t have have good advice sorry but it’s staggering that this kind of discrimination is OK in school

It may be that the letter got sent out to anyone automatically with attendance below X. I personally think it’s awful as they’re discriminating against (1) an illness ie the stomach problem - not your daughters fault and (2) a bullying issue

If your gp actually wrote a letter then this is discrimination and you should raise it as a formal complaint and take it to the governors if not happy with the response.

Please don’t ‘go to the governors’, copy in the governors. We can only deal with complaints if they come to us under the formal complaints policy which is generally a few stages down the line. If you go to the press, it will likely be a sad face photo one and no one needs that as the comments underneath will be upsetting as the school can’t/won’t reply and people will assume there is another side to the story.

See what the head says, if you’re not happy then find the complaints policy, equality policy, bullying policy and then follow the complaints policy and refer to the other policies pointing out where they haven’t been followed. Then follow the complaints policy to the letter.

Wow, who needs childrenbto be bullies when they already have staff to do it?

Well done for standing your ground; but how disgusting that you were forced into that position in the first place.

thanks for your comment, if she was a bad kid but she told the school she would rather be at school that sat waiting to go to the toilet at a moments notice, she has a toilet pass but the toilets are locked so you need to go get a key first and in some instances time is not on her side.

If she was skipping school because she didn’t want to be there I’d be on the side of the school for sure.

i will wait and hear what the head has wrote, and in answer to an earlier question “will she be well enough to attend ?”
possibly not but at least the option is there for her and she’s free to leave and use the toilet when ever she needs.

Yes, all documented with the doctors ect.

Under the terms of the equality act she’d probably meet the definition of being disabled. I’d point that out to them. Disability discrimination is no joke.

dd was very ill in sixth form due to a chronic health condition, attendance was something like 60% in year 13. Am glad she was still allowed to go to the prom.

Well that’s lovely for your son but he obviously wasn’t as sick as what some kids can be regardless of his bowel issues. Dd spent weeks and weeks on end in hospital and nearly died. 🤷‍♀️. So no, I wouldn’t say there’s always an excuse. Sometimes there’s a very good reason.

Go to the local press and name and shame

And exactly what kind of warnings do you suppose will 'encourage' people to stop being disabled and magically make serious medical conditions vanish?

It makes as much 'sense' as 'warning' the kids that they have to be under or over a certain height to quality for the prom; or that they need to 'achieve' a certain skin colour to be allowed to go.

It’s the proverbial carrot on a stick and I believe the prom is a treat and should be for those who deserve to go.

if she was a bad kid or was bunking off school I’d be firmly on the side of the school, tuff luck actions have consequences. But this is not the case.

I agree, OP.

Why are you torn? Are you this child's doctor? You don't even know her diagnosis! As a teacher you essentially have no right to comment on whether a child's medical condition is one that requires time off school

Not to mention she's been bullied, and it's clear from the OPs post the school has failed to deal with it

Threatening a clearly already anxious, bullied child with a medical condition that's worsened by stress with not attending prom is just shitty. Its not going to make her want to attend school, it's just going to make her feel more ostracised and more anxious.

There is always an excuse, but some excuses are better than others.

I know a girl who has Crohn's and has just spent a week in hospital on morphine every two hours for her severe pain. Her attendance has neared 0% in the past months. She cannot sit, she cannot lie on the side, she cannot focus. She has been taking 10 painkillers a day for the past year. And IBD is not her only issue. I think that is a brilliant excuse for poor attendance and fortunately her school thinks so too.

@MidnightMusing5 and @babystarsandmoon
I am quite shocked by responses like "rules are rules" and calling ill students "brats". If rules are rules, then surely children in wheelchairs should take part in high jump like everyone else and blind children should just get on with it and read non-braille texts, right? According to you severe illness/disability is just due to lack of discipline. I wished life was that simple. Please read the Equality Act.

Yanbu x

As your daughter has had this medical condition for more than a year, it counts as ‘long term’ under the Equality Act’s disability provision. Look up the details and tell the school you will sue them for not making reasonable adjustments.

Just for your back pocket-
Her condition represents a disability if she's had it more than 12 months and has an adverse effect on her day to day life.
For the school to impose a blanket policy that disadvantages students with disabilities or protected characteristics is discrimination. They must make reasonable adjustments to such policies to avoid less favourable treatment.
That's the law. Equality Act 2010.

The same thing happened to my nephew. His attendance has been poor due to panic attacks which the school was fully aware of including the school nurse. My sister rang up stating they were penalising a child for being mentally unwell, they apologised and issued an invitation.

It would be understandable if your DD had a poor behaviour record but illness and being bullied is a stupid reason to deny her the Prom.

Proms are American bs that unfortunately been adopted in the UK. They have always been used to discriminate and exaggerate whatever social pecking order was within the students circles already. The teachers revel in this as they think that their star pupils (socially thinking, rather than academically thinking) will somehow reflect on themselves. They are more than happy to exclude some students in order to ingratiate themselves even more so with their favoured ones. I know this as I know teachers and how juvenile many of them are, ie they have never left the school playground. The same with bullying, they dont really care as the kids being bullied are not the ones they mentally associate themselves with.

This.

Nompint going all guns blazing until you've had a sensible conversation.

Do you have the agreement about her attending with a docs note in writing?

Discrimination based on a medical condition/disability.

I would be going after the school on this.