Serious concerns about conduct of teaching staff

[AjP2024]

I have an adopted 13 year old who has been with me since she was 3. We still have occasional contact with ss and a good relationship with them.
She started high school in Sept 2023 and within weeks had gone from a confident happy child to being emotionally unable to leave the house. Every request to the school for support was refused to the point of them being obstructive. They refused meetings, wouldn't refer to outside agencies etc.
As her attendance fell they started to become threatening towards me, telling me I would be fined etc.
She reluctantly returned after the summer break into year 8 and she did one day and has not been back since..
I managed to get a meeting with her head of year and the attendance person for the following week.
In that meeting she was spoken to in what can only be described as a bullying and abusive way, told she was letting herself down etc. This was in front of me so how they had been treating her with me not present I dread to think.
I was not very pleasant to the woman but I did not loose my temper and told the woman I would be making z formal complaint against her. . At approx 9 am I left with my child
Later that afternoon I was informed that a serious urgent safeguarding request had been put in by the school as they had serious concerns regarding my child's safety due to my aggression
Ss have acted very professionally over this and agree that it was a malicious act by the school
What I need help with is how to deal with this particular incident (I have started the complaints process re the schools general failures but this obviously takes time)
As the staff member involved has done this to me just because I complained about her I have very real concerns that she has probably done it before and will probably do it again.
We are lucky that ss already has a file on us so they didn't
rush into things and my child is still with me
Another family might not be so lucky in that respect.
(Important to know through my volunteer work I am very familiar with safeguarding reporting procedure and the way that this malicious accusation was put through by the school and the lies that it contained could have resulted in immediate removal of my child whilst was investigated)

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Dear AjP2024

Welcome to the parents’ discussion forum and thank you for your post.

My name is Suzie, online adviser at Family Rights Group and will respond to your post.

I am sorry to see that your daughter and you have not been supported by her school to address the difficulties she is experiencing to attend school. This lack of support has been compounded by the experience you had when meeting with a teacher at the school. Unfortunately, the meeting did not achieve what you hoped for and you were very unhappy about how your daughter was spoken to which, in your view, amounted abuse and bullying.

It is good that you are making a formal complaint to the school for this to be investi-gated.

Your concerns about the referral made to children’s services (the new name for social services) are valid based on the information in your post. Children’s services are not pursuing the referral and is said to consider it to be a malicious referral.

As you are concerned about the individual teacher and her actions you may wish to complain to the Teaching Regulation Authority if you consider it to be serious miscon-duct otherwise the process you have started would be the way to deal with the issues you have. A complaint to the headteacher and board of governor is the procedure where the conduct is serous. You can also complain to your local council.

This is what the government website says about serious teacher misconduct
“Serious misconduct is any behaviour that could result in a teacher not being allowed to teach again. This includes:
• sexual misconduct, including assault, abuse or harassment
• violent behaviour
• serious failure to protect the safety and wellbeing of pupils
• alcohol or drug misuse
• fraud or serious dishonesty
• discrimination or harassment
• promoting extreme political or religious views

A link to the government website is HERE for your information.

You may also wish to speak with Young Minds on 0808 802 5544 they offer advice and support for school refusers.

I hope this is helpful to you.

Best wishes

Suzie