Is my child's school too strict? What would you do if your 6yo child was excluded from school excursions? What is your school's behavioural policy?
I foster my 6yo nephew, and he has attended the same public school for over 2 years now. The school has a traffic light system for behaviour in class time and I feel are too strict on especially the younger children. They go through stages of being on green, then moving to orange, then to red, then to buddy class and then to the office, in which if they do go to the office they lose their "Good standing". To earn this good standing they have to be extremely well behaved for 2 weeks (not receive a red face on the traffic light system).
At the beginning on the term (day 2 to be exact) he lost his good standing for rough-housing with another boy during phys ed. I accepted this especially as he knows I will not tolerate him putting his hands on anyone in a violent manner, even in play. He gained his Good Standing back in the following 2 weeks and then behaved well for the additional 6-7 weeks of school.
Last week on the Friday, I was informed he had lost his Good Standing again, and because there is not enough days before the excursion to earn it back he would miss out on the excursion. When I asked what he did to lose his good standing I was informed he and 3 other students were squirting each other with water. I asked if any of these other students had also lost their good standing, which I was told they had not, because my child was already on orange for because he had been running in the classroom.
Since losing the good standing, he has had multiple children tease him about being unable to go to the excursion which has upset him incredibly. I understand children need to be pulled up on this behaviour, and he most definitely should not be running in the classroom, but I feel it is overkill, and counter-productive, and teaches the children to exclude. He has already felt enough exclusion in his life personally from his own mother not wanting anything to do with him and constantly calling him a bad kid, and having an absent father.
I have had his caseworker agree with me that it is counter-productive. I also have had other parents, including the P&C president, agree with me that the traffic light system doesn't work and when mentioning this to the deputy, he shrugged his shoulders and said that this is their policy.
So, quite frankly my question is, is his school too strict on children so young? Am I wrong to feel upset for him? Should I follow through with this, with the other parents?
I also wanted to add that I have tried to research education policies for W.A., but have been unable to find much information about exclusion from excursions. I did read N.S.W. has a policy that excursions are inclusive and all students in the learning group are to be provided with the opportunity to attend. If anyone understands the W.A. policies well enough to explain whether we have something similar I would appreciate your input.
TIA x
5 Replies
My kids school is similar with the traffic light system and also missing out on excursions if they are not behaving, however they don't miss out on excursions unless they have done something really wrong, it's very rare that a child does miss out so yes I do feel your child's school sounds really harsh. Is the option there for you to look into other schools around? Sometimes shopping around and checking out schools is the best thing you can do. I started my first son off at a school which made a fool out of him, he was a bit slow learning so they would pin his unfinished work up on the board to make an example out of him and they wouldn't help him at all but spent all day yelling at him, it got to the stage where he would be sick every morning so he didn't have to go to school. We looked around and found a fabulous school that the kids love. My point is if your not happy there may be other options!
have a look at the school curriculum aitsl, national curriculum, about exclusion. It's a big issue with ' behaviour management' and teaching practice. Discuss it further, make your meetings formal and take it further up the chain. Don't let them shrug it off, let them know it's not about this incident but you're interested to know their philosophy so you know can consider how it meets your nephews needs. You do have valid concerns and could easily find teaching theories to support you. However, if the school chooses a different philosophy I'd say you need to find a different school.
That sounds awful! I know a number of mainstreamed ASD kiddies or ADHD kiddies who would never be allowed on an excursion. I'd be school shopping.
Look at the school policy on what they say and also the class outline and curriculum. My daughters school uses excursions as a learning tool, it shows the reflection they have in a fun way. I would be asking about not only the reason about exclusion, but also the teasing and the learning aspects he is missing out on. Now I can completely agree with bullying, hitting, or anything like that would be made for an exclusion but a water fight and running in the class is an over kill.
Way too strict. That is disgusting he is 6 years old for god sake. School is suppose to be fun for children that age. I would never put my 5 yo in a school like that, not letting the poor boy go to an excursion for playing with water how ridiculous.