School refusing to return deposit for cancelled school trip

pinkshoes

Mancy said:

Thank you for your time and suggestions, lovely people.  I'm distraught for him and to refuse to return my deposit is just rubbing salt into wounds. 

Thanks again!

I would be quite firm with the school.

I recently took a school trip, and one pupil had ASD, and their risk assessment came with a whole host of risks and potential issues (self harm, flight risk, risky behaviour etc...). I didn't want to take them as we could not meet some of their "demands" which materialised/were added by them in a later risk assessment. They then reneged on some of these demands as it was impossible to arrange and basically due to the disability discrimination act I had to take them. The school were happy to refund in full. 

So, as the school have always been aware your son has ASD, then they cannot just decide not to take him. I would quote the disability act at them, and say that your son will be going on the trip and you need them to make reasonable adjustments for his ASD. If they cannot do this, they need to issue a FULL refund.

If they'd let you know they couldn't meet his needs earlier, they would have had time to find a replacement, but that's not your problem. Perhaps they can find a replacement in the next week or two?

Spendless

With any complaint I discovered that the best thing to do is to keep emotion and opinion out of it and stick to fact. 

Stateofart

Teacher here.

it sounds like there's been some information missed from this post, parents and students tend to do this when it suits.  I would imagine OPs son has broken the school's acceptable standards.  He probably was warned multiple times that the behaviour he was engaged in would result in being withdrawn from the trip.  Teachers don't ban students from trips unless there is a proper reason, as it would really come back to bite. 

Safeguarding concerns can happen at any time.  This could be inappropriate contact with other students, language or behaviour.

T.T.D

Stateofart said:

Teacher here.

it sounds like there's been some information missed from this post, parents and students tend to do this when it suits.  I would imagine OPs son has broken the school's acceptable standards.  He probably was warned multiple times that the behaviour he was engaged in would result in being withdrawn from the trip.  Teachers don't ban students from trips unless there is a proper reason, as it would really come back to bite. 

Safeguarding concerns can happen at any time.  This could be inappropriate contact with other students, language or behaviour.

I agree they can (safeguarding), but as a father to ASD children who has gone on now to become ASD adults and encountered discrimination directly and indirectly, my experience of safeguarding issues rarely hit overnight, behaviours tend to ramp up on a steady trajectory without early interventions.

Ive also come to notice schools in my area (ones my daughters went to) and currently my partners school (where her 2 ASD children attend that’s not the same of my daughters old schools) tend to follow different rules for the same processes of reporting children with ASD symptoms or safeguarding problems, some tend to minimise repetitive disruptive behaviour until it’s presented in single incident so severe the impact upon a teacher or other pupils is profound then act all shocked this pupil was capable of such behaviour then act disproportionately toward the child.

If the child is offered a place with known behavioural issues or even safeguarding issues (even if the parent reported it to school but not witnessed by school) and that placement has been accepted and paid for, it is now going to be almost impossible to renege on the offer without it being in some way discriminatory because the behaviours were present at time of the offer, regardless if a school policy was in place (law trumps policy 100% of time).

Ive come to see that most if not all school policy is written with the neurotypical child in mind, one who can and should be able able to regulate one’s own behaviours.

When offering a child with neurodiverse issue’s suspected or diagnosed this is when policies like this will typically set a neurodiverse child up to fail and school or teacher in a bit of bother.

If you offer a child with disabilities a placement it’s done with full knowledge that there is going to be reasonable adaptations made to accommodate those behaviours because they cannot meet policy Standards for what ever reason. If a teacher or school cannot show they did their due diligence in this matter they should resign themselves to the fact they have directly or indirectly or both discriminated against a child with disabilities by pulling the offer of a trip away and staying “it’s because poor behaviours, it’s our policy” or “we cannot get someone to cover the extra man power to supervise them”.

If a school leaves it late or does does just surface level searches to appear to accommodate the child don’t be surprised when the Governors take action or the LEA either before during or after a discrimination case in the courts.

So to come back to your statement “Teachers don't ban students from trips unless there is a proper reason, as it would really come back to bite.” Just make sure those reasons are clearly lawful and justified and your policies are not a one size fits all policy and you’ll be golden! 

theoretica

Also, if his behaviour and needs have not changed in the time since they took the deposit arguably they took it under false pretences.  There can be an issue with unrealistic expectations of change.