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.

Good to know that. I would support any school's decision, provided they have already given the student countless second chances.

That would have all happened before!! That's the point. Her daughter would have known from September what the expectation was.

Unfortunately that's the way OP presented it, VickyEadieofThigh - as a sudden move out of the blue with no mention of warnings or anything else

And if folk believe that they'll believe anything ...

She didn’t even present it like that - she seems to be aware what the threshold is bit is surprised that the DD has been told that since she doesn’t meet the threshold she can’t go. I’m sure the behaviour score is a figure students all know, so she’ll have been aware that she was getting close and coukd have chosen to fix it rather than being surprised when the rule is applied.

But when I was at that stage, there was no prom but there was an end of term trip to Alton Towers and the kids with poor behaviour weren't allowed to go.

Is that any different? And aren't safeguarding risks the safety risks which could include leaving classrooms without permission exactly what we're talking about here?

I'm not sure about the OP but I check my son's behaviour scores every week at least once a week. I talk to him about any negative points he's had. More this year than any other sadly but only 5 I think and 3 were for one piece of homework which he forgot to do.

All were fair, I didn't challenge any of them and said to him I supported his teachers in raising them. If I'd genuinely felt they were unfair, I'd ask to speak with the teacher as it's possible I'd misunderstood.

If it had meant he'd not been invited to prom as a result, I'd have told him to suck it up.

This all feels like an awful lot of bloody drama about a party.

I confess I didn't read it like that, @cardibach; to me it sounded more like only bothering about what the threshold was once the sanction arrived, but of course I could be wrong

Either way my comment stands about the attitude of some parents. It's always "Of course if they'd done THAT it would be different and I'd support them", except when "that" arrives there's an excuse for that too

Typo

I think we are reading it the same way, just maybe I didn’t explain very well! I’m assuming the DD knew but didn’t care about the threshold or didn’t think it would be applied. Probably the same for the OP. And now it is and there’s a consequence it’s a drama, when it could have been averted with a bit of planning and behaviour change (which is of course what the school hoped would happen).

My comments about social exclusion are only in general, not specifically about the OP daughter. From what the OP has said, it sounds like the daughter has already been socially excluded. She’s "struggled with friendship" and now she’s refusing to go into school at all and staying home after finding out she wasn’t invited to the prom. We can’t believe the friendship issues are the fault of her classmates or teachers

Given that, I personally think even if she had a ticket and went to the prom, it might not end up being a positive experience for her.

I have 2 autistic nephews and an autistic DH and a prom would be their worst nightmare! If she has negative associations with school and is a refuser, anxiety and difficulties with friendships, she may well be better off out of it anyway. Chalk it down to experience and she may get to go to a 6th form prom if her behaviour improves.

I find these schools and Mumsnetters who delight in deliberately excluding kids from prom just awful and cruel for the sake of it.

Thankfully at my daughter's school the parents organise the prom themselves, so no one can be excluded for uniform violations or similar nonsense.

What do you think it is for those who don't get it?

À reality check.

I totally agree.
A lesson that means you cannot behave however you want without there being consequenses.

I don't think anyone is delighting in it. Just accepting it as reality that some kids aren't well behaved, even within constraints of and reasonable adjustments implemented due to ND conditions.

Presumably the parents who find it abhorrent could do the same and organise, pay for and staff it themselves?

A conversation with them and parents would do that. If a conversation doesn't they are probably not ready for it. This is an inappropriate use of a prom.

Tell me you don't work in a secondary school without telling me.

If only a conversation worked 🤣 🙈 🙈 🙈 😵‍💫

The school.has had them for years and that message will already have gone around multiple times. This isn't sounding like a concerned effort to reach a challenging child. It's sounding like an expending of the frustration of something that feels like failure. It is tough to feel you tried and tried and that child didn't respond. It's not sounding anything like a safety risk.assessment.

"My mother parent of 5 was very clear about socialising as a fundamental. She did not believe in withdrawing social or community events neither would she humiliate us in social situations."

There is a difference between not using family socialising as a punishment e.g birthday parties, anniversaries trips out and those that involve wider society.

There are plenty of social situations where it is perfectly normal and expected for boundaries to be set, with consequences if you break them

E.g banned from football grounds
Getting barred from pubs
Taken off planes because you verbally abused staff
Kicked out of party venues for bringing in alcohol smoking where you are not supposed to.

School proms are more like the latter than the former.

Allowing people to go to prom regardless of failing qualifying criteria is becoming more commonplace and propagates a sense of entitlement.

"School proms are more like the latter than the former"
.Indeed some children are excluded from school for these things -
Safety - actual safety- will always be a criteria. Just like you'd not bring a toddler to lots of places. I'm not saying all our family went everywhere together all the time.
The idea that schools have a criteria other than actual safety- and that the prom is used as a reward for the ' deserving' - this is the problem.

Why is it a problem?

That's the thing I can't understand. Why should children who don't deserve a reward get one?

They've had years and ample opportunity to get it right and have chosen not to.

Do you think it’s really a problem if a child loses a playdate because they were naughty? View Prom as a massive play date: if behavior isn't there, the privilege is gone.
That said, for it to be a real motivator, there has to be a buffer. As long as it’s not arbitrary and kids have a fair chance to earn their ticket back through a "fresh start" period, I think it’s a perfectly reasonable trade-off.

It is strange that @Warmlight1 has no objection to detention or suspension even though these punishments disrupt a child's legal right to an education, while at the same time strongly disapproves of a Prom ban. Prom is simply a social event in a child's spare time and has nothing to do with schooling. It is a dangerous mindset to view a party as more important than the fundamental job of school, which is education.

Wandering off without permission in a public venue is a safety issue. And no, asking parents to come (for all the reasons given by PPs) isn’t an option.
Edit: as someone who has staffed many, many proms and similar events over the years I’d far rather someone who gets a bit sweary be allowed to come to prom than someone who wanders. You can’t relax with those because if they wander off and something happens your career is over.

Reading this thread I'm so glad in my daughter's school it's the parents who organise the prom and teachers are invited to attend as guests if they want to come. Therefore no one is excluded and teachers aren't doing anyone a favour.