WWYD about this ?

[thriftychic]

last week i phoned school to check ds2 had arrived as i was worried , he had been having massive meltdowns and crazy behaviour .

if a child is marked absent , and no one has phoned in for them then the parents are supposed to be conatcted .

anyway , the woman in the office told me that he was there , she had checked the register , he was marked present. that was at 9.30am

at about 2pm whilst ringing about some other issue the woman in the office tells me that the form tutor had marked him present but the changed it to absent , so in fact he wasnt there , hadnt been all day.

i flipped. i did eventually find ds2 in the park . he had rose his bike so long that his hands are covered in blisters, his whole body ached for 2 days and he was muddy and hungry but other than that ok.

the head told me that it wont happen again and the teacher is being dealt with.

thing is i now dont trust them , they have proved a few times what dozy buggers they are and yesterday i phoned to check ds2 was there and the woman in the office said shed check the register. i told her that wasnt good enough and could she physically go and SEE that hes there.

i dont suppose i can keep ringing and asking her to leave the office everyday and check can i .

i dont trust ds2 to go and i dont trust school either.

he is in high school btw , hes 13

I thought each class takes a register of pupils so that a school can be sure nobody is missing during the day?

When I was at school...you could go to registration in the morning and then leave/skive and nobody would particularly notice!! I'm sure each class takes a role call now to avoid a school 'loosing' kids?

Have you found out when your DS actually left the school that day? Did he go to reg class and then leave...that wouldn't make sense to me... so did he leave after lunch so it was 2pm before they realised he wasn't in the first class after lunch iykwim??

Do the school realise he may 'disappear' if he's having a bad day? ...is he having problems and is he running away?
zzzzz may have the easiest answer but it still won't necessarily keep him in school and it will seem to be a punishment and embarrassment if he has to get a teacher in each class to sign his attendance, etc...it may not help much

It does sound like your DS is struggling and I think this is the focus point and where things need the attention. I'm assuming he cycles to school himself, he's 13yrs and the biggest question is whether you know/believe he is safe being alone in the park on his bike?...I'd go as far as agreeing with him about 'safe places' if he does leave school during the day...so at least you know where to find him, etc
Have you tried to explain you have concerns and are worried when you don't know where he is, etc...could he carry a phone and send you a text or call you if he is having a hard time and needs to talk/maybe he won't walk out of school?
It sounds like he is really struggling but isn't identifying with an adult he can go to when he isn't coping...leading to the running/leaving....maybe he just needs 'someone' he can trust that he can reach out to when he's upset, etc...I'd be very careful about punishment...I suppose I would want to remember that he wasn't doing it to get into trouble deliberately but is still feeling he must just 'get away' from whatever is happening for him...that would be my focus and where my energies would be...and with getting the school understanding there is a need to address this too and provide some better supports to him...before he is so overwhelmed and feeling he can't manage.
I hope things can be identified and supported for your DS and school gets better for him

I think it's understandable that you don't trust school. They have shown that they are not trustworthy. Because they have shown that not only are the able to accurately report attendance, they have failed to implement their own policy when a pupil is absent. It is pretty fundamental stuff.

I would ask them to call you every single day to tell you that he is physically in the building until they have done their own investigation and decided what action needs to be taken to make sure it doesn't happen again. And frankly the LA should be notified because it is just not acceptable. And if they don't agree to let you know he is there every day I would 'offer' to inform the LA myself.

The very cheek of it. Outrageous.........

I think it is really unfortunate that school have messed up like this but from the other perspective you could argue that these are 'young adults' and high school do have an expectation that kids are independent enough to travel back and forth to school safely...it is impossible to be hand holding too much in this large environment with older more independent thinking young adults and at the end of the day...they have protocols but human error does happen and will always happen....

I'm not trying to minimise the outrage of this and the implications which make you wonder all sorts of dreadful 'what if's', etc and it is really bad that the school messed up and a complaint needs to be made, etc...but....there are more important issues with this and I would minimise the energy spent on it and focus on the way forward in resolving things for your DS.
What's done is done, make the complaint to the LA highlighting the problems but then leave it and don't waste too much more time on it.
We can spend a lot of time stuck in the mire which is the let downs and failures of schools, educators and others when they don't deliver well....it can cloud the focus and make things much harder to handle and doesn't help a great deal towards resolving anything.

I'd always want to say to any of us here in SN...keep your best energies for the good of your purpose...don't get too caught up in the negative and focus on what you can change, what you can do and what is best for your child...apart from that, anger just muddies the waters and creates barriers with profs and makes things harder when you really need them 'on-board' with you in a positive way....
It's about keeping a balance of emotions versus business...they are all business and we have to meet them on that level...friendly but with purpose iykwim...

my apologies zzzzz...I just meant that overall the attitude I found with most MS school, esp HS is that generally they do have this view and it is almost a given that a lot is expected of our young people.

Primary years are quite a bit more protected but there is this huge leap and expectation from yr1's and above...that they will all suddenly transform into young adults with so much more responsibility on them, don't you agree?
This can be huge for any child but esp difficult for any with sn or support needs of any kind...I meant it this way really

Sometimes inclusion is good but it just doesn't fit for just as many...this is where it is so so hard for our children when they get to this stage in education...it's when many start to see the gaps become like an abyss for our DC's...with little in the way of safety nets....

This sort of thing is what worries me about my sons transition to high school.

Absolutely not on, not informing you of his absence is bad enough, but mistakenly informing you that he was there when he wasn't is unforgivable IMO.

I agree with the poster that suggested having him put on report. That will at least guarantee his attendance gets individual focused attention.

It sounds like there's some buck-passing going on here at the school. The teacher shouldn't have made the mistake but surely the big issue (from the school's p.o.v. at least) is that the system itself has been shown to be lacking. I would want to know what they are going to do to make sure that there isn't a repeat of this for any child.

Are they going to make sure that all staff know to contact the office directly if they realise that they've made a mistake in marking someone as being at school? Will they look into altering the system so that it alerts someone if the register has been changed?

"Dealing with" the teacher isn't enough. It's the system that is at fault, not just an individual member of staff.

I also agree with bringing up safeguarding and child protection etc.

I totally agree with you zzzzz but this all about policy, barriers and hoohaa that prevents so many actually getting what they have the right to when it comes to 'needs' and specifics...that's what we are all fighting for and it's not as simple as saying it should just happen for all...when it just doesn't and the system is not geared up in any way or barely....it's 'rights' versus reality...that's the problem

there are the expectations and there is the reality that provision does not allow, accommodate, support enough and doesn't have the resources to make access to education a real possibility for many children....(there are some great schools that work really well with supporting all who walk in their door though)

Changing our ed systems is going to take years and recognition is growing but the system is so slow and lets face it...in an ideal world we would love to believe access is there for all...but it just isn't is it...maybe 1 day though...maybe 1 day

Anyway, I don't want to feel I am ruffling feathers here and maybe this is too distracting from the thread for the OP.

thanks for all the replies. coppertop , you make some good points and i will pose these questions to school.
ds2 didnt leave the school , he never arrived in the first place . He should have been there at 8.30am
he left the house at 8.15am as usual and went to the bmx track in the park to ride his bike. anything could have happened , if he had fallen off one of the ramps and broken his leg or worse , could have been there ages before he was found. he had also been talking to some older lad while he was there , he said.

Bloody hell, thrifty! My DS2 is 13 and if he didn't turn up at school I would expect a phone call. My DS's school policy is to inform any parents by 11.00am if a child hasn't registered in the morning. For my DS2 I'd hope it would be a bit quicker!

wow!!...I had no clue this is what had happened...I was wondering about the circs earlier and how this had happened but I was thinking he'd been in school but had left at some point....not never got there at all!!!

It makes so much more sense now and so makes my post earlier a bit daft now...no flipping wonder you are so upset...I'd be after blood...or at least thinking about it...not carrying it out....I'm so sorry I didn't understand initially...I must have sounded flippant too

sorry , it was probably the way i worded it all bleep , not you !

i have told the pupil office that i want someone other than the incompetent form tutor to physically see ds2 and text me that hes there everyday until the head can tell me what she has changed so that this never happens again.
the head has apparently spoken to the staff explaining the importance of marking registers correctly but that doesnt stop it happening again does it.

you could also raise this awareness with the school PTA...every parent/guardian would be interested and concerned about this...surely something concrete needs doing for all the childrens welfare....
You could just send the chairperson of the PTA an email...should be able to find out details through school handbook or somewhere?

yes , think i will do that