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 necessarily.. we had medical evidence but schools wanted to wait and see how they managed first before issuing a pass.

Also a pass in it self can be a barrier with the pupil not wanting peers to know they have a pass. Having to show this in front of everyone can be mortifying for teens.
Walking out makes you look like a rebel - which for many is better than looking like a dweeb with a small bladder pass

But again. If she was getting repeated behavioural points for a medical condition with a weak bladder, which has not been shared by the OP, don't you think the OP might have raised something earlier with the school?

And if the child has a pass but is choosing to "appear like a rebel" instead, then that's how she's being treated.

Again. Even if it's either of those scenarios, wouldn't you, as a parent, seeing all of these behaviour points coming in, have called up school to understand why she's getting so many points for this? Rather than wait till she can't go to the prom?

You are assuming the other kids know. Who tells the other kids then? I mean- for your idea to work they'd have to be told. Is naming and shaming at the end of their school career party part of the deal?
So you are acknowledging it a ' big consequence' and it's mainly about staff morale? Rather than being ' a lesson' for that child's benefit? And when I said it's some kind of mad ' gocha' I was told off. A previous poster squarely denounced me for thinking such a thing?
You are confused as to why it's happening. It disproportionately affects girls but punishing them by not inviting them to an ending party is unacceptable for any pupil who isn't a serious risk in that situation. The poor behaviour has gone on for 5 years and was never addressed and teachers only feel it's being addressed if a pupil can't go to a party? That is the definition of a weak SLT.

Everyone knows who isn't going to prom. The kids who aren't invited shout it from the roof.

Disproportionately affects girls how?

The poor behaviour will have been repeatedly addressed in school, hence discussions of PRU for the OP. Ime kids banned from prom have a raft of FTEs and other in school consequences. This is a final NO to them. Again it's 1-2% per year so 2-3 children in your average secondary. Those children don't deserve to be there. They've made life awful for students and staff for 5 years.

The other kids know who has disrupted their lessons for years! They've had to sit quietly and politely waiting for them to stop mouthing of or squaring up to the teacher. They've had to keep working while these kids storm out or blunder in, and then refuse to get their work out, or refuse to remove their coat. They've had to sit and wait for the lesson to take place while the teacher calls for slt back up and hands the dksrupter over. They've had to wait while the teacher talks to whoever they've sent out in the corridor. They know for sure. Their time in school has been impacted by them for years. They know.

If you have ever attended meetings for a SEN child you would understand how little movement and how utterly frustrating and depressing it is to go to meetings. Discuss all the unmet needs and the impact both short and long term for that person.
BUT nothing changes, nothing improves, any adjustments can take so long to be implemented and then if they are helping and child starts to thrive - the adjustments are removed to see if they are still needed - back to square one wait and see if the become resilient we will wait and see if we need to reinstate the adjustments
AND several more meetings are needed and they will want to retry all the things that don't work before they will even consider reinstating the one thing that has.

Then by the time they do reinstate it is no longer effective as pupil has lost so much ground and confidence. BUT this worked so even know it isn't working now we have to give it longer and wait and see.

We do not know the ins and outs of this case. We all respond based on how we interpret the OP post and with our own experience

Punishment at this stage is only going to negatively impact the pupil being able to focus and do well with GCSEs it's not going to improve behaviour in school now as they have nothing to aim for.
It's not realistically going to make a positive difference long term as it's not like a prom happens again and next time a pupil will adjust behaviour if they can.

Their are no consequences to schools or the LA for continuing to not support SEN needs. Those consequences are only impacting the pupil and family.
Where are the LA being punished for their failures to support?

Again. I'm afraid you're making this all about you and your experience. Which is bad but sounds very different to the OP. I know we all do that but you're really stretching to extend vast amounts of what you've been through, which the OP appears not to.

Can you not see that?

If you stop extrapolating and actually go with what is said, it's actually not very indicative of any bad actions on the part of the school. In fact, it's more indicative of an awful lot of patience.

At the end of the day, we’re looking at a borderline case here. The OP has admitted that her daughter’s obstructive behaviour 18 months ago meant she didn’t deserve to attend the prom then. From the school’s perspective and for other students’ safety, you can’t assume someone who was seriously disruptive and a risk will suddenly behave well. You argue the school should give her an automatic pass simply because the prom is important to her, but what if she acts the same way again? Can you really give that guarantee? Of course, the school might be wrong, and she might genuinely have changed. But does she have third-party evidence, such as a letter from a doctor, supporting her situation? So this is all about probability, not certainty. I don’t think it’s a clear-cut case you are suggesting.

Well, what the OP has admitted is not surely the issue? Parents don't get a lot of choice especially parents of send. They have to agree to most things.
There a confusion right there in your post between ' didn't deserve to' and ' couldn't possibly attend safely' which is running right through this discussion. They are not the same thing. A school can conduct a risk assessment of any particular pupil attending a prom. If safety is genuinely at risk then have measures to mitigate it or exclude. No one wants people's safety at risk.
I'm saying that with this particular thing - proms- schools shouldn't be deciding who ' deserves ' it.

I don’t know. If someone’s phone keeps ringing during a concert, it doesn’t really pose a safety issue or put others at risk, but it definitely ruins other people’s experience. I think the school believes what the girl would do at the prom might be something along these lines. So honestly, I’m not sure. I just don’t feel as certain about it as you do.

schools shouldn't be deciding who ' deserves ' it
How do you work that out @Warmlight1 ?
Proms are put on by schools as a treat/privilege for Y11. They take a considerable amount of time to organise and then staff attend to supervise in their own time, for no pay. If they shouldn’t be deciding, who should?

Well it doesn't sound like her mother is either.
My experience when it's not clear is - it probably ought to be. What could that possibly be?
Drugs? Likelihood of Aggression? Those are simple exclusion issues. She's working through her GCSEs don't forget.
So what is the thing which isn't a simple obvious reason which doesn't merit a behaviour plan - if not the blind application of an inappropriate policy- what?

Leaving the classroom without permission. You’ve been told many times. If she wanders out of the function room in a public space she is at risk.

Agree. And reminders. Which is not "she forgot something" but behaviour reminders. Which the OP has been really vague about.

@Warmlight1 And as I've pointed out ad infinitum, if the OP had a problem with the sanctions the school were applying, she did not challenge them until her daughter was disinvited from the prom.

And now "she's at home" according to the OP. I assume because of this, she's not clarified. Which feels like a huge drama about sod all.

It all feels like rather the wrong time to react to me and it makes no sense if the OP felt that she'd been discriminated against in the application of sanctions. If the sanctions were inappropriate, kick up a fuss then. If they were appropriate, why kick up such a fuss now? Suck it up.

ND does not mean no consequences. It doesn't even mean the child is well behaved in the context of that ND condition. You can have both a ND condition and be poorly behaved within what constraints are possible and reasonable for you. There is a pattern of behaviour with this child that this has not been the case and, I think the OP is setting her up to fail at college if she doesn't support her in recognising this.

For differently abled, neurodiverse or disabled people in life, the phrase is "reasonable adjustments" and I type that as someone who has a disability. Reasonable. It doesn't mean automatic and it doesn't mean no bad consequences ever. Just because she's had a consequence to poor behaviour does not automatically make it discriminatory.

I' ve not talked much about send though it is an angle. My main point is that the prom should not be bound up with 'consequences' - ie sanctions -for anyone, send or otherwise. . I've not argued at any point that there should be no consequences ever. You can't run a school like that. But that schools should get right out of the area of punishing pupils through the prom. Safety- actual risk in a prom which is insurmountable - is of course a different issue.
I mean that's my point - not the OPs. But a parent of a SEND child is uniquely reliant on schools to help. They often wouldn't feel comfortable to challenge. So I see your point but there's a power imbalance there which can be underestimated. Not all parents are confident and assertive.

It’s not a punishment. You are looking at it backwards. It’s a reward. Some students don't earn the reward.

Yes and I said I'd suggest her mother was invited or offers to be there on hand. But sounds like more of a safeguarding risk in the context of a prom. She's not on a behaviour plan. If that were happening as defiant behaviour in lessons you'd think there would be a plan of some kind.

Another person said what if it's a problem with another pupil and the parent isn't objective- that's another possibility - But again you'd think it'd be discussed with her mum and the OP would have sounded quite different.

I wouldn’t think there’d be a behaviour plan necessarily- I have taught lot of very difficult pupils who don’t have one.

I'm far from convinced that the details provided by the OP give even half the information required for any stranger to give an objective opinion. I taught in secondary schools for decades and it's a tiny percentage of parents of persistently poorly behaved children who are even slightly realistic about them.

I've also supervised at proms and can assure everyone that it's not a brilliant way to spend an evening. At best it's boring and at worst it includes fending off intruders (from other schools, from no schools, sometimes very drubk and aggressive), dealing with students who turn up pissed, dealing with students who haven't usually been badly behaved but because they won't be at school after the prom, want to take the piss out of/get aggressive with one or other staff. The LAST any staff agreeing to give up their time want is to throw into the mix students who've been arseholes in school.

I don't doubt it. Normally I expect you can explain exactly what the problem is. At some level here assuming the OP is reasonably sincere, that hasn't happened. And it's not clear at what level. Could just be an unclear OP. But the discussions have been very enlightening.
In my experience where there are gaps from a parent point of view it's important to keep asking questions/ having dialogue until it's clear. I just think what you eventually find out can sometimes be surprising.

Surely if behaviour is such a problem that should be dealt with by the school. If the problem is ongoing a behaviour plan would be logical.

Well are Proms such a good idea? Honestly I'd back any school who organised an alternative within school hours and with proper staffing and security if needed. Meal, picnic, Something like that. I'm not sure teenagers who want to go wild in the evening are really your job.

Interestingly enough - many years ago when I was teaching.
We had an ongoing issue with a pupil. The senior person decided that if they didn't complete X by a certain date they couldn't go to the party.
This caused quite a argument between other SLT who did not think it was proportional to the situation. I could see both sides but was following the instructions from my line manager.

The young person met the deadline but didn't go to the party. They achieved the outcome they needed to go. I am not fully sure why they didn't maybe the process had left them feeling undeserving of the treat, maybe they were exhausted by completing the work or maybe they didn't want people to think they only did the work for the treat.

Things aren't always clear but that experience among others I have had both as a professional and as a parent definitely make me thing about what is going on under the obvious.

Proms are also ridiculous expensive and over the top with hire cars, dresses and hair and make up. I would support the downscaling to a school afternoon disco or fun day on school grounds

Schools are very busy and lots of students misbehave. Behaviour plans aren’t the only way forward.