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.

I can only give my thoughts based on the op’s post. I don’t think making up a back story is helpful. That said, my thoughts remain, I disagree with prom being behaviour related except in extreme cases. I know our school does the same, however, my friend’s ds had a similar experience to the op’s dd last year at our school. School set him achievable stretch goals for him to be able to attend prom, which he achieved. It was bespoke and acknowledged school was hard for him but they set him up to succeed.

i think that’s the right approach. I say this as the mum of well-behaved dc who never get logs at school. They find that easy, but I’m able to understand it’s not the same for everyone. Reasonable adjustments feel right for dc wanting to go to prom who are struggling but trying.

But you said that her behaviour improved and she didn't get the desired outcome (attending the prom).
That surely proves that she can control her behaviour if it fact she wants to?

Not what I'm saying. I'm suggesting that it's not either or, but always autism and. Autism is the constant backdrop upon which all behaviour plays out. My autistic DC generally behaves well and follows rules, occasionally panics in certain situations and behaves in ways that might be challenging or rude to some (getting up and leaving without saying goodbye, not responding when spoken to, avoiding eye contact at all costs, may speak in what can be interpreted as a 'tone' etc) and can also misbehave on purpose, doing standard toeraggy things, for all the usual reasons -fun, defiance, personal gain etc. But they're always autistic, never 'just generally naughty'). It's an and. And I'm not excusing bad behaviour and using autism as an 'out': we've worked really hard to be where we are now.

Did your dd hurt or bully any of the other children in her years? Or any teachers?

Mum of 3 ND children here. They all know actions have consequences, at both school & home.
They can't just not go to work because they've fallen out with a friend. We need to prepare our ND children for the real world as they fundamentally have to live & survive in it.
I do think school should not inform the until after exams who can attend or not as this my effect thier studies. Realistically though, I'd be encouraging them to focus and move on to thier next adventure in life!

Things like “uniform” and unauthorised loo stops are strongly suggesting unmet SEND needs and therefore possible discrimination.

However, she is about to leave, and has somehow managed to cope in such a system- perhaps it’s worth mentioning to them, but I’m not hopeful of big changes at this stage (for her). I hope she has a very carefully planned next step for sixth form/college.

She has to have done it before the threat of prom, or she’d already not be there to attend it.

Once you get close to exclusion, you really are on thin ice - nobody’s waiting 2 academic years to exclude a child who hasn’t improved.

18 months ago she was in Y9, and nobody will have said that prom was a threat, exclusion was the threat.

Thats the point of behaviour management, improving it.

She maybe hoped that the improvement she’d made would be enough, it obviously isn’t.

Prom is a massive privilege. People are making a lot of assumptions here on quite frankly limited information. It’s possible the school are being unfair but it’s just as possible that op dd does not deserve to go to prom.

I think it's disgusting to exclude any child from prom. If the pupil is considered safe in school and expected to attend then they are safe enough for prom. I think it's bullying and a power hit. The pupil has improved and that's a win.
Toilet access withheld is illegal.
OP you may need to plan something else for that day.
I have a now adult sen DD and I'm a school governor.

This is all making me think of a story when I first worked in operations in a factory.

Not in my team but there was a guy who, I kid you not, had ridiculously high absence. Typically you got above 3% and the informal attendance management started. Anyway, the shift manager on that shift started off the process. He halved his absence. Great, improvement. But still way above 3%. So he moved onto the formal process.

Improvement from a very bad performance to just bad isn't enough in some cases. Neurodiversity may mean she's entitled to reasonable adjustments but that's what you do when her school work is suffering not about prom.

It's difficult without knowing anything from the school's perspective but it's entirely possible that the school have applied reasonable adjustments every time they've given her a behavioural reprimand, i.e. they've given her more leeway but she's still pushed boundaries beyond what is reasonable.

If that is the case, the school approach is perfectly fine. And if the school haven't been applying reasonable adjustments then why wait till now?

I’d just turn up with her. What are they going to do realistically?

id also go to the local paper about it

They will refuse entry and if mum becomes aggressive then police will be called.
Fucking great idea.

I agree.

Maybe she will learn from this experience. She may well be ND, but where do you draw the line? Should ND people avoid prosecution if they break the law?

It's a harsh lesson, no doubt, but ND or not, she is part of a wider community and compliance within reason, is important to society. Imagine if everyone who was ND just went around doing whatever they wanted.

Does she have an EHCP?

Having autism is not an excuse to bend the rules and be a dick

Chair of governors here: any complaint must go through the school's complaints procedure.

Autistic secondary teacher here.

If behaviour is due to disability, then it's not possible for a student to suddenly choose to improve so they can go to prom. Sorry, but that isn't how autism works - see above, autistic myself with a Y11 autistic granddaughter (who is going to prom because she always knew that she was responsible and accountable for her own behaviour).

Further, if the OP's daughter has only chosen to improve in Y11, and was previously considered for a PRU, this means she's caused significant disruption for the previous 4 years. Prom is a privilege not a right. I haven't read anything suggesting that this privilege should be afforded due to a few months of improvement and the behaviour of the previous 4 years should attract no consequences whatsoever.

Is it discrimination? No. It would be discrimination only if the child absolutely couldn't regulate their behaviour. Unfortunately, she's shown she's perfectly able to make the right choices when she wants to avoid a particular consequence.

Finally, the going to the toilet thing. She hasn't been sanctioned for going to the toilet, she's been sanctioned for unauthorised absence from the classroom. Why? Because it's a safeguarding concern. You don't just let a kid destined for PRU with significant MH issues hang out in the toilet. Major risk to themselves and others. It often takes the intervention of 2-3 members of staff to resolve each instance (one to on-call the absence, one to find the child, one to staff the detention). In other words, every time that child takes themselves off to the toilet without permission, it costs the taxpayer £20. If they do it only once a day, that's £3,800 a year. Of course this has consequences.

Eh?

Well realistically they'll tell her she can't come in, won't they 😳

Op has done this and not getting anywhere so she goes to governors now.

Almost 20 percent of children are claimed to have a mental health issue, learning difficulties, behavioural issues etc. A school can not operate policies which only apply to 80% of students.

@user1471497170
OP your post really upsets me, greatly so.
I cannot believe we are still living in a day and age, with all we now know and understand about neurodivergence, where children are being excluded from an end of secondary school celebration. This compounds the isolation and exclusion and 'othering' that ND children already go through their school lives feeling anyway.
How the professionals at your school have reached the decision to exclude your DD from the prom after all her struggles through the past 5 years of being there - yet she's still there, still turning up, still putting the work in, and is impressively set to pass her GCSEs despite all her challenges - is shocking beyond belief. What a terrible, negative and upsetting message to give her upon leaving school.
And yet, even as I write that it's shocking beyond belief, at the same time I'm sadly not surprised, because I've come to loathe and despise some (not all, but a great many) secondary school teachers since my two ND children started secondary. And I loathe them with a rage that I've never experienced before towards any other person, ever.
I feel really upset for your DD, and for you, and I don't even know either of you.
You must fight this. Tooth and nail. Head teacher. Governors. Research about her rights not to be excluded because of her ND difficulties. Do everything in your power to fight for her and her self-worth. Don't stop until someone listens to you. Your DD has a right to be there. Don't let these teachers damage her self-worth.
Hopefully other posters will add better ideas on how to fight this.

She has autism and anxiety - it is discriminatory. A mental health professional is required for the dx. Schools should be inclusive - how would you feel if they said a child in a wheelchair couldn’t attend because the venue didn’t have a lift? Every child DOES have the right to participate in school life.

Loads of prom venues also don’t allow schools to hire their place out without having firm conversations with schools about the expectation that students with known behaviour issues will be barred from attending. Venues around us won’t let local schools host there unless the school makes assurances that students with a history of behaviour problems will not be in attendance.

The school also needs to take into account the feelings of the staff and the wider school. If students and staff can breathe a sigh of relief that a certain student will be barred, attendance will be higher and people will have a happier night. Less people on edge. School staff and students are forced by law to be around students that cause so much distress and unhappiness to everyone for five years. They have this discretion for one night to get rid of the troublemakers so everyone can at least have one night of peace.

Excluding a student from the prom is not taken lightly and the student would have to show significant behavioural issues and there would be agreement that almost everyone would have a more pleasant night without them there Almost ending up in a PRU means the behaviour problems will be significant. No school bans a, shy meek anxious autistic student who staff and students like to be around/don’t mind being around who’s only wrongdoings are not wearing uniform properly or going to the toilet too much. That’s not a reason people get banned from prom at all.