School pastoral team

[ThousandsAreSailing]

I've posted and deleted several times now as I couldn't decide where this should go
Complex but I'll try to be brief
DD, 14, goes to a SN school. Complex neuro disorder, school with a range of disorders but no LD
On the whole an excellent school particularly compared to the nightmare mainstreams we had but some issues over the time she has been there
The pastoral and safeguarding team are all male. When she first started at the school she got friendly with a boy and they exchanged explicit photographs. I met with safeguarding lead and we went through the messages. Part of DDs disorder is that she is emotionally younger than her years, the boy was almost 2 years older. How the safeguarding lead read the messages was very different to my interpretation and he very much had her down as the instigator
It was sorted to my satisfaction
Since then there have been a couple of similar incidents, not including photographs thank goodness
I feel they have a very male interpretation of behaviour. For example : she went out with a different boy not long ago. I don't think she was really interested and quickly finished it. He got very nasty and threatened to strangle her, said all the school staff hated her and he was going to set a gang onto her.
Her key pastoral worker didn't really believe me but stressed how heartbroken the lad was. I had to get screen shots for her to be believed
In our last team around the child meeting, on teams just before school broke up, the safeguarding lead described her as manipulative. And now she has been contacted by a friend (boy) who said the school have warned his parents about her and he isn't allowed to contact her
All the individual stuff I will sort but I have a questionnaire to fill in about the school and I want to bring up the all male pastoral care. I'm not sure what approach to use
Sorry if this isn't really a feminist issue

Don't make it a male / female issue make it a very loud lack of thinking issue. They have shown bias and have probably broken your DDs right to privacy and confidentiality.

Can you go above the schools lead, to the LHA?

Your DD could well be manipulative, but that's no reason to just label her, tell everyone she is a danger and then ostracise her! They are supposed to be there to safeguard everyone, including her! FFS!

She is considered vulnerable so we have SS involved and CAMHS, in the very limited way CAMHS work now, and I have raised it with SS. I've contacted school and asked for someone from pastoral to contact me in the holidays. I don't want her stewing on this for 6 weeks
I do think there is a problem that its all men though. They seem to be painting her as a kind of scarlet woman who the, older, boys need protecting from

Oh, I wasn't suggesting it wasn't a man thing, just that it is also bigger than that, in safeguarding terms.

From what you said it does seem she is being scapegoated but I think you'd get a more ready response if you pointed out how marginalised she has been due to a lack of basic safeguearding, that their errors have led to her being further ostracised... and yes, refer to their assumption about her, their position of telling others, warning them, as errors of judgement. They are not doing their job as far as she is concerned. She is a vulnerable child, they should be looking for ways to support her find her way, imrove her social skills, not labelling her and increasing her isolation.

And that's before you get to them having broken her right to privacy by naming her to other parents!

I hope you see what I mean. That they are men might be a sticking point, but that they are breaking a number of safeguarding basics cannot be!

There should be a diverse safeguarding team for a number of reasons - though women and girls can be labelled in these instances by anyone. It’s very unusual in any sector of education to have male dominated pastoral teams anyway. We actively recruit men into our team if we get too female heavy.

Hope you get it sorted.

CuriousaboutSamphire
I get what you mean and if they don't change their thinking I will be looking for a different school. Tbf on them they do take my comments on board. SN schools are very hard to find and I don't live in a very accessible area but I will sort it or move her
I guess it's 2 different issues. I'm sorting out her stuff but I also have an anonymous questionnaire to fill in. On the questionnaire I would like to bring up the all male team but in the right way IYSWIM

Unless you're really sure that she has been behaving in a manipulative way, I'd also suggest trying to remove that particular label from her records as it could distort how they view any future events unfavourably. Good luck with it all.

It is unusual and I was surprised. SN schools tend to be very boy heavy but I still expected more women on the team

Can you just say that you'd feel more comfortable if the safeguarding team was more diverse wrt female representation?
Simple and not unreasonable - and might get them thinking enough to actually change things.

Even in a mixed team op it’s not about the sex of the staff it’s about how they model and do sex stereotypes.
It would appear that this team, in your opinion have a bias towards males as the victims.
Many professionals display an unconscious bias, it’s why in Swedish ‘gender neutral’ schools that the staff video themselves and then critique it later to unpack their responses to the children and how they handle situations.
If you feel that some of the staff are open then perhaps you could suggest more reflective practice.
How many staff members are on the pastoral team? Is the head male or female? How many children in the school?
Do you know what training and qualifications the pastoral team have or receive?

It's not run like a traditional mainstream. The head is a woman but is actually a manager not a head. I've only met her once when I went to look round. The DH, male, runs the school. There are only 60 pupils and it goes from age 7 to 18. Some are resident there and some live in the schools children's homes. The rest are day pupils

Is the fact the pastoral team are male because of a high level of violence displayed by some pupils at the school? If this is the case then I would be very concerned op.

I agree, a woman wouldn't necessarily be better, they just seem to have a very male view of her behaviour
Like when we were reading the messages she was saying stuff like 'I think you like Alice(not a real name) don't you. Alice is lovely' I found it sad and could see she was trying to find out if this boy liked her without saying she liked him but the bloke just read it that she was dominant and deciding what happened. Does that make sense? I can't remember the whole conversation but I could see what she was doing
She is very anxious, scared of everything and I see her trying to find a way to fit in. She doesn't have friends so it's heartbreaking to see potential friendships being scuppered by school

There are only between 4 and 6 pupils in each class. There is security on site too. Teaching staff try not to be involved in any restraint
I looked at some terrible schools. This one is largely calm

And now she has been contacted by a friend (boy) who said the school have warned his parents about her and he isn't allowed to contact her

I'm no expert but this strikes me as being totally unreasonable, and detrimental to your DDs progress and development of friendships in school, unless it's something that school have discussed with (and even better been approved by) you. Do you believe this boy? Can you gently ask his parents if they were contacted? If the school have done this, I'd have thought a complaint would be entirely justified. And dealing with the complaint might also force them to deal with your DD in a more supportive way.