Can school exclude sn child from trips in general?

[user1476527701]

Ds being assessed for asd. It is school that are pushing this rather than us. Last meeting I had with new teacher she mentioned in passing that she wouldn't be prepared to take ds on school trips in case he ran away. Is this ok? And if he isn't allowed to go can I keep him off school? We have never had a prob with him running away from us but all his probs are still school and he has run down field couple of times this year, I've not got to bottom of this yet

Personally I don't think it is reasonable but unsure of the legalities.

It is difficult in that period when you are expecting a diagnosis but not got one. My ds's were banned from a lot of trips in this interim period. School were helping us at the time to get a support for the ds's so we didn't make too much of a fuss but we made it clear that it was not a reasonable long-term option for them to be banned from every trip.

School should be doing a risk assessment for the trip and then working out what reasonable adjustments they can make to allow him to take part with his peers. This might be additional adult support for instance.

And yes we were allowed to "educate off-site" when there was a school trip - actually when ds2 couldn't attend a residential due to anxiety they arranged a timetable of alternative activities for him to do to provide as equivalent activities as he could cope with at the time.

No, excluding your child from trips is likely to be discrimination on the grounds of disability and therefore unlawful. it should be easy enough to avoid the risks by arranging 1:1 support.

I agree about emailing and asking. In general reasonable adjustments and support should be made and provided.

But I know of cases where pupils own families don't take them certain places because they won't cope, they only travel 2:1 in car with just child etc and in fact the RA says too dangerous to members of public and parents agree.

So I don't know the legalities of whether they could be tired but I'd definitely question that if he can't attend is it necessary for curriculum and if that trip is how can they give DS a similar experience he can cope with - eg can farm come to school if farm trip.

Spoke to teacher who backed down somewhat maybe she was in a bad mood before. The trip is next year and they said they will keep place open till last minute and make a decision then. They have a smaller trip coming up and teacher said she wasn't sure about him going due to where it is so I offered to go but she said she'll have to check as there are no other parents going

Zzzz would love to do that but unfortunately we have no email access to the teachers, I've asked before

Absolutely a big fat no, they cannot do this unless they do a risk assessment and deem your ds to be too much of a risk to take, no child should be excluded from any part of the curriculum where reasonable adjustments can be made to include them.

Do you think it is likely that you will get a diagnosis? If so then it would be discrimination on the grounds of disability, if he is not a flight or fight risk and there is no other reason why he cannot participate then there is no reason not to take him.

If for example the trip is to the smugglers caves and your ds is petrified of the dark then that could be construed as a risk and therefore reasonable adjustments should be made.

The trip is next year and they said they will keep place open till last minute and make a decision then

Don't accept this. Every other child in the class will presumably know that they are going on the trip, why should your son the only one in limbo and in danger of having the place taken away at the last minute? It would be bad enough for any child, but for a child with ASD it could be catastrophic. It's presumably an educational trip and they will be doing classwork around it, so again why should he be the only one who risks being deprived of the full educational benefit and not knowing what is going on when they do classwork based on the trip?

Lady Constance yes I suppose that is true. Only thing is it's an overnight trip and I'm not 100% happy about him going anyway, I think year 2 6 and 7 years old are too young to stay away, even ones without additional needs. It's only an hour down the road so I have suggested I could perhaps pick him up at night and bring back in the morning but they have said wait and see. I've had to go into the school about quite a few other things lately not sure if I have the energy for starting another argument

It's a pgl trip by the way so they'll be abseiling etc

Totally agree about the harmful effect of delaying the decision. We had similar with respect to a residential for my ds's in year 4 when the HT kept telling them dangling by telling them they could go but only if behaviour improved. It was eventually sorted by dh being asked to accompany them & deal with any meltdowns whilst there. But in the interim period it did cause a lot of uncertainty and anxiety and then, of course, deteriorating behaviour. In fairness to the HT they were having some apocalyptic meltdowns at school at the time and were pre-diagnosis.

My DD with a diagnosis has been on 3 PGL trips, one with Brownies, one on her own, and one with Secondary school. She also went on a similar one with Primary school. Very few issues with any of them, admittedly Brownies and Secondary School did the best at smoothing over issues.
I would definitely get something in writing, and make it clear you are not happy about your child being "excluded" from a normal school activity.

If I had known my DD would be excluded from the year 6 trip it might have been the final push to change her school.

user1476527701 Thu 27-Oct-16 22:51:57
"Spoke to teacher who backed down somewhat maybe she was in a bad mood before. The trip is next year and they said they will keep place open till last minute and make a decision then."

Not good enough. What they are obliged to do is reasonable adjustment. That means evaluating the situation beforehand and thinking up ways of solving the problem. Only if the problem proves impossible to solve after due consideration are they allowed to back out.

Though of course as zzzzz says, you always have the right to decide as a parent that this trip is not appropriate for your ds. But that is your call to make, not theirs.

We had a similar situation one year, when the school called us up the night before the trip to the zoo to tell us dd would not be going because the van they had hired had no wheelchair space. The cowards got a supply teacher to call us, as clearly nobody wanted to deal with my wrath. I blew up. Dd went to the zoo.

Buzz words and a paper trail are the way to go in these situations.

Well i thought the way it had been left last time I spoke to teacher was that ds was allowed to go on the small upcoming trip and I offered to go as well. Now on the newsletter this week was a note referring to letters having gone out and making sure to get deposits in but we've not had a letter. Maybe a mistake but seems abit of a coincidence, am ringing school in morning to see what's happening

PGL are brilliant. Far better than pretty much all school teachers I know for working with children with SEND.

Contact them directly with your concerns. When my son arrived, they took him on a private tour of all the equipment/activities so that anxieties about unknown were reduced, kept their safety and other instructions clear and repeated just for him. Allowed him to choose where he slept and ensured he knew where and how to get help in the night if he needed it.

PLEASE follow zzzzz's advice and email, even just the school office to ensure there is a record of every single one of your communications.

You NEED this evidence trail of the 'story so far' and in a years time you will be so relieved you did it.

They are obliged to make reasonable adjustments. However, if they carry out a risk assessment and it seems clear to them that to take your child would put him or another person on the trip at risk, they would be within their rights to refuse to take him. There is no blanket rule here.

They would only be within their rights to refuse if there are no reasonable adjustments they can possibly make to avoid the risk. In the vast majority of cases having a 1:1 support worker should be more than sufficient, and that is certainly an adjustment which would normally be expected. If there is no way that safety can be guaranteed on the trip, you would have to question how they guarantee safety in school, and whether they are actually able to meet the child's needs.

Serendipity: If there is no funding for 1:1 or if the boy is a regular school absconder, then that reasonable adjustment wouldn't be effective. A residential trip is significantly more risky than the school day so it isn't sensible to say they are not meeting his needs in school if they can't meet them on the trip. As a teacher I would feel perfectly within my rights to say I wasn't prepared to take a 6 year old with a habit of running away on an overnight, SN or not. It's more than my job is worth.

Lack of funding isn't an adequate excuse. The school is entitled to up to £6K a year funding for OP's child which should be more than enough for 1:1s on school trips. If it isn't, they should have applied some time ago for an EHCP with specific funding for that purpose. A properly trained 1:1 should be more than sufficient to deal with a possible absconder.

It could well be more than your job is worth to refuse to take a child on a trip like this. Schools tend not to like have successful disability discrimination claims chalked up against them.