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.

That is absolutely insane. The ability to go to the prom is used as a reward / punishment? Holy cow.

How much less than 90% is her behaviour score? I mean are you talking 89/88% or is it more like 60%. Is the behaviour strictly due to her autism so has issues with an uncomfortable uniform which allowances should be made or is it deliberate breeches ie makeup, rolling skirt too high? Just because a child has autism doesn't mean everything they do is excused by that you still need to look at the motivation behind actions

I imagine during her time at the school she has faced so many barriers due to her disabilities and that the school failed to properly and promptly provide adequate support to reduce the additional difficulties she faced through her disabilities. The schools failure not only had a detrimental impact on the girl but as a consequence of this likely had negative impacts to peers in her classes. The many failures by the school to properly educate and support the pupils at the school has result d in them punishing the most vulnerable rather than action and support.

Proms in our area are organised by a group of parent volunteers and have nothing to do with teaching staff. Wasn’t aware teachers got involved in this sort of thing.

Some ideas:

Negotiate with a achool based on improvement. Take the scores from 18 months ago and show the delta.

Has she got friends now? Are they going? If not, you could host an alternate party / event.

Teach / tutor that could advocate for her?

Tbh how they think not going to prom is motivating for someone that wants to go... As if she has any incentive to change her behaviour now and she might actually disengage right before exams. Nuts.

But anyway....

It's your job as a parent now to know when to draw a line under it and offer an different narrative. You won't always be able to navigate / rescue but teach her how to move through this.

I can imagine all that time taken up doing extra curricular and offering extension programs is a drain on resources too for the majority of kids.

This is incredibly cruel and discriminatory too.

There is a huge difference between behaviour that hurts others and behaviour that doesn't or that is due to not having one's needs met.

Local authorities don't want to fund specialist provision for children with SEN. But it often feels as if there's nowhere near enough thought going into making mainstream classrooms and learning accessible to all. A lot of the measures schools could take to become more autism/ dyslexia/ ADHD friendly would benefit all children.

Edit to add: the timing of this with GCSEs not yet sat is baffling. A kid with autism could be badly rocked by the perceived injustice of this situation

That's been the case since I was at school and I have children of my own. It's a reward, not a right.

This happens a lot more commonly than you might think. Having seen various complaints about this same issue play out through work I would probably focus on shielding her from the impact. Most schools will be finishing for study leave within the next month so she probably only has about four weeks left then she can move onto the next stage of her life post GCSEs. I might even consider starting her study leave early if you think this would be a benefit. I would probably try focusing on this and maybe think about holidays and future plans as a distraction. I think it is often the case that school behaviour policies and head teachers in general are not that great at making allowances for neurodiverse students. I would expect that as the insistence on main stream for more pupils grows there will be increasing challenges and tension around this. I hope at some point to see the government step in to insist that if more pupils are in the main stream, then policies such as uniform and behaviour are changed to reflect their diverse needs.

I think this school sounds awful,

Autism isn’t “bad behaviour” or a choice—it’s a neurodevelopmental condition that affects how a person experiences and responds to the world. Things like sensory overload, anxiety, difficulty with transitions, or communication differences can all show up as what schools sometimes label “behaviour issues,” but they’re not the same thing as deliberate rule-breaking.

Treating an autistic child exactly the same as neurotypical students isn’t fairness—it’s ignoring their needs. Real fairness means understanding the reason behind the behaviour and making reasonable adjustments so they can participate safely and comfortably.

Excluding your daughter from prom over “minor behaviour” feels especially harsh when you consider that she already struggles to attend school. That should be a red flag that the environment isn’t meeting her needs, not that she deserves to be left out of important milestones. My son is also autistic and I genuinely believe he would hate school if they didn’t provide the fantastic support that they do.

Prom isn’t just a reward, it’s a social experience and a memory most pupils carry with them. Denying that to a child who may already feel different or excluded risks reinforcing exactly those feelings.

Support and inclusion don’t mean ignoring boundaries, but they do mean applying them with understanding, flexibility, and compassion especially for children with autism.

I am genuinely appalled at the ignorance shown in some of the responses in this thread.

Nor can I, schools are meant to be supportive and nurturing environments, this seems an appalling decision.
I really hope that the upset doesn’t derail the OP daughter’s revision and upcoming exams, it’s awful timing. I don’t know where she could escalate this matter to, but if there is somewhere I would in her shoes. No wonder so many people prefer to home school if they can.

I don’t think prom should be linked to behaviour in the same way I wouldn’t cancel my dc birthday. General school trips? Yes, prom? No.

This is based on op stating the behaviour issues are uniform corrections and minor things, and a significant improvement in the last year. Not beating up class mates; which would be a different situation.

Its only discriminatory if they are penalising her & not any NT children who do it.

if the 90% threshold was known then daughter should have been encouraged to try & meet that target.

actions have consequences whether ND or NT

I don’t think OP has much chance of turning this over & should we working to minimise/reframe this to her daughter.

Yes, it sounds like the school may have acted unlawfully by not taking her diagnosed disability into account.

Escalate the complaint and refer to the relevant Disability Discrimination legislation.

If schools actually allowed everyone to attend prom, there wouldn't be proms - because staff give their time voluntarily and many would refuse to attend if the badly behaved and/or poorly attending students were allowed to go.

As pp have said, it's a "carrot" to support behaviour and attendance - but it's also a preventative measure to protect staff.

I thought proms were just an appalling American idea? Sadly, it appears not.

You can not guarantee your daughter’s behaviour - evidently. You couldn’t control how she behaved in school, you can’t control her behaviour at prom. If she goes and misbehaves this would ruin the evening for the teachers and cause a significant amount of extra work and it may ruin the evening for others.

It needs repeating autism does not cause bad behaviour, many people who happen to be autistic are very keen on rules and that they are followed. Other autistic students in the school year may be distressed and angry that someone who disobeyed the rules is allowed to go to the prom. We have rules for a reason, I like the security of rules and am offended others think they should be bent.
This thread shows no concern for others just the one child who could not behave despite being fully aware of the rules.

Do you know what behaviours lead to sending a child to a PRU?
It isn't minor things, I can assure you.

Discrimination isn’t only about treating people differently—it can also be about treating people the same when their needs are different.

If a rule is applied identically to everyone, but it disproportionately impacts a disabled student (including an autistic student), that can still be discrimination. In UK law, this is often called indirect discrimination.

Strongly disagree with this approach by schools, it seems ‘cruel and unusual punishment’ for DC and disability discrimination.

Are you just going to keep copying and pasting ChatGPT outputs on this thread?

Because she’s autistic and for an autistic kid, 90% attendance in Y11 is extraordinary.

@user1471497170 - go on disability discrimination. How can autistic kids be included in mainstream schools if they are punished for behaving like an autistic person? I’m so sad for your DD. I think she’s done amazingly.

Nope, you’re wrong.

Discrimination on the grounds of disability in this instance is the equality v equity analogy.

If all children (NT & ND) have to meet the same threshold then they’re not adequately allowing for the children with diagnosed disabilities and therefore they’re in breach of the law. 🤷🏻‍♀️

She has had the help and the warnings and now her actions have come back to haunt her. While i understand she is upset she has to learn that she can't do as she pleases and get away with it, She is about to go out into the adult world, a world where people will only give a free pass so many times.

The bottom line is this. There is very little schools can do to sanction year 11 kids. If their behaviour is being difficult and impacting their learning, or the learning of others then the school need to do something to change this. Removing prom is one of the things that may help kids to behave. Unless the other kids know about your daughter's difficulties and are able to understand why she has totally different targets for prom attendance, it is really hard to remove the rules for just one child. It's not right, but it's a symptom of an education system which is trying to teach big groups of children with very different needs all at once.