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Troublesome "Teenager"

Not at all. But I don't have to wear a stab vest 24/7 or get sexual thrills micturating on the homeless. Or indeed follow posters around a declining website posting shite. You can't bully anonymous people in cyberspace. Any fool knows that.

'Kill urself'

Who wears a stab vest? Go on theres a few photos of me working you won't find a Stab vest...
The tramp pissing arrse meme was started in chat by sluggy as a joke... you know like your BMi.
And as to bullying in cyberspace...well all I have to do is refer to your thread on Sebastian and you bite like a spastic shark.

Hows the ignore function working for you? Oh that's right ...you lie.
 
Are you serious?

'Just one point - I've had 6 kids go through school and I was always advocate of and for them. I always defended them, even when they were wrong. '

You know that your children have - what? - lied, cheated, bullied, stolen? And yet you defend them, all the while knowing that they have broken the rules.

Yet you have the bare-faced gall to accuse the school staff:

'. . . Schools always try and get parents/responsible adults to agree with their view and gang up against the kid, I've seen this dozens of times. Equally they lie and make shit up and have no sense of humour. '
Thanks, I see what you're getting at now.

Dunno about lying, I'll assume they'll have done so but cheated, bullied and stolen? No.

When I was called to the school for misbehaviour, I didn't refuse to acknowledge any such behaviour but sought a solution going forward and tried to mitigate concerning punishment. I didn't automatically assume the school point of view was right and go against my child but stood on their behalf, much more able to handle discourse with an adult.

Reasons for this was to show that regardless, family was more important than anything. That they could always look to me for support, even when they were wrong and thus there was no need to lie to me ( though they probably still did). Probably other reasons as well but I can't think of any now.

Most of the teachers who I've had dealings with have lied to me at some point or another, even the ones I considered the best teachers I'd met. Some have been incompetent, some have been vindictive, one headmaster was an out and out bully.

I've seen a group of parents apologise to a family of wrongdoers in a session of 'restorative justice'. I had no problem in being the only one to tell them they could **** off.

I can't bring many examples of which I speak due to no memory but there were indeed many.

I hadn't any advice initially to give about your situation but now, the one bit I would give about being a godparent is not to be one of the adults who's against him but be on his side no matter what he's done and look for solutions. It seems we may disagree about this point. I'll not criticise your stance, merely state that my way is different.

My kids all seem to have turned out ok, all working, two who've served, all law-abiding. They do remember that I always stood up for them, regardless.
 
Who wears a stab vest? Go on theres a few photos of me working you won't find a Stab vest...
The tramp pissing arrse meme was started in chat by sluggy as a joke... you know like your BMi.
And as to bullying in cyberspace...well all I have to do is refer to your thread on Sebastian and you bite like a spastic shark.

Hows the ignore function working for you? Oh that's right ...you lie.
Yeah, I lied. To you. So fucking what?

You pathetic mall cop
 
From my experience...most instances of me at school age "acting a dick" in any way or form all boiled down to one thing...

Trying to be in with the "cool crowd" and impressing girls.

My final years at high school were the peak of the 'Madchester scene' Happy Mondays etc.
Invariably - we all tried to make out we were well aux-faix with drugs and grew silly curtain hairstyles. Some mongs even affected Mancunian accents!
Acid house parties and Indy music were the 'Scene' then. Nowadays nicking scooters and posing with "gangsta" hand gestures appears to be the thing.

I'm fecking dreading it for when my kids when they get to high school.

I'm led to believe that people from WARRINGTON...like @BugsyIV used to practice received pronunciation as a form of rebellion to the masses jumping on the bandwagon - much akin to the British upperclasses anglicising many things in years gone by when the middle classes got uppity and started trying to speak french.
 
I will take a few points on here in a semi-sensible way

Lots of useful posts on here. I would add a couple of bits that are going to encourage a torrent of mong buttons but anyway:
Don't believe everything your godson says as fact. Children, by their nature, find it very difficult to be impartial and will give what they think is an honest account of events. I have been involved with a few issues where the member of staff has given a factual statement and the parents believe the child's version totally. When the statements are then compared the parents complain that their child is being called a liar.

Definitely ask him what happened and how it escalated without leading questions. Just bear in mind if he was angry/upset then chances are he will put a negative slant on other people's intentions and behaviours and probably won't remember small details or polite instructions before it all kicked off.

BUT... you will know your own kids and frankly, teachers lie too when it comes to covering their arrses. If the teacher says your kid did something, demand the evidence (and not just what they write on SkyBlue/Go4Schools). Speak to the parents of the other kids in the class that you know and get their kids accounts and challenge the school. If there's CCTV footage, demand to see it. If there were written reports taken, demand to see them (use your rights under S15 of the DPA and submit a Data Subject Access Request - and when the school tells you that they won't release your child's data to you, get your kid to sign the DSAR, it's BS anyway and just a school stonewall tactic).

There is either a lot more to it than that or the school are trying to crack a behaviour problem with draconian policies. My money is on the former (see point above). I cannot think of any situation where an argument about leaving the classroom warrants a fixed term exclusion.

OR... because schools are an unregulated wasteland where HT can behave like feudal Lords, the teacher(s) involved may just be taking their frustrations out on the kids in their classroom.

Case in point: no1 daughter's form tutor is a total life inadequate. She constantly complains about his petty behaviour and the way he treats the kids in the form on one of his (her words) "bad days". He tried putting the whole class on detention because a boy from another form came into the form room before the bell, and managed to break a door handle. Everyone in the room saw this lad break the door handle but he ranted at the whole form that unless one of them owned up they would all be in trouble - problem is he and everyone else knew no-one in the form room was at fault for this. The whole thing escalated last week, the school tried backing the teacher and the kid (from the other form) who broke the handle by hanging his sports bag off it owned up, and told the Head of House that he had owned up before the form teacher went into his weapons grade rant. The whole thing was quietly "forgotten about".

If the leadership and engagement in the school were good, draconian measures shouldn't be necessary because it punishes the innocent and the guilty don't care., so never accept that as an excuse.

OFSTED have a questionnaire you can fill in about the school, and once done, you can raise a complaint with them directly as long as you have raised it with the school to begin with. They usually state that you should only raise the complaint with them if the school has not adequately dealt with the problem - but take it as read they will close ranks and do the square root of FA. Also, you need to frame the complaint in terms of the running of the school, nit just your individual case. This will then be brought up as and when the inspectors come round.

That does sound like incredibly poor leadership. Just from a legal standpoint to temporarily exclude a child without notice is probably not allowed (you'd have to double check in the Education Act for the details).

I would ask the school to clarify exactly what the punishment was (detention/ internal isolation / fixed term exclusion), what the reason for that was and how it fits in their behaviour policy (they have to have one and make it publicly available).

don't expect them to be balanced or objective, and that's assuming they don't just stonewall you.


Despite some other posters on here, I wouldn't go in smashing down the Head's door and demanding answers. Phrasing your concerns politely is much more likely to get results.

ABSOLU-FUKCING-LUTELY do go in hard and prepard to smash in the doors.

It's been said elsewhere, Headteachers are life's last remaining feudal Lords, and fukc they behave like it. The only people they answer to are the Governors who generally tend to be useless. Most are retired/semi-retired do-gooders or the only parents who are prepared to spend the time going to meetings where they never get told anything really useful anyway. They are told that they are there just to be "the critical friend", with the expectation that they are fully behind whatever the HT is doing, most of which they will never ever see anyway.

The school will have a complaints procedure. the second stage is a hearing/meeting following an "investigation" which will often be given to the most incompetent of governors to do, so expect the intellectual vigour of a housebrick where all the pertinent questions are missed or misunderstood. the panel will then consist of 2 Governors (sorry "critical FRIENDS) and an "independent" member - usually an HT from another school who is part of "the club". Your complaint will be dismissed and any evidence you do have to support your argument will be deemed inconvenient "unusuable". Expect the following excuses to be trotted out - we can't talk about that because of confidentiality, we can't accept any arguments that appear to be legal arguments (like the Data Protect Act/GDPR doesn't apply so you CAN give me the CCTV footage that shows little Johnny DID't do what he was accused of and you CAN give me the statements from the other kids saying the teacher just picked on him and here's the specific wording of the regs that state it).

They will tell you that you can't be legally represented, but they will take legal advice before a hearing. Make sure you do the same (your house insurance will probably come with limited legal protection you can use).

You HAVE to be prepared to fight, and you have to remember the HT is on their own side. Remember - you pay your taxes and each child is per capita funded so in effect your taxes pay for your child's place, therefore they are the service provider, you are the client, and THEY are bought and fuking paid for! You have to keep that mentality or they win.
 
I will take a few points on here in a semi-sensible way



BUT... you will know your own kids and frankly, teachers lie too when it comes to covering their arrses. If the teacher says your kid did something, demand the evidence (and not just what they write on SkyBlue/Go4Schools). Speak to the parents of the other kids in the class that you know and get their kids accounts and challenge the school. If there's CCTV footage, demand to see it. If there were written reports taken, demand to see them (use your rights under S15 of the DPA and submit a Data Subject Access Request - and when the school tells you that they won't release your child's data to you, get your kid to sign the DSAR, it's BS anyway and just a school stonewall tactic).



OR... because schools are an unregulated wasteland where HT can behave like feudal Lords, the teacher(s) involved may just be taking their frustrations out on the kids in their classroom.

Case in point: no1 daughter's form tutor is a total life inadequate. She constantly complains about his petty behaviour and the way he treats the kids in the form on one of his (her words) "bad days". He tried putting the whole class on detention because a boy from another form came into the form room before the bell, and managed to break a door handle. Everyone in the room saw this lad break the door handle but he ranted at the whole form that unless one of them owned up they would all be in trouble - problem is he and everyone else knew no-one in the form room was at fault for this. The whole thing escalated last week, the school tried backing the teacher and the kid (from the other form) who broke the handle by hanging his sports bag off it owned up, and told the Head of House that he had owned up before the form teacher went into his weapons grade rant. The whole thing was quietly "forgotten about".

If the leadership and engagement in the school were good, draconian measures shouldn't be necessary because it punishes the innocent and the guilty don't care., so never accept that as an excuse.

OFSTED have a questionnaire you can fill in about the school, and once done, you can raise a complaint with them directly as long as you have raised it with the school to begin with. They usually state that you should only raise the complaint with them if the school has not adequately dealt with the problem - but take it as read they will close ranks and do the square root of FA. Also, you need to frame the complaint in terms of the running of the school, nit just your individual case. This will then be brought up as and when the inspectors come round.



don't expect them to be balanced or objective, and that's assuming they don't just stonewall you.




ABSOLU-FUKCING-LUTELY do go in hard and prepard to smash in the doors.

It's been said elsewhere, Headteachers are life's last remaining feudal Lords, and fukc they behave like it. The only people they answer to are the Governors who generally tend to be useless. Most are retired/semi-retired do-gooders or the only parents who are prepared to spend the time going to meetings where they never get told anything really useful anyway. They are told that they are there just to be "the critical friend", with the expectation that they are fully behind whatever the HT is doing, most of which they will never ever see anyway.

The school will have a complaints procedure. the second stage is a hearing/meeting following an "investigation" which will often be given to the most incompetent of governors to do, so expect the intellectual vigour of a housebrick where all the pertinent questions are missed or misunderstood. the panel will then consist of 2 Governors (sorry "critical FRIENDS) and an "independent" member - usually an HT from another school who is part of "the club". Your complaint will be dismissed and any evidence you do have to support your argument will be deemed inconvenient "unusuable". Expect the following excuses to be trotted out - we can't talk about that because of confidentiality, we can't accept any arguments that appear to be legal arguments (like the Data Protect Act/GDPR doesn't apply so you CAN give me the CCTV footage that shows little Johnny DID't do what he was accused of and you CAN give me the statements from the other kids saying the teacher just picked on him and here's the specific wording of the regs that state it).

They will tell you that you can't be legally represented, but they will take legal advice before a hearing. Make sure you do the same (your house insurance will probably come with limited legal protection you can use).

You HAVE to be prepared to fight, and you have to remember the HT is on their own side. Remember - you pay your taxes and each child is per capita funded so in effect your taxes pay for your child's place, therefore they are the service provider, you are the client, and THEY are bought and fuking paid for! You have to keep that mentality or they win.

Good God! what school do they attend? 'First Day of The Somme Memorial Academy'?!

. . . or can you not fully accept that the fruit of your loins (and the bulk of their fellows) are simply unmitigated little shits?
 
Good God! what school do they attend? 'First Day of The Somme Memorial Academy'?!

. . . or can you not fully accept that the fruit of your loins (and the bulk of their fellows) are simply unmitigated little shits?

2 x teenage girls in a grammar school where a significant proportion of the staff think they defecate without smell and the deputy HT spent a year suspended from her previous job for gross misconduct before being fired as HT after Ofsted rated the school she ran as Inadequte, but hey, she went to Oxford so the Cambs educated HT gave her the job for belonging to the "I went to a better university than the rest of you oiks" club.

Oh, and I was a governor there for 4 years.
 
I will take a few points on here in a semi-sensible way



BUT... you will know your own kids and frankly, teachers lie too when it comes to covering their arrses. If the teacher says your kid did something, demand the evidence (and not just what they write on SkyBlue/Go4Schools). Speak to the parents of the other kids in the class that you know and get their kids accounts and challenge the school. If there's CCTV footage, demand to see it. If there were written reports taken, demand to see them (use your rights under S15 of the DPA and submit a Data Subject Access Request - and when the school tells you that they won't release your child's data to you, get your kid to sign the DSAR, it's BS anyway and just a school stonewall tactic).



OR... because schools are an unregulated wasteland where HT can behave like feudal Lords, the teacher(s) involved may just be taking their frustrations out on the kids in their classroom.

Case in point: no1 daughter's form tutor is a total life inadequate. She constantly complains about his petty behaviour and the way he treats the kids in the form on one of his (her words) "bad days". He tried putting the whole class on detention because a boy from another form came into the form room before the bell, and managed to break a door handle. Everyone in the room saw this lad break the door handle but he ranted at the whole form that unless one of them owned up they would all be in trouble - problem is he and everyone else knew no-one in the form room was at fault for this. The whole thing escalated last week, the school tried backing the teacher and the kid (from the other form) who broke the handle by hanging his sports bag off it owned up, and told the Head of House that he had owned up before the form teacher went into his weapons grade rant. The whole thing was quietly "forgotten about".

If the leadership and engagement in the school were good, draconian measures shouldn't be necessary because it punishes the innocent and the guilty don't care., so never accept that as an excuse.

OFSTED have a questionnaire you can fill in about the school, and once done, you can raise a complaint with them directly as long as you have raised it with the school to begin with. They usually state that you should only raise the complaint with them if the school has not adequately dealt with the problem - but take it as read they will close ranks and do the square root of FA. Also, you need to frame the complaint in terms of the running of the school, nit just your individual case. This will then be brought up as and when the inspectors come round.



don't expect them to be balanced or objective, and that's assuming they don't just stonewall you.




ABSOLU-FUKCING-LUTELY do go in hard and prepard to smash in the doors.

It's been said elsewhere, Headteachers are life's last remaining feudal Lords, and fukc they behave like it. The only people they answer to are the Governors who generally tend to be useless. Most are retired/semi-retired do-gooders or the only parents who are prepared to spend the time going to meetings where they never get told anything really useful anyway. They are told that they are there just to be "the critical friend", with the expectation that they are fully behind whatever the HT is doing, most of which they will never ever see anyway.

The school will have a complaints procedure. the second stage is a hearing/meeting following an "investigation" which will often be given to the most incompetent of governors to do, so expect the intellectual vigour of a housebrick where all the pertinent questions are missed or misunderstood. the panel will then consist of 2 Governors (sorry "critical FRIENDS) and an "independent" member - usually an HT from another school who is part of "the club". Your complaint will be dismissed and any evidence you do have to support your argument will be deemed inconvenient "unusuable". Expect the following excuses to be trotted out - we can't talk about that because of confidentiality, we can't accept any arguments that appear to be legal arguments (like the Data Protect Act/GDPR doesn't apply so you CAN give me the CCTV footage that shows little Johnny DID't do what he was accused of and you CAN give me the statements from the other kids saying the teacher just picked on him and here's the specific wording of the regs that state it).

They will tell you that you can't be legally represented, but they will take legal advice before a hearing. Make sure you do the same (your house insurance will probably come with limited legal protection you can use).

You HAVE to be prepared to fight, and you have to remember the HT is on their own side. Remember - you pay your taxes and each child is per capita funded so in effect your taxes pay for your child's place, therefore they are the service provider, you are the client, and THEY are bought and fuking paid for! You have to keep that mentality or they win.
As before, get fucked. It's ********* like you that make my job so much harder for no reason other than your arrogance.

I say that having just finished an almost 14 hour day supporting younger members of my department, attempting to teach while dealing with behaviour issues outside of my room, break duty, yet more pointless ******* meetings and then helping out with the school production.
 
I was doing great when I started secondary school, top of the class in each subject and a bit of a swot.

Then the bullying started. Things went downhill and I hated going to school, often didn't, which just made things worse again. It was pretty 'low level' and I didn't want to admit anything to my parents and upset them. Practical jokes and engineering stuff to get me in trouble with teachers.

Looking back I would say some of it was my fault. I should have stood up for myself more and not been afraid of gettting into trouble for giving someone a black eye or whatever. I definitely wasn't a 'cool kid' but I should've taken more control of the situation.

The lad in question could be suffering from similar stuff. Some outside (of school) activity would be a good idea - cadets, boxing club, rugby - anything that might help his self confidence and, dare I say it, ability to fight back! It's clearly a school issue though given his reluctance to go and getting 'excluded' so you need to look there for your answers.

As it turned out I got decent enough grades in my exams, but more through my own efforts than anything the school did for me.
 
As before, get fucked. It's ********* like you that make my job so much harder for no reason other than your arrogance.

I say that having just finished an almost 14 hour day supporting younger members of my department, attempting to teach while dealing with behaviour issues outside of my room, break duty, yet more pointless ******* meetings and then helping out with the school production.

and therein......

even though it's the NAAFI, I'm quite happy to debate the points. I'm married to a teacher who is a CL, I've been a governor of 2 schools, and I'm not "anti-teacher", or arrogant, but I have come to the conclusion based on my experience of the state education system that it is fundamentally broken and it's been broken not by successive governments (of whatever political colour) but by the people who run it at school level. I'm talking about the Headteachers and SLTs, weak Governance and the disconnect between the schools and the LA/VA that fund them.

What you've just said exposes the mindset of "we are the (ahem) professionals, and we know what's best, how dare you question us" appeal to authority that quickly switches to "but we work so haaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrd"* appeal to sentimentality when that doesn't work. The fact is, the most important thing in my world is my children, and no appeal to presumed authority or sentimentality should make school and the teachers who run them beyond reproach.

And there are fixes:

  • create a Chartered body for teachers like other professionals (I belong to one) that has tough entry standards and assessment to join and a solid and enforceable code of conduct and an ongoing requirement to demonstrate professional standards which if you breach leads to you being publicly kicked out rather than the farce that is the TRA masquerading as a "professional body"
  • stop assuming that just because someone has spent 30 years in teaching it qualifies them to be a Head/Dep/Asst and train them to run an organisation so they "get" finance, HR, employment law, and hold them accountable through a proper and meaningful system of performance management like the rest of us
  • which in turn means sack crap teachers the way crap employees get sacked everywhere else (and for more than slapping or touching up a student which seem to be the only 2 things teachers get sacked for)
  • allow parents to be able to report crap teachers to the Chartered body so that they have a means to deal with crap teachers who shouldn't be in the classroom but who manage to escape scrutiny because they never touch-up/smack a kid that gets them on the radar of the DBS and stop the practice of only allowing schools/LADO from being the only people who can report teachers to the TRA
  • Give OFSTED proper powers, as well as the means to independently investigate and enforce complaints so it's no longer the in-house farce of cover-up, obfuscation, stonewalling and "boys together" club it is
  • appoint only qualified Governors and stop this "critical friend" crap and get it to behave like a corporate board would and really scrutinise the executive, give it the ability to look at operational deficiencies (so it's no longer 2 hours of rubber stamping "model policies" every term) and have it properly hold school leadership to account
  • pay teachers based on performance
..or maybe say I'm "arrogant" for daring to suggest teachers should be governed as professionals the way I am as a chartered professional in my field (I'm actually an elected Fellow of my chartered body).

* I get that rank and file teachers work long hours for little reward, that isn't the point, it's about changing the framework, standards, and culture of teaching.

Oh, and I bet you are one of those cnuts who read the Guardian to make yourself feel superior to Mirror readers. This is the NAAFI after all.
 
I was doing great when I started secondary school, top of the class in each subject and a bit of a swot.

Then the bullying started. Things went downhill and I hated going to school, often didn't, which just made things worse again. It was pretty 'low level' and I didn't want to admit anything to my parents and upset them. Practical jokes and engineering stuff to get me in trouble with teachers.

Looking back I would say some of it was my fault. I should have stood up for myself more and not been afraid of gettting into trouble for giving someone a black eye or whatever. I definitely wasn't a 'cool kid' but I should've taken more control of the situation.

The lad in question could be suffering from similar stuff. Some outside (of school) activity would be a good idea - cadets, boxing club, rugby - anything that might help his self confidence and, dare I say it, ability to fight back! It's clearly a school issue though given his reluctance to go and getting 'excluded' so you need to look there for your answers.

As it turned out I got decent enough grades in my exams, but more through my own efforts than anything the school did for me.

So much of that resonates with me. Perhaps the lad just needs something, anything really, that he can take pride in, make his own, and have as something to fall back on during dark periods. Something he knows he is good at, that other acknowledge he is good at, and makes him feel good.
 
What you've just said exposes the mindset of "we are the (ahem) professionals, and we know what's best, how dare you question us" appeal to authority that quickly switches to "but we work so haaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrd"* appeal to sentimentality when that doesn't work.
As before, get fucked. I was making a simple statement about the number of times in the last fortnight that children have done something they shouldn't, children have received appropriate consequences, children have gone whining to parents and the parents, rather than applying some level of realistic skepticism, have believed what the child has said without question and kicked up a huge fuss.

Also, I wasn't appealing to sentimentality, I was just trying to put into context why I might not be my usual cheerful self. Given I've had another 14 hour day I can't be bothered to address the rest of the points you've posted (some sensible, some utter bollocks) but might get round to that tomorrow, in between the 3 sets of exercise books and 2 sets of test papers I need to go through. Unless that's too sentimental for you?
 
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Placed in the NAAFI to get more coverage and advice.

He's not a teen, he's only 11. Started senior school in September, and has gone off the rails. As his Godfather, I haven't stepped in yet, but have just had his mother and Nan, both in tears, as he has been kicking the front door because he doesn't want to go to school, and it transpires, he has been excluded.

This is a kind, intelligent lad, who may have hit puberty early (?), or there is an underlying issue, bullying, abuse etc?

I'm now stepping in to sort it (him) out. Boxing, running, ACF?

All serious experiences and solutions listened to, banter about teenage boys from those who love foreign cuisine and live in warm climates!

Denizens of Arrse, your help please.

Take medical advice-

send him to Dr Barnados
 
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