I live in rural Victoria which means my older kids have to take the bus into town to get to school, 30km away.
I work from 7-3 most days.
My grade 7 boy is constantly truanting with two other boys, and rarely makes it to class.
A couple of weeks ago, they were pulled up by a policeman as one of the 12 year olds was caught stealing from a shop. This was told to me by my son.
Do schools actually do anything to prevent kids nicking off? What can I do to ensure my son actually attends class?
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6 Replies
Unfortunately there is nothing the school could do. Short of waiting at the bus stop and physically escorting your child to every single class. Schools just don’t have the funds to do this.
I think you need to assess why your son doesn’t want to be at school and find out what would motivate him to be at school.
I’d also make sure I’m driving him to school the days you can, and be attempting to change my work hours (if possible).
I’d make a meeting with the school counsellor to discuss the situation and see if a plan can be made so you find out sooner if your son doesn’t get to class, so you can chase him down.
You need to sit down and talk to your boy about why going to school is so important. Find out what he wants his future to look like and use that to motivate him.
It's not the schools job to prevent kids from wagging off, aside from not being solely their responsibility, I'm not sure there's anything schools can do other than encouraging attendance and explaining why it's so important! They can't force kids to attend, they don't have the resources to chase after kids who don't want to be there and generally speaking, kids who skip school regularly tend to be disruptive in classroom settings. You will need to work with the school, they cant do much without yours and your sons co-operation.
That said. Kids don't skip school for shits and giggles, there's usually a reason.
It may be peer pressure, he could be struggling with the workload, there may be social issues (bullying for example), maybe he's not stimulated enough, he could be having a tough time mental health wise, a lot of young men develop an aversion to authority at this age which may be playing a part, there may be other issues in his personal or home life you need to consider, even an undiagnosed behaviour issue (this happened with my brother - his ADHD symptoms really started to manifest when he started high school and it took 2 years to get him diagnosed and then therapies but by then a lot of the damage was done, academically speaking).
So you need to get to the bottom of why he's skipping then sort out the most appropriate course of action. I'd look at taking a few weeks off work so you can drive him to school yourself and I'd get in touch with the school guidance counsellor/social worker/chaplain etc and work with them to try and make an action plan.
It's really important that you get to the bottom of why he is skipping school and try and fix that. I would also question as to why he is hanging around with these kids who are stealing and doing god knows what else. I find it odd that the policeman didn't contact you though as your son was with the group when items were stolen and usually they will address all parties involved (because as much as you don't want to think it, your son was involved by being there and allowing it to happen).
Schools do not have the resources or right to force a kid to come to school, as much as that would be nice, it just isn't their responsibility (unless your son is using a private school bus service as opposed to a public service).
I would be organising a meeting with the school and figuring out why he isn't attending and what you can improve for him.
The only thing you can do to ensure your son arrives to school is to take him there yourself. Can you look at switching some work hours around to make this happen? Or do you have family members to call upon to safely get him to school and physically see him entering the grounds?
I did try taking him to school. He went to morning classes and nicked off down the street with his mates at morning tea time :(
Once they leave school grounds the school no longer has duty of care. The last town I lived in all the businesses, school and police made an agreement that school kids would not be served during school hours just to make it very boring for kids that wag and think they can go buy what they want from the shops. You could spend a day sitting at the school? Follow him for the day, hopefully he will find it embarrassing enough to not want you to do that again.
It's not the schools job, I'm not sure what you think they would be able to do. You need to parent the child and find out why he's wagging.
Perhaps a change of school is required. If he's wagging with the same kids everyday