Have posted about our current crisis on Chat and Secondary Education. Things have moved on since yesterday.
My dd in year 10, who left primary with level fives in all her SATS, and a stack of reports describing her as 'a joy to teach' and 'a lovely person to have in class', is now facing permanent exclusion and a move to a pupil referral unit in January if she doesn't stop arguing with teachers and walking out of lessons. The school is being great - they are doing all they can to address her behaviour, and we are supporting them every inch of the way. She has 12 weeks to turn her behaviour around, according to the school, and they are monitoring her every step of the way.
The problem is that dd seems to live on a planet - planet teenager - where she is involved in her own odd little drama that none of us can understand, and there are no consequences for failing exams or leaving school with a terrible report from your teachers. I've got a horrible feeling she quite likes the idea of going to a pupil referral unit, where she'll be mixing with a peer group which will consist primarily of disruptive boys from very disadvantaged backgrounds, children in care, and children with special needs who can't cope in mainstream. She comes from an educated middle class family, has no learning difficulties and according to CAMHS, who we were referred to last year, no diagnosis of any mental or developmental disorder. She is just a very, very difficult teenager who is giving everyone the run about, despite loads of support from home.
The only things she has ever said she wants to do is work with children, in childcare, or get into social work. I was thinking this morning about how I'd feel about employing someone to look after my children straight from school (because at the rate she's going university will be out of the question) who had attended a pupil referral unit. Also, if I was a nursery manager how I'd feel about a job applicant with this on their record.
I'm wondering what the general view is - it'd help me know whether saying 'this move might make it impossible for you to have a good career in the fields in which you're interested in' would be a reasonable thing to present to her to persuade her to rethink her choices over the next few weeks.
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Teenagers
My dd may end up in a pupil referral unit - would you employ her when she leaves?
Minifingers · 25/09/2013 09:40
CupOCoffee 
My brother still lives with my dad. He's a recluse with mental health issues. My dad provides the money for his drug habit, his cigarettes, internet access plus all his food, roof over his head etc and tiptoes round all the time so as not to annoy him (cause then he can get violent). Everything of value is locked up and my dad spends a lot of time reclaiming stuff from the pawn shop. It's like watching someone live with a bad tempered and unpredictable God that must be placated.
My bro is 40 next year. I left home when I was 18, my mum left 15 years later - he'd broken her. My dad will not give up and will not even admit to half the problems (drug habit, what drug habit? And this was aftyer he was in intensive care for 5 days after ODing).
As for me, I adore my kids. But no-one shares my house who cannot conform to the basic norms of social behaviour. I will not be in fear here, nor will anyone else living under my roof. But it's much easier perversely for me to say this and mean it because I have experienced the opposite and I don't feel that all the forgiveness and enabling understanding my parents showed my brother actually helped him in the long run.
OP, the above is very much a worst case scenario. I'm not saying this is what's going to happen with your dd. But please decide what lines cannot be crossed ie violence.
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She needn't mention the PRU on her CV as she will almost certainly remain enrolled at her current mainstream school i.e. dual rolled with that and the PRU. PRUs are only design ed to be short term measures with the expectation that she would return to her current mainstream school.
I doubt she would have the opportunity to gain the GCSEs she requires if she went to a PRU. I don't think some of you quite understand what a PRU is like.
They accommodate the really difficult cases. This ehw think that PRUs contain child recovering from illness and thise with SENs are confusing PRUs will small secure and safe unit that are centrally funded by the LA for children who are temporarily too unwell to attend mainstream. PRUs accommodate those children whose behaviou is such that they can no longer be taught in mainstream.
So, she's unlikely to see many positive role models amongst her classmates. She will be lucky if she's able to study as the lessons can be totally disrupted by those with severe behaviouirial problems and who are non-compliant.
My son was in a unit for vulnerable children which was (quite incredibly) attached to a PRU. The Police were called out regularly to the PRU. Some of the PRU children had very challenging behaviour and there was nothing that their teachers could do to control them. On one occasion my DS's class was disrupted by a PRU pupil throwong stones at his classroom window, after which the boy came into the classroom and threatened my son's tecaher. Police were called.
So they don't sit in rows at a PRU discussing the finer details of poems for English Literature GCSE 
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"Op, are you the same poster I've seen post in a very draconian way on the FF v BF threads?"
What do you mean by 'draconian'?
I am strongly supportive of breastfeeding being seen as important for babies and have argued the case at length on threads here in response to posts insisting that breastfeeding makes no real difference to babies.
TBH - you trying to make a link between me being a breastfeeding advocate and my parenting skills is..... horrible.
"Are you very authoritarian?"
What - like I force them to do things? Like, as a breastfeeding advocate I believe in forcing women to breastfeed? Just fuck off. Seriously. Fuck off.
"There has to be something at the root of your DD's extreme need to assert her independence and not be 'made' to do things"
Yes - it must be the fault of my parenting skills and my enthusiasm for breastfeeding.
Shame on you.
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