What help does your mentally ill 6th former receive from school?

[BridgesofMadisonfan]

As the total says, trying to avoid my child leaving school due to very poor mental health (suicide attempts).

What support should we expect from school?

I'm a teacher. We'd give daily check in with pastoral staff, time out pass for lessons and flexibility with deadlines. We also would consider requests for things individual students may need. For example a group move, or drop a subject.

We support but cannot fix mental health problems.

School promises things but then don't carry it out. how do we approach that?

It's a selective school so think they would rather she just left.

@Hercisback I really appreciate you replying.

Would she benefit from taking time out until the end of academic year with illness and then starting somewhere afresh in September?

Maybe the selective school is currently too much pressure.

My ds has had MH problems in the past and I should have removed him because we went through a school promising stuff and never delivering (state academy) and it actually caused more damage.

Education is a marathon not a sprint. Your MH has to come first.

I think you have two threads on this. That’s what I was going to say, maybe 6th form at a selective school isn’t the best place as I imagine there’s a lot of pressure. Some students find vocational courses or apprenticeships suit them better, or they take a year out and work for a bit until they are in a better headspace.

Thank you for your reply.

No where else offers a levels so it feels very all or nothing.

Are there no local state schools offering A levels?

I think realistically you are limited by what you can force them to do. In an ideal world you could raise complaints and possibly go to governors. However it's not far off the end of the year and you'd be better putting energy into a plan for next year. If the plan is to stay, then follow the complaints procedure.

I meant help to access her education. NOT help with her mental health.

What do you want them to do to help her access education?

MH problems aren't all the same so different students require different provision. That has to be student led. For eg some students appreciate 1:1 lessons (if staff are able) whereas others wouldn't cope in that environment.

What do you expect them to do? What have they offered and not providing? Do you think ALevels are the most appropriate choice for a mentally ill teen? They have very intense.

She's allowed to go home in her extra periods and rest breaks in her exams (which frequently gets cocked up). There's one pastoral support who is swamped and it's difficult to get an appointment with her. Pastoral was good in the lower years, but in sixth form there's very much an attitude of you don't need to be here. Some individual teachers are kind and do try, but others are awful. It's very difficult to speak to anyone at school, they communicate by email.
They seem to do so much that exacerbates the stress for them, lots of petty rules and pressure that is needless, a lot of DD's stress stems from school. The local college which is a far better environment doesn't do A levels.

This is exactly our experience except the support was no better before 6th form.

I think you've had a name change fail.

Is there only one college?

A selective environment will have rules to keep the academic standards high. Whilst you may think they are petty, you signed up for it. There should be some flexibility and reasonable adjustments but schools can't over turn rules all the time because otherwise every student expects that to happen for them. Without knowing the specific context of the rules I appreciate this comment might be insensitive.

You still haven't really said what you actually want from the school.

We are enrolling our daughter in Kingsinter high. She has panic disorder and right now I think it's the best plan for her A levels.

If they're suicidal is there health or family service involvement? All services should be working together to support your child. This can be a way of holding any one of them (eg school) to account.

It's switched me back to an old user name. I haven't name changed. Thank you though.

Not that I necessarily think moving will be helpful but are you sure nowhere other than 1 selective school offers A levels? Where do students go who are able enough to do A levels but don’t have high enough GCSE results for a grammar school?