What do you think of School's apology?

[pannetone]

Having won our disability discrimination case the 'Responsible Body' were ordered by the Tribunal to make an apology to DS and to us as parents. I will give the School points for promptness but what do you think of the apology which I have set out below?

Dear Mr, Mrs, and [DS name] [surname]

The Tribunal has determined that the School, as the Responsible Body, 'discriminated against [DS name] by failing to make reasonable adjustments for him' in Year 12.

The Responsible Body apologises for this.

Yours sincerely

[Head]

We are unsure that it conveys that the School accept they discriminated against DS, or are we just nit-picking?!

I think they are pretty much bang to rights, regardless of wording in this petulant memo. The inference is that the school (responsible body) was responsible for the discrimination and apologises

It reminds me of a small kid being forced to say sory, so just mumbling it crossly or saying "my mum said I had to apologise"

My guess is that this will be as good as it gets panne! Not much feeling gone into it though

It is exquisitely lame. You should print it out, and sneak into school reception and slip it into a frame in front of one of those poxy 'healthy schools' initiatives. Or perhaps it would look nice covering over an OFSTED Outstanding certificate?

Or pop it in the post to the local press!

No it's not a genuine apology. No suggestion anything will change. It's like one of those apologies that says 'I'm sorry if you felt we did x' not I'm sorry that we did x and we have learnt from this.

Wow, grudging or what?

Is your ds still at the school?
I was considering a discrimination case but I know full well that the school would lie and fabricate evidence. Even if we won I would expect an apology worse than that to be honest. My only satisfaction would have been to go to the local press and publish the letter to show how much of a 'fully inclusive' school they were. You just can't win against these people and the type of mentality they have .

Does it matter though what the letter says? They lost and have to make changes, right?

Is this an apology?

It's a shit apology, but the only one you're likely to get without another fight, I fear

Teehee sickof - the small kid/reluctant teenager type analogy is right - DD (age 8) on being asked to say 'sorry to [brother's name]' will parrot back 'sorry to [brothers name]!

Yep Polter - I wrote it above word for word. DH and I think the apology would be somewhat improved, and show that they accepted the Tribunal's decision, if they wrote they apologised for 'this discrimination'. As it stands it just sounds like they are apologising because the tribunal told them too.

Love the alternative suggestions of how best to make use of a lame apology! It would look particularly good framed if we also highlighted the tag line that has bugged us for the past 18 months - '{school name} actively promotes disability equality. Please let us know if you have any special requirements.'

Sadly can't do anything to 'stir things up'. As Tribunal didn't have the power to reinstate DS as a student on the roll (to do the course they refused to teach him last year), he is only a 'visitor' - which means he has no 'security of tenure' and is only there on the 'invitation' of the School, which could be withdrawn.

In any event could I complain to OFSTED? DS isn't strictly speaking a student as he's not on the roll. And after he's done his exams he won't even be a 'visitor'.

As regards the other parts of the Tribunal's order - that the school review pupil monitoring and parent liasion policies, and they train all staff in ASD, are they expected to report back to the Tribunal to prove it's been done? Timeframes are given for these to be carried out but it doesn't say they have to report back to the Tribunal. I want them to do it obviously - it helps make up for the awful time DS has had if future pupils benefit. It wasn't in time for DS3 (who was diagnosed ASD last November) - he is going to our local comprehensive.

Good grief, that doesn't scream "we're only doing this because we've had our wrists slapped" at all!

Childish.

'Sorry, but I'm not really'.

Write back to them thanking them for their sincere and heartfelt apology.

And then add 'hope you find the training useful and enjoyable'

I work in the civil service and I think that sentiment behind the 'apology' shines through - ungracious and patronising.
I'm not in England, so don't know anything about how to complain to Ofsted, but you could draw it to the attention of the Permanent Secretary of the Department of Education, Chris Wormald. Email or write with a brief polite covering note pointing out that you were a little disappointed to receive such a grudging apology in relation to a disability discrimination case and that you would like to know what he thinks about the school's apology given that his Department has overall responsibility for schools - send with a copy of the letter from the school and the tribunal ruling, if you have it - if not, just provide the case hearing details (name, date, location).

Someone from his office will have to send you a reply on his behalf.

Does anyone else believe that this should automatically trigger a "FAILING SCHOOL" grade with Ofstead?

Will Ofstead inspect to ensure that the Tribunal rec's have been carried out & properly implemented? I've lost all faith in the oversight bodies - if they had teeth these things wouldn't happen.

It's such a shame your son continues to be treated as a "visitor" - that's declaring him officially a second class citizen in comparison to his "student" peers and I'm horrified that the Tribunal has no powers to rectify this.

I like Marchduck's suggestion as without an enforced change in outlook, I don't actually think things will change for the children coming up behind your son. That grudgingly worded school response demonstrates that all too clearly. With regards to the training it's that old chesnut - you can lead a horse to water but...........................

I think the test question to that Boch is whether Ofsted would/should 'fail' a school on evidence of institutional racism.

Which I believe strongly they should. But do they?

It is all so tricky knowing where to go from here - we obviously don't want a begrudging 'apology' to be the end of it.

First issue as I explained above is that DS only has 'visitor' status at the School. We had asked that the tribunal make the School put him on the roll if they found in our favour, but they told us at the hearing it was an 'admissions' issue and not in theur jurisdiction. I hope they are right! Our claim was put in March 2012 and the tribunal could have told us months earlier that we were asking for a remedy they couldn't grant. And they had ample opportunity to tell us because we fought for several months to get our claim reinstated after it was thrown out by the first judge at case management on a different ground - three different judges had the papers before it got to the hearing.

Second issue is that I've had no legal advice. IPSEA couldn't take on the case, I wasn't eligible for help from various law centres and the NAS Education Rights service doesn't 'do' disability discrimination. I now need advice because we are considering appealing against the 4 out of 5 claims we didn't win. Can I do this without affecting the 1 claim that was decided in our favour? (Wouldn't risk that being reversed). I just rang the tribunal - the clerk's answer wasn't convincing and she didn't know where I could look up the info.

From what I've read it sounds as if the finding of disability discrimination should be taken regard of by OFSTED when making an inspection - but I don't know if in itself it will trigger an inspection. And are they notified automatically? The School is 'Outstanding' and from what I understand will not be routinely inspected. This is a super selective grammar in the 'top ten' of state schools.

If you search for inappropriatelytrained, she might be able to give you some pointers.

She's left MN for a bit but I don't think she is any less angry or committed to righting these kinds of wrongs.

If you PM her she'll get an email that someone has tried to contact her.