Was my child 'excluded' or was it reasonable what the teacher did?

chubsta

In short - daughter is 17, getting to the end of college hairdressing course, something she did because she didn't know what to do after school, not really interested in it but has made a go of it and there are no problems. Course ends in June.
Has managed to get an apprenticeship in a completely different field that she is very keen to do - fantastic opportunity that came out of the blue - unfortunately the start date is next week.
We notified her college tutor last week explaining the situation and that she would be finishing today, 29th April, didn't hear anything back.
Daughter went to college on Wednesday, tutor was very curt and told her to return her tools and leave - when asked if she had seen the email the teacher just told her to get out.
Daughter is very upset about it all - effectively we feel she has been 'excluded' as she was intending to continue in her education until the final day, today. We didn't receive any communication from the college at all, so was the tutor within her rights to just tell her to leave? Surely, unless there are any issues over behaviour, attendance etc then it is not for an individual teacher to decide whether someone is allowed in the classroom, particularly as we were given no indication that our daughter would not be allowed in for the week?

TBagpuss

It sounds like a miscommunication - the tutor was unnecessarily abrupt but equally if your daughter had said she was leaving they may well have felt there was little point in her being there or 2 days and that it was more appropriate to focus on the student who were planning to complete the course.

Your daughter could speak to the head about the lack of response / miscommunication but it would help if she was clear about what she is hoping to achieve - what does she want them to do?

It's worth bearing in mind that you daughter may have planned to spend time saying goodbye to her friends etc today, but from the perspective of the tutor, that could be quite disruptive, particularly if the remaining students are coming to the end of the course and have final assessments etc to complete. 
When they told her to go, did she actually say that she would like to remain and complete the last 3 days of the week? Did she speak to anyone else at the college to clarify the situation or did she just leave? 

chubsta

Thanks for the reply - she didn't get a chance to say she wanted to stay as the teacher basically ushered her out of the classroom. her absence actually caused a problem according to her friends as it meant that one of the other students didn't have anyone to practice a hair-washing technique on as they were unevenly numbered.

Not sure what we want to achieve actually, probably just that we feel annoyed and is our annoyance justified!

Thrugelmir

Attending a course you've no interest in can be a distraction for those that want to achieve something. Why continue to attend? 

chubsta

Thrugelmir said:

Attending a course you've no interest in can be a distraction for those that want to achieve something. Why continue to attend? 

because she is a good student who would have competed the course if it wasn't for the fact she has now been offered a new opportunity? because she has always attended school and college and routine is important, particularly after all the disruption from Covid?
I think the thing that bothers us is that the teacher did not respond to our notification of her leaving - if she had had the courtesy to reply, stating that she should not attend other than to return course-related items, it wouldn't have been a problem, but instead she had to make a 2-bus journey to be humiliated in front of her classmates.

Gycraig

She wasn’t “excluded” the teacher probably just didn’t want to waste her time trying to teach a student who has 0 interest in the course, why did your daughter even return if she has an apprenticeship for a different course. 

Honestly just move on it’s not worth the agro, good luck to your daughter in her new career 

T.T.D

All colleges must adhere to their policies, IIRC they are also bound by Consumer Protection ACT.

Your daughter has the right to make a complaint of the behaviour of a tutor, she was in essence excluded because she was refused entry and participation in a course (which may or may not have been paid for), it maybe part of the contract that your daughter needs to give an amount of time of notice to quit the course but this the. does not give the tutor a right to arbitrarily decide that that day was her last and remove her from class in an unprofessional manor and deprive her of her right to be included.

That said, to answer the question is IMHO yes she was excluded, but do you want to take this matter further? Or put it behind her? 

tealady

Your daughter is 17, almost an adult.
If someone being "abrupt" upsets her then tell her NEVER work in public service.
Ask any shopworker, police officer, doctors receptionist, bus driver, waiter, security officer (or any of the many jobs that involve dealing with people) what the public are REALLY like.  The vast majority are lovely but the Karen's of this world are vile.

400ixl

Bad from the lecturer and probably work following it up with the department lead, but a lesson for your daughter in that she should really have approached the lecturer in person to discuss the new opportunity and the potential impact rather than just from what it sounds sent an email fait accompli. You wouldn't do the same with your boss in a business unless you wanted to burn bridges.

From your daughters point of view, she may as well just move on, if the new apprenticeship will require any interaction with the same college then you may well want to follow up on the reason for leaving with the department / administration to make sure the closing down of any history does not have an adverse effect on any future studies.

chubsta

She did tell the tutor the week before, our email was just to formalise it.

Thanks for all your replies, general consensus seems to be the tutor probably made the right move in not wanting to have someone there who didn’t want to be, but perhaps didn’t go about it in the right way.

fair enough, not something to get too wound up about, we were right to be annoyed I think but not too annoyed…