DD school refused this morning. First she refused to give DS1 back his iPod that he had kindly lent to her yesterday because hers is broken.
I insisted she give it back. She then decided
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CouthyMow · 23/01/2014 11:03
OP posts:
wol1968 ·
04/03/2014 22:59
I'm wondering if you (and a few others) should go to the national press with this actually...they've managed to kick up a massive stink over inadequate hospitals, why not inadequate Social Services?
No help at all, I know. 
CouthyMow ·
04/03/2014 23:54
Wol, the fact is, I don't have the goddamned energy for that. And also, having younger DC's, one just 3yo, with 15 years to go until he is officially an adult, I daren't risk provoking SS.
When he is 18, though, by fuckery will I not only print how SS have failed my family SINCE I was an adult, but also how they fucking failed me as a child too.
I knew as a Child that SS don't give a crap about anything except their budget, but for some reason, as an adult, I had the misguided impression that this would have changed (though fuck knows why I have such optimism and hope, given that I have on-off experience of their uselessness, with never more than a 2-3 year gap at a time, stretching back as far as I can remember, so back to 1985-ish.
It never changes, never will. Bottom line is everything.
(Found my cynical, less optimistic side today...) 
On a more amusing note, my Ex asked me why I hadn't taught DD that ice cream vans don't usually have flashing lights on top, and normally play "Just one Cornetto" rather than a siren... 
I found it funny, anyway!
OP posts:
CouthyMow ·
04/03/2014 23:55
We've placed bets that the next thing she shoplifts will be a flake to stick in last night's purloined non-purchase. 
OP posts:
CouthyMow ·
05/03/2014 10:58
She's gone to school this morning. For now . Until she pisses off the male teacher in the IER (internal exclusion room).
I've also found out that when she got excluded the first time, for apparently swearing at this teacher in the IER, she DIDN'T swear at him - she calmly told him that she found him annoying, and he took offence to that?! Maybe she DID find him annoying? (Though she should have bleeding THOUGHT it rather than said it, but she has no filter for that!!)
She DID swear at the deputy HT though, the second time she got excluded. But the woman IS...I can't think of a word to describe her, but she speaks in 'corporate-speak', and thinks that crying because you are upset is 'aggressive', so I can see why DD has a problem with her I do too, I think she's horrible, but I know better than to say that or swear at her...
Tbh, I have my serious suspicions about all these exclusions so close to the exams.
Originally, in Y9, I had to fight HARD to get DD to be ALLOWED to do traditional GCSE's, as it was her only route into Catering at College, as the school offered NO vocational qualifications in anything that would get DD into College to do Catering (mechanics, hair and beauty and Childcare only). DD only NEEDS D-G grades to get on the course, and I knew she was capable of at least E-G's in everything.
Now, since September, the school has become an Academy. DD's year group will produce the FIRST league table results for the school as an Academy...
DD will not achieve a C grade or above in ANY subject. But she doesn't NEED to.
HOWEVER...the SCHOOL needs as many pupils as possible that are doing traditional GCSE's to get A* - C grades, for their league table results.
As DD won't achieve this, what better way to prevent DD's D-G results from appearing on their league tables than to keep excluding her until the end of the school year, so that she isn't eligible to sit in the exam hall and take the exams, because then she isn't counted in their oh-so-important league table results as not getting ANY A* - C grades...
And as NONE of their exclusions top 5 days, I will have no comeback even WITH a letter to the Board of Governors (which I have written already because the minute they exclude her again, it will be over 5 days, taken advice in what I CAN do...), the Board of Governors get FIFTY days to respond. By which point, the school year will be finished. Which is why they are doing this to DD now.
There are other pupils who act out far worse than DD that DON'T get excluded or put in IER for far worse than DD is currently getting excluded / internally excluded for...but they are doing vocational qualifications so it doesn't affect their league table results so badly.
And that, my friends, is the harsh reality of having a DC with SEN / SN's in a mainstream school that becomes an Academy just as your DC goes into Y11...
OP posts:
CouthyMow ·
05/03/2014 11:07
Oh, and the school are putting pressure on DD to resit her Science, which she has got a low D in (which is a MASSIVE achievement for her!) because they want her to try for a C that even her TEACHER says she absolutely CANNOT achieve.
And the same with her Maths, though DD DOES have a slim chance of improving her G grade to an F, there isn't a snowball's chance in Hell of her getting a C grade...
The resits AREN'T for DD's benefit - she isn't going to get a better grade in Science, she will just get a Higher D than the one she scraped before. But it will still be a D grade.
They are purely for the school and their league table results. SCREW THEIR FUCKING LEAGUE TABLES!!!
DD doesn't need the added stress and pressure, and I feel the school are setting her up to fail simply because of their league table results.
I originally asked if DD could sit Maths, English, RE (compulsory), Science, IT (compulsory), and Catering, and be in the learning support zone for her other timetable slots to work on those, but the school wouldn't do that.
DD only NEEDS 5 D-G grades to get into College. The school are putting so much pressure in her to achieve the unattainable, that she is cracking under the pressure, and feels like a complete failure.
It's got to the point where she says the reason she's refusing to do ANY work at school is because she can't understand half of what the school are MAKING her do, they are making her redo and redo and redo work that she can't get any better at, she's sick of the school telling her that because she isn't getting C grades that she is failing, and that nobody will give her a job if she can't get C grades, and what's the pout. In bothering at all if 'anything below a C grade is worthless' according to the school...
Again,
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CouthyMow ·
06/03/2014 07:55
OMG!! DD has got a provisional place on her College course provided she starts going to school and doing her work between now and Her study leave!!!
OP posts:
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flow4 ·
07/03/2014 23:40
Hope DD has a happy birthday, Couthy. And congratulations to you too in surviving 16 years of motherhood! May there be a turning point just over the horizon!
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