DS Skipping Lessons!

[FrancisMadley12]

My 17 year old DS has been skipping some of his AS English lessons! I got a phone call off school asking where he was! I told them he has gone to school ect but when I texted him he told me he was in English!!! What should I do? I had a look at his attendance and he has missed a few English lessons nearly 3 times a month on a Thursday! Should I talk to him?

I'd speak to him when he gets home. Partly because I don't think it's a good idea to miss classes, but also because I wouldn't be happy that he was lying to me about where he was.

But I think it's best to be calm, to start with at least, and give him a chance to explain what he's been doing and why.

He may just hate that lesson/teacher and be 'hanging out' somewhere perfectly innocently. In which case I guess it's a discussion about whether he needs that qualification and whether the school would consider a change.

But if he's messing around more generally, or doing something daft, then you get a lot less calm!

I asked him and he was straight with me. He said that he hates English and that he should not have picked it. I asked him where he had been going and he said doing extra Chemistry!!! I was shocked but happy. He said that the school would not let him drop it even in October so he is stuck with it till his exams are over! Do I let him skip lesson or make him go?

speak to the school together with your DS and all come up with a plan that suits DS and school. My ds school was able to arrange things rather than have him skive off, although it stated with him on constant monitoring as his attendance had got so bad, because I hadnt spotted that he was diverting to a friends house instead of going to school.

you make him sort it out and change things properly, rather than just ignoring them and hope they'll go away. Speak to the school with him.

at least he has stopped lying now.

Glad to hear it's just this one specific thing. I'd say the next step is to arrange a meeting with the school to see what the options are.

If they wouldn't let him drop the class back in October, then I'm not sure they'll be terribly helpful now either, but they may have been taking the view that he needed to give it longer and he'd 'probably be fine' once he settled into it.

It may also be that they require each pupil to take x subjects, or y 'points' worked out in some other way so that they all have a certain number of contact hours.

But they might let him swap, or sit at the back of the class working on his chemistry, or spend the time someplace else.

I think it would be a bad idea to just let him skip the class, as the school will notice and pull him up on it before long, and it looks much better if you/he have been proactive in finding an acceptable solution, not just ignoring it.

I phoned the director of sixth form and she said that he has to attend all his English lessons. She went on to say that he is going to have to stay behind all next week to catch up on work that he has missed! Even though he has photocopied the work from his friends in the class. I am really unhappy about this and I am thinking of making a complaint!

Well, the thing is what exactly are you going to complain about? That he is being punished for skipping class? Schools do have to take that seriously.

Just getting a photocopy of someone else's work isn't the same as actually catching up with doing it, going through it, understanding it, asking and answering questions on it.

He may not want to do that class, he may hate it, but he did pick it, and that does mean he ought to carry on and work at it properly. If he has been skipping 3 out of 4 classes for it since the start of the year, there will be a lot of catching up to do.

In fairness, I think the school should have pulled him up on it sharply the first time it happened, and nipped it in the bud. But he is old enough to have to realise that actions have consequences, and dealing with a subject you hate by just not going isn't an acceptable solution - if I just decided not to go to meetings I hate, I'd be pulled up and told to sort my ideas out.

Oh no! I do understand how he must be feeling - I had the exact opposite problem of hating the Chemistry Alevel that I had chosen and wishing I had chosen English instead. I didn't do anything about it though and just flunked the Chemistry.
What a shame he didn't come to you in October so you could try to get his courses changed.

Is he taking AS level exams soon? Will he be able to drop it after them?