TY appeal failed,worth going down disability discrimination route

lovely gurl

Sons TY appeal failed.Principle quoted a recommendation from the O/T from 8 years ago as a reason not to let him do it.Hes very young to go straight into 5th will be 17.5 yrs doing the leaving cert.Has sensory issues and is borderline dyspraxic,behaviour is not an issue according to principle.Never had a phone call or meeting etc from school yet given 10/20 for behaviour.
We did not sign his application for TY as he filled it in by himself,didn't understand the questions answered them poorly and handed it in .This demonstrates his lack of understanding as he didn't show us the form to sign.
Any advice?

Minderbinder

What is O/T and what is the exact recommendation quoted?

Do you know how many students applied and how many were rejected?

riemann

17.5 is not too young to be finished school. One could argue 18.5 is on the old side.

I'd suggest listening to the people whose career it is to educate your child and who would know best.

Peregrinus

Your problem here is an educational one, not a legal one. Rather than spending time, money and emotional energy pursuing legal avenues, I'd suggest taking your son to an educational psychologist/child psychologist who can assess him, advise on his condition, liaise with the school and maybe act as an advocate on your son's behalf. Schools get very, very defensive if parents seek to be adversarial, and you going down the legal route is likely to pretty much cement them into the position they are already in, which is not the outcome you want. Approach this on the basis that you and the school both want the best educational outcome for your son, and that you should co-operate to identify what that is and to bring it about, and you have the best chance of actually being listened to.

If you haven't already raised this issue over on one of the educational forums, it might be a good idea to do that. You'll get input there from teachers and maybe educational psychologists which might help you to position yourselves to get the best outcome for your son.

Victor

I turned 17 in the March I did my leaving certificate in the June. I could have done with being older going in to college.

Baybay

Both my children completed TY. Seeing the experience they had in relation to some of their friends in other schools, not all schools offer a good TY experience, in my opinion. And even when they do, it may not suit every student who applies. Might that be what the school is trying to convey, that their offering isn't quite what your son needs?

Would you & he consider moving to another school?

davo10

We got a letter from my daughter's school this week saying she was accepted for TY next year. We had to fill out a form and sign it a while back, the form had an accompanying letter saying this would be on a first come first serve basis and that there were limited spaces and cost €400. Our daughter told us that some in her class were not accepted because they didn't apply in time.

If the school have now filled their numbers for TY, then someone else may have to be removed in order to accomadate your son.

lovely gurl

Minderbinder wrote: »

What is O/T and what is the exact recommendation quoted?

Do you know how many students applied and how many were rejected?

Occupational therapist heard it was 81 applied 75 accepted

lovely gurl

davo10 wrote: »

We got a letter from my daughter's school this week saying she was accepted for TY next year. We had to fill out a form and sign it a while back, the form had an accompanying letter saying this would be on a first come first serve basis and that there were limited spaces and cost €400. Our daughter told us that some in her class were not accepted because they didn't apply in time.

If the school have now filled their numbers for TY, then someone else may have to be removed in order to accomadate your son.

Places are available they accepted a student last week

infogiver

My daughters experience of TY was disastrous.
In a way it ruined her secondary education.
Not the schools fault. It was a bad choice for her.
Beware.

lovely gurl

riemann wrote: »

17.5 is not too young to be finished school. One could argue 18.5 is on the old side.

I'd suggest listening to the people whose career it is to educate your child and who would know best.

He has an official diagnosis of being socially and emotionally immature and is simply not ready and will be unable to cope with the leaving cert at that age that is why it is so important to us that he has an extra year to mature a bit

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

lovely gurl

Just an update found a copy of that O /T report he quoted from it was done 21/08/2007 when he was 5 years 8 months old!!!!!
Spoke to 2 different O/T who have assessed him in the past both agreeing there ARE no behavioural issues at this stage.Am looking into getting an up to date assessment if needed.
Principle also stated that as all his signings were for bad behaviour this was also a concern.He has 16 signings for the year to date,12 are for incomplete homework,2 for forgetting materials and JUST 2 for bad behaviour which was bad language used to another pupil on 2 diff occasions.
Hmmmm......for a man in his position he doesn't sound too honest to me.....
Also his application form was not seen by us or signed by us.

davo10

lovely gurl wrote: »

Also his application form was not seen by us or signed by us.

Does that not mean that there are still at least five other students who may have valid applications ahead of your son should a place become available? The student who was accepted last week, was that due to another student dropping out?

judeboy101

lovely gurl wrote: »

Just an update found a copy of that O /T report he quoted from it was done 21/08/2007 when he was 5 years 8 months old!!!!!
Spoke to 2 different O/T who have assessed him in the past both agreeing there ARE no behavioural issues at this stage.Am looking into getting an up to date assessment if needed.
Principle also stated that as all his signings were for bad behaviour this was also a concern.He has 16 signings for the year to date,12 are for incomplete homework,2 for forgetting materials and JUST 2 for bad behaviour which was bad language used to another pupil on 2 diff occasions.
Hmmmm......for a man in his position he doesn't sound too honest to me.....
Also his application form was not seen by us or signed by us.

Check the schools code of behaviour /discipline policy. Most do not include homework as a behaviour (that should be in another separate homework policy)

alibab

I understand the OP position here in relation to social immaturity and Dyspraxia. I also have a son with the same issue and he will be 13 starting secondary and I am hoping will do transition year and be 19 doing the leaving . He needs to be that bit older as socially he is a few years behind his peers and always playing catch up .
Altough in say that I do think you took the eye off the ball a bit as I know with my son he does not carry notes or information home at all as his processing ability is bad and simply does not remember. I have to keep a eye on everything and would have been into the school and asking regarding transition year and the start of the year and chasing it up etc . I don't know if you can expect now for another child to loose a place because of this . I also feel using his disability in a legal sense is not the answer here as they're in some personal responsibility being late etc with the application.

the_syco

Can he do TY in another school?

lovely gurl

davo10 wrote: »

Does that not mean that there are still at least five other students who may have valid applications ahead of your son should a place become available? The student who was accepted last week, was that due to another student dropping out?

No there was a place available. I rang his year head today to ask how many students were not accepted in as my son says he actually only knows of one other pupil not accepted so now we think maybe just 2 were turned down.The year head told me "he wouldn't have a clue,nothing to do with him".

lovely gurl

the_syco wrote: »

Can he do TY in another school?

Possibly but don't want to move him as it is a good school and have no issues in 3 years till now.Also moving him away from his friends and what is routine to him would not benefit him overall but it is certainly an option we may yet be considering.

lovely gurl

alibab wrote: »

I understand the OP position here in relation to social immaturity and Dyspraxia. I also have a son with the same issue and he will be 13 starting secondary and I am hoping will do transition year and be 19 doing the leaving . He needs to be that bit older as socially he is a few years behind his peers and always playing catch up .
Altough in say that I do think you took the eye off the ball a bit as I know with my son he does not carry notes or information home at all as his processing ability is bad and simply does not remember. I have to keep a eye on everything and would have been into the school and asking regarding transition year and the start of the year and chasing it up etc . I don't know if you can expect now for another child to loose a place because of this . I also feel using his disability in a legal sense is not the answer here as they're in some personal responsibility being late etc with the application.

No other child would be losing a place.I regularly go through his school bag for any notes ,letters home etc as he is a disaster.He did the application form in school and handed it in we didn't even realise he had gotten it yet it never occurred to him to tell us.

the_syco

lovely gurl wrote: »

Possibly but don't want to move him as it is a good school and have no issues in 3 years till now.Also moving him away from his friends and what is routine to him would not benefit him overall but it is certainly an option we may yet be considering.

Consider that when he's doing his LC, all of his current mates will be in college, etc. Thus him being in another school, making new friends of his year may benefit him in the long term.

davo10

lovely gurl wrote: »

No other child would be losing a place.I regularly go through his school bag for any notes ,letters home etc as he is a disaster.He did the application form in school and handed it in we didn't even realise he had gotten it yet it never occurred to him to tell us.

Have you actually filled out the application form and signed it?

You said the "O/T heard 75 accepted, 81 applied", do you know if there was only 75 places available? Does the form say that places are limited and must be applied for?

There may be a place available, but did that place become available due to another student who had been accepted dropping out?

As things stand at the moment, you don't seem to have a valid application and you are relying on what an O/T has heard.

evolving_doors

The merits or demerits of TY should be left out of the situation. Also age of student.

It goes back to the original reason provided for refusal.

The reason (from following thread! ) was not because of space limitations or late applications.

The reason given by the principal (according to the OP) was because of the child's behaviour +
the principal cited the child's learning difficulty (although other children with worse behavior got in!).

As a teacher I'd say 12 incidences of incomplete homework is on the mild scale of things. Especially one with a learning difficulty!

I'd be preparing the child for both outcomes OP and wouldn't stress them out with details of daily battles with the school and 'he said we said'.

Get it in writing exactly why they are refusing... the school appears to be all over the place looking for reasons by your accounts.

lovely gurl

So had a meeting with the principle and vice principle.Hes going into 5th year,BUT if he's struggling by midterm they are going to make an application to the dept that he repeat 5th year.He wouldn't be told about repeating till he's finished 5th year.Tbh I'm relieved.It was a good clear the air meeting too and I think it will resolve his age issue for me without him facing into the leaving cert for possibly another year yet.The school are happy because it will keep him in his structure.Although if there are no issues with him coping he will not be allowed to repeat so just have to see how he gets on.
Thanks so much everyone for the support and advice,ye have no idea how much I appreciated it!

judeboy101

lovely gurl wrote: »

So had a meeting with the principle and vice principle.Hes going into 5th year,BUT if he's struggling by midterm they are going to make an application to the dept that he repeat 5th year.He wouldn't be told about repeating till he's finished 5th year.Tbh I'm relieved.It was a good clear the air meeting too and I think it will resolve his age issue for me without him facing into the leaving cert for possibly another year yet.The school are happy because it will keep him in his structure.Although if there are no issues with him coping he will not be allowed to repeat so just have to see how he gets on.
Thanks so much everyone for the support and advice,ye have no idea how much I appreciated it!

IMHO they are fobbing u off. Dept don't want to know about repeats in same school they have gotten super strict and are only letting cases of serious health /circumstances

nuac

Mine have all moved on now so I am not au fait with present regs etc but would stress the huge change from secondary to third level.

Might be a good time to put in the extra year for that extra maturity

livedadream

am i the only one who didnt know it was possible to skip?
whats the point of 4th year then? 
is this common in schools now?
i turned 18 on the day of my last LC exam but there was no option to skip TY in the schools I or any of my friends went to.
surely the longer your in school the better?

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

livedadream

nothing wrong with that in my eyes, might cut down on the amount of drop outs
or kids pushed into courses all their friends are doing or parents pressuring them...

or people doing arts in general...

spurious

livedadream wrote: »

am i the only one who didnt know it was possible to skip?
whats the point of 4th year then? 
is this common in schools now?
i turned 18 on the day of my last LC exam but there was no option to skip TY in the schools I or any of my friends went to.
surely the longer your in school the better?

The school gets a slightly higher staff allocation for TY.
Most students that complete a decent well run TY benefit socially from it.
Statistically (yes, I know...) student exam results benefit from it.

Some schools have a small TY that not everyone gets into.

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

livedadream

spurious wrote: »

livedadream wrote: »

am i the only one who didnt know it was possible to skip?
whats the point of 4th year then? 
is this common in schools now?
i turned 18 on the day of my last LC exam but there was no option to skip TY in the schools I or any of my friends went to.
surely the longer your in school the better?

The school gets a slightly higher staff allocation for TY.
Most students that complete a decent well run TY benefit socially from it.
Statistically (yes, I know...) student exam results benefit from it.

Some schools have a small TY that not everyone gets into.

yeah thats whats weird, in my day (jesus i sound ancient it was only 8 years ago) it was expected to go from third to fourth, there was no suggestion that someone didnt do it, there were some older students who went to a grind school who skipped but they physically left the school.
just seems weird to me...

evolving_doors

Have the school put it in writing the reason why they are refusing him TY yet?
I have a feeling you were hoodwinked into making a decision at that meeting, were you alone, we're any notes taken, any apologies given, any definite guarantees given by the school?

For a school to say their own TY programme is unstructured is an admission of how bad their TY program is.

But... if you're happy and your child is happy with 5th year then just jump on board with it.

Constitution says that parents are the primary educators. On the face of it it sounds as if the sole reason for their refusal (that they can cobble together) is because of his disability (given that students with worse behaviour got in).

I have a feeling that what probably happen is the TY coordinator got the poorly written application from your child and decided 'sod that if they can't be bothered then they can't get in'. Then they tried to scramble around for reasons when you decided to question it (particularly as you hadn't signed it).... hence the production of a suspiciously VERY old report.
It's very easy for me to tell you to take it to a legal level (or get media involved) from the comfort of my keyboard. So maybe you gotta decide to pick your battles with the school and weigh up the stress it might entail.

Talk to your child anyway and see how they feel (could another school be a decision he could be open too?). He might just want the whole mess over and agree to anything to keep you happy too though. Will he be regretting not doing (or being allowed to do) TY simply because he made a hash of the application.

Do you think if he had made a better application he would have gotten in.

From what you hear around Is the TY program actually any good in the school?

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

evolving_doors

Fred Swanson wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

No