incredibly rude

You are more than welcome - we value the fact we've had support in getting this off our chest also - thank you :)

Thank you for your comments; another disgusting example of the discrimination against people with  Autism. Kind regards.

Be on the look out for stereotyping.... this is something a kid with autism might do, so rather than wait and see if it ever happens we'll pre-empt the possibility and complain it has happened. This arises in racial discrimination as well as disability.

I recall several years ago being in a workshop on graduate employment and talking to one of the participants who was in human resources. She was adamant that she wouldn't allow anyone with autism to be employed where she worked.

I pressed her on why this was her view, and after a while it emerged that, some years before, at a company she worked in, a member of staff thought to be autistic (she couldn't verify it, just it was her impression) had touched another member of staff inappropriately (something which goes on in lots of work environments to this day I suspect, in spite of political correctness, without so much fuss).

But the fact a supposed autistic staff member had done something inappropriate, that was it for her - ALL people with autism were automatically to be excluded from jobs because THEY MIGHT do something inappropriate. She couldn't be dissuaded by reason.

You need to make sure that this isn't down to myths and hypotheses - oh well you know what they say about people with autism, its bound to happen with this kid sooner or later, let's just say for the sake of argument, maybe it is as good as happened. So we'll say a girl has complained......

Get a solicitor to write to the head (or Chairman of Governors) asking for clarification of the inferences made. That might sort out the myth from the reality.

Hi Grubby, thank you for sharing the truly appalling way in which your son was so very unjustly treated. I have only recently joined the forum but am already appalled by the way these 'so-called professionals' are treating our children. Your last paragraph sums up the 'perception' of themselves, and the way they cover up their illegal procedures and bad judgement perfectly! I send you and your family my very best wishes.

Dear Petlover

You are welcome from here, and as intensiveworld remarked, we feel it is something that has to be said.

We've had a decent one, so finish up on this note. 

Our situation was in an academy also and degrading, our child was accused of a dangerous act, a secret non consent interogation was done. His excusion was decided just like that - no parent around or informed of circumstance correctly.

It was a nightmare - they claimed there was a girl witness who had been 'terrified' by it, and our boy was out except for part time provision is an isolated unit.

Over the next few weeks i made various inquiries with the school looking for the truth all which were stone walled.

I swooped in there unexpectedly one day and rushed the deputy principle who made an error. He blurted out a name for this terrified girl witness and i had him confirm it to make sure.

I imagined looking for the parent to try verify this claim at the gates, but when i told my wife the info we were astonished, as wife knew girls mother being they worked together

The next day she asked this mum - and her daughter was not there at all. We went to the school and told them what a fraud it was. 

School response few days later ? - 'switch the witness', it was now a different girl who they definately refused to name this time!.

Well naturally - and they had little hesitation with this 'solution'. The recurring characteristic has seemed to be a disgraceful lack of respect for truth in these bad school cases.

Some people in schools are in love with themselves so much, that our children are the last thing they are concerned about - they did all this just to save face for the bad judgement and illegal procedures they had performed

We have had a jolly good say on this one - thanks for listening Petlover et al, and best of luck.

Thank you so much for your comments and support. It helps to feel that other parents are of the same opinion. The Academy have made me feel as if I am to be blamed for an all out war with them and it's so distressing.

Agreed

Furthermore thanks to social engineering and all manner of silly PC and empowerment nonsense, it is as if we have split into tribes. A pattern seems to be that it is the Principle and management that is the main problem, along with a sprinkling of lower teacher staff.

How does one even attempt to describe such a bad school official tribe, and what is their hunter gatherer reason for getting in the state ?.

Being semi serious, one really does not want to talk ill of the great many fantastic teaching staff that exist away from all this. But still - the bad officials are so widespread that is the problem.

They don't like anyone that challenges the system.  You must comply!  Anyone that challenges the status quo is labelled a vexatious trouble maker.  This is why it's important we all start challenging so they can see the upswelling and change their ways.

You have our sympathy - that is so much like it seems to be by far too often.

We luckiliy came out fine in the end, but the confrontation and the measures the school officials took before this were horrendous and impossible to describe really.

We cannot complain regarding where we are now, but this was not the intention the school had - they gave us mad out of control scenario which we would not take.

Surely the education system cannot sustain behaving like this rationality and logic has got to take place.

Our experience felt like a mine field of strange innapropriate professional behavior - as though it just expected to transfer its weirdness onto the plight of the children and parents - cases they formed were impossibly incorrect and they expected to do it all illegally and in secret.

What is it all about ? - they seem to want parents not to exist whilst whatever procedure they choose occurs !!

I have had exactly the same experience with the Academy that my daughter attends. My daughter has attempted to self harm, yet again, because of the unaddressed bullying she gets. Before her latest attempt to self harm I handed in a letter of complaint to the Principal regarding the bullying. My letter to them was dated 18th March and I still haven't received a reply from them. Agencies have told me that they should have replied under Section 75 of the Education Act. I can empathise with all the above parents with regards to un answered emails. The Academy where my daughter attends have taken exception to my sending emails to the VMG mentor in particular, when I have been concerned over the bullying my daughter has received that day, by two girls in particular. I have responded to that by saying that I have had to send emails because the VMG mentor herself has frightened my daughter by telling her 'don't be telling your Mum about every little thing that happens!' I have discussed this at previous meetings with CAMHS and they have stressed to my daughter, in my presence, that the VMG's comments to her are extremely in appropriate and also said to her that 'they are not little things to you, are they!' The VMG mentor is disputing why my daughter is frightened of her. She cannot comprehend the fact that it is because my daughter is fearful of the VMG mentor 'finding out' that my daughter has 'confided' in me when incidents of bullying occur, which is sometimes on a daily basis.  I, like many of other parents are feeling so frustrated, extremely let down, and have feelings of anger; and I'm sure many other emotions too because of the way we feel our school's are giving little or no support to our children that they so rightly deserve!

It seems like it has been a hornets nest of socially engineered factors, PC factors, the rise of modes in thinking that are artifificial, fast tracking, use of unqualified staff, tribalist attitudes, the abuse of parameter style processes such as minimization & maximization - nearly everything that Isn't Real.

Then when a parent attempts to have a realistic conversation - they do not recognize this alien form of interaction.

Suffice to say, that once my daughter left the school in question, I submitted a complaint.  Of course, they wrote back denying everything (it was about more than just poor communication, it was about failure to support and failure to deal with bullying and ignorance of the law).  So it has now gone to the school governors.  Schools cannot continue to get away with this rubbish.

I can only describe very similar experiences, and when its at it worse it seems unfathomable. We had the same problem with nearly all members of 1 school,and our feeling became that if there really is a failure to engage, then it is simply a lack of professionalism.

An instance we had with a school was universally poor in every single way no matter how we tried to communicate, the culture was balanced on an absurd double bind where they published their close dealings with parents policy, but then could not bear to talk to one.

In person - never got the feeling that anything discussed was being listened to - certainly zero happened later along the lines of such conversation and they seems to remember nothing of talks ever.

Phone - a quite ridiculous distance version of above

Email - made in heaven for people who really are not thinking much along the lines of communication with parents.

It seemed to us that if this happens you are up the creek without a paddle - the school culture has no real provision for such communication due to a mystery obstacle, they want to be doing and thinking of something else, and really do not want to speak to parents.

Something at such a school is inefficient to the degree that their distraction in the end becomes almost militant, and this irrational circumstance is highly frustrating and disturbing.

When we finally confronted a school like this and were determined to get a solution, they retaliated by an innapropriate reaction to an incident in school, and ilegal exclusion, and the tipping off aggresive social worker interest.

Then to cut a long story short, the innapropriate row this caused now costs the LEA over 100K a year for a special school and the social worker concerned has now been delisted by the HCPC.

If there are not logical technical reasons as discussed by another poster, the what going through their minds is difficult to say - since having next to zero communication is not a 'close relationship with parents' !! 

In our case, the teacher's email addresses were ones that we had been given and we weren't sending attachments or photos.  I found that when I rang the school and left messages instead, they never returned calls.  The staff I emailed were also key named staff that we were meant to be contacting.  Even the emails they did respond to, they never dealt with the issues as they should have.  My daughter had difficulty speaking up at school, and when she did, they brushed her off.  I had to become her voice, they wouldn't accept this, even with it being very obvious that there is no way I would have known the details I knew if it didn't come from my daughter (e.g. ref bullying) and they even told her, "we don't want emails from your mum, we want to hear it from you", so not only did they refuse to accept as an autistic child she needed help with her communication, but when she did go to them directly (with encouragement and persistence from me) they laughed at her when she told them how desperate she felt.

I can respond to this in a university context, with a less clear idea of schools.

In schools teachers may be "hot-desking" a computer - that is sharing with other staff. It depends whether the treacher is a head of division, in which case they may have their own office and computer, or is junior and using common rooms. They may have their own laptop.

It may not be that easy for them to work in this way. Many pupils and students expect to communicate by email. Depending on access and numbers of emails received, and how much time they have to do this, with teaching and marking committments, it may not be that easy to respond to all emails, and emails may also be lost, go to spam etc.

If the school has a pupil emailing system that works from class lists, I know from trying to use them at university level, things don't always go to plan. So a pupil might get an email from a teacher, but replies may not go quite where expected.

Students certainly often have funny email addresses. They also put on attachments, or links to photos of themselves or something they want to share. You can have no idea what this does to staff email systems - where the school authorities are trying to filter out rubbish. Some systems eliminate anything with a nationality as racist eg a surname like Irish or Scott, and see adversity in almost anything.

As a lecturer I tried very hard to follow email dialogues and to be helpful in responses, but the email addresses, and add-ons that screwed up my computer, and attachments my computer wont let me open, meant it was hard work. Students are supposed to use an allocated email and if they want to use something more personal they are supposed to link it to their allocated email - doesn't always work. Sometimes I was searching for ages workable alternative email addresses for ones I couldn't otherwise reply to.

Find out perhaps by asking delicately, if email is not a good idea. You'd be amazed how many teachers don't like email

It has been the bane of my life.  In my eldest's last school they regularly ignored emails, they claimed they were too long, but it was an excuse.  Whilst I may be (when needed) verbose, my emails are always explicitly clear about what the problem is and what is needed.  They are just too lazy to read them, and in some cases sad to say, too thick to understand as they are useless as teachers and are intimidated by someone who displays a bit of intelligence and checked their facts.  So they go on the offensive and as you say, band together to paint you as vexatious or difficult.

Ultimately, that school was so poor and my daughter so traumatised I had to move her.  However, I raised a complaint once she left, which unfortunately has to go through the head first before you can progress it to the governors.  The head was so contemptuous of the importance of the complaint he delegated it to another member of staff.  That member of staff wanted a meeting, but refused to make a reasonable adjustment for me by holding it outside of the school and we tried to be as flexible as possible.  They have left me hanging without any indication of what has happened with the complaint.

If you can, complain to the governors, if they don't see it as an official complaint the school will fob you off.