Daughter being excluded from prom

[user1471497170]

My daughter is year 11 and sits GCSEs next month. She has struggled throughout the whole of secondary school with friendships, MH/school anxiety, behaviour and approximately a year ago almost got sent to pru. She has never settled in school. However she has made significant improvement, not on any behaviour plan, is revising hard and should pass GCSEs and do her chosen subjects in college.

She has autism, anxiety and some physical health issues that are likely linked. Getting her into school is a struggle as she feels unhappy there but we make the effort and her attendance is good.

Although much improved her behaviour score is not high enough to meet the 90% prom threshold (reminders, uniform points and gokng to toilet when not permitted). She was informally told this week the final decision is that she will be excluded from prom.

Now all the girls have their tickets and she is beside herself. They are all making plans and talking about dresses and she now feels unable to continue going to school due to feeling so distressed about this. She is worried how she will cope with the sense of exclusion having to keep hearing about prom in school and assemblies

She's now at home. I have written to the school and submitted 2 complaints over the last 2 months however I have not received a satisfactory response. There has been no communication to me from the school about their decision or how they will support those excluded. Please can someone advise how I can escalate this further and if possible externally.

Not just teachers. Today I was working outdoors and had access to a toilet at 8am, at 12.30pm then not til I got back to the office at 4.30pm.

It's not about gambling our results data ... Seriously, I've got kids that I'm fighting to get a 1 or a 2 instead of a U. We're not getting rid of children to make our data look better. Christonbike, what a bunch of conspiracist nonsense.

Also, to PEX a kid, you wouldn't believe how high the thresholds are or what an enormous amount of evidence / meetings / paperwork it takes. It's not like we just go 'Oh ok, let's PEX them.' Last kid we PEXed had stabbed someone.

As for PRU, it's just too expensive, that's why the kids don't go, nothing to do with whether that's where they need to be, plus, the number of PRU places has dramatically decreased, so generally there's actually nowhere to send the children. We could try AP (alternative provision, one down from PRU), but it costs about £4k a week in this area. The school gets maybe £6k a year funding for that kid. Do the math. The amount of money a seriously disruptive child costs a school is eyewatering and effectively robs other students of the support they need.

There's an absolute crisis in education and slagging off teachers and schools just isn't going to solve it. If you give even the slightest shit about the children, then you need to recognise what's going on.

They are not discriminating, they are treating all children equally. We do children no favours by excusing bad behaviour and idleness, regardless of what badge you want to stick on it. The world does not pander to, or excus poorly performing adults.

I know plenty of schools that have PEX risk kids in y9 that they can't PEX by ks4 because there's nowhere for them to go.

It's a well known trope that if a student makes it to Y10, you're stuck with them barring drugs or knives.

Nope, depends on the class of the drug (A, B or C) and whether they've threatened or used the knife. Possession of either (drugs or knife) won't necessarily get you expelled.

Well yes. Possession of drugs will get you PEX in most places until near the end of y11 ime.

Knives well unless you use it, you're probably OK.

Class C not so much - cannabis

Obviously, if you're dealing, big trouble, but just possession won't get you kicked out. Will generally stop you lobbing chairs though.

Possession of cannabis depends. Any sort of attempt at dealing (not hard to get evidence) and PEX.

This is why the system is a joke. People outside of it don't realise how bad you have to be to get even a half day FTE.

I’d be absolutely fuming.
Why do school not realise the damage they are causing,
The British education system does my head - I’m not British and although I love living in Britain, I have struggled with the education system for the past 16 years and can’t wait for my kids to be done so I can leave it all behind me.
Let the girl enjoy prom, and celebrate her achievements over the past few months

Fuming why?

Because your child who messed up the education of others now finally has a consequence?

I’ve got one of those.
I’ve also got one with AuHD who wants to go to school, is enormously motivated but has crippling anxiety.
she’d fall below 90% attendance but has worked harder at her 85% than her sister at her 98 %

100%. If people spent one day ( possibly even one hour) in any educational setting they would have their eyes opened massively!

I do recognise what’s going on.

The SENd system is expensive and collapsing, and mainstream schools are expected to take the brunt of that.

We had a far larger KS4 PRU cohort for a reason. That reason was, as @Happytaytos points out - if the evidence is there then they don’t make it Y10 so the school isn’t stuck with them.

I don’t believe any school is kicking kids out lightly, and I’ve sat in enough panels and appeals to know that it’s difficult. But I maintain that if the evidence was there in Y9, she’d have gone.

The LA in our area provides Day 6 onward home tuition, because there are no PRU or AP spaces. That’s also expensive.

The other point I made however is that as educators, I don’t believe you’re holding grudges against children for 18 month old exclusion issues.

I’m more inclined to think that students with that level of behavioural challenge are given different, separate targets and expectations before they lose their prom ticket - and if that is the case here, OP’s DD has missed those.

OK, yes, I agree that's so the school doesn't get stuck with them in Y10. That's not my experience because I work in a very tough school and we just don't off-roll kids (and that is why I work there, I believe in this).

Honestly, sorry, as a teacher who can actually make the relationships and make it work, it's just triggering to see yet another thread where a parent is accepting no responsibility and talking about how they should complain because their kid who's been super high maintenance for 4 years is somehow missing out. Different targets is fine, however, not sure we've got the whole story here, and not sure there's enough of an acknowledgement that there's possibly been different criteria for success.

There has been threads on here and other media about teenagers wetting themselves because they have been refused the toilet in school. Or girls who have bleed through their clothes for same reason.

This has caused so much trauma and let to ongoing problems. The advice is always tell your child to ask but go anyway if teacher refuses because the alternative will have long term consequences.

We don't off roll either. But we do have kids that really need PRU or AP and don't get it because there's no space or no money. That's not to say we don't try, but these handful of kids are ruining the experience for others. They get a lot of support in MS, well over and above most, and still it's everyone else's fault.

Extremely rare, hence the headlines.

She didn't get sent to PRU. In my experience PRU are sometimes discussed as options. It was discussed in relation to my child.not to do with behaviour but because they were not coping in mainstream. It was one of the many options that are available in theory but never seem to materialise. Usually be ause child doesn't meet the threshold of criteria.

We seemed to fall into no man's land where there was no options available

Obviously out situation may be completely different to OP but my daughter would have loved prom and other aspects of high school but couldn't cope in a mainstream school.

So you don't allow wheelchair users to use the lift to get to upstairs classrooms because non wheelchairs users can use the chairs and why pander to wheelchair users it will just make them lazy right

We didn’t get any better from the parents in PRU if that helps.

Generally it was “My Timmy would never try and set a classroom on fire,” or “don’t ring me and don’t send him home, I’ve had enough/not my problem.”

Yes, it's exactly the same as this, nothing to do with years of obstructive, disruptive and traumatic behaviour

Behaviour is communication

This. There are far too many blurred lines nowadays. Rules are rules.

Rules is rules is easy until rules cause you personal pain.

If the government made a rule tomorrow that

You have to give 59% of earnings to them is that a rule you follow blindly?

If you get caught speeding you lose you licence and pay £1k fine. Reasonable rule to introduce right?

After all no one nice and reasonable would break rules and speed right. Even by accident? Nope because you have to be responsible humans