Re: How far can teachers go ? : Sat Jul 20, 2013 3:28 pm  

World of Redboy wrote:

Is there anything in this world you don't have direct experience of?

His brain working.

Re: How far can teachers go ? : Sat Jul 20, 2013 3:59 pm  

World of Redboy wrote:

Is there anything in this world you don't have direct experience of?

I'm starting to get old and have lived life in the fast lane!

As to education law, Mrs Dally has spent the last 15 years fighting battles on behalf of one of our children, she has also seen paperwork on hundreds of other cases. With due respect to FA, even if he is a solicitor, unless he is one of the handful of experts who operate in the field of education law he will know less than Mrs D (and to a lesser extent me) on the subject. We have a bookcase of law textbooks on the subject! Mrs D goes to regular lectures on the subject.

Re: How far can teachers go ? : Sat Jul 20, 2013 4:06 pm  

As has been said, the OP should keep typed notes / minutes of evertyhing - exactly what son said, what was said in the meeting at school on Friday, etc. Ideally, send those minutes to school and ask them to confirm by return that they were OK and that if they do not response within a specified number of days then it will be assumed they are accurate. If something hits the fan quality, contemporaeous records will be important.

Re: How far can teachers go ? : Sat Jul 20, 2013 4:06 pm  

the cal train wrote:

I see your point, but it's not the accident(or whatever you want to call it), it's the funny business with forcing a 13 year old lad into signing an unread and possibly untrue statement. Don't like it one bit.

I was the first to reply. My first response was that the OP should forget about going to the school and go straight to the police. We're on the same side when it comes to anger about that.

I doubt if the teachers, as you say, simply overstepped the mark trying to sort things out, would be fired. Severely reprimanded, probably. Fired, unlikely.

We know that the teachers just overstepped the mark to sort things out. They shouldn't have done it, but it worked out the best for everyone. We're angry at the teachers for their tactics, but accept that their motives are honest.

The problem is that cal train's suggestion was to write to Ofsted, the MP and the newspaper. I don't think they're coming from the "it all worked out fine" angle.

Re: How far can teachers go ? : Tue Jul 23, 2013 12:16 pm  

Lord God Jose Mourinho wrote:

...
If the teachers actually were bullying kids to get themselves out of trouble, if they were threatening the "police" on a 13 year old boy to sign something that they knew was a lie solely to protect themselves, then the correct response is to go to the police and let the police deal with it.

I'd be very reluctant to be the one who involved the police. My initial move would be to attend the school myself and discuss these issues directly.

Lord God Jose Mourinho wrote:

...
Eh????

It's true. Unless you know the rules of evidence, and can apply them to the situation, having regard to the purpose for which the statement will (or even may be) used, then your "layman's" statement will very likely be rubbish, contain stuff it shouldn't, omit stuff it should contain, include hearsay, opinion, etc etc.

Of course, that's not to say that most statements are made by or with the help of lawyers, plainly the vast majority are not, and no doubt they serve various, usually non-legal purposes passably adequately, but doesn't alter the fact that in a legal setting most would not pass muster, and would need to be re-drawn.

Lord God Jose Mourinho wrote:

...Read the OP. A 13 year old boy was told to sign a statement without reading it. He was then told to sign a statement of a couple of pages and given 1 minute to do it.

All of which is indisputably ridiculous and unacceptable.

Lord God Jose Mourinho wrote:

...They are making it clear that a driver isn't qualified to pass judgement .....

Well not exactly, that is one aspect, but the driver may be the world's leading authority on road traffic collisions, and a hundred times better qualified than anyone at the insurance co., that wouldn't make a difference to the requirement. Then again if the other driver wants to claim, then he has to prove liability, and lack of admission makes the case much easier for insurers to defend if they want to. Which is very often. Unless his essential position is ("I deliberately slammed the door shut on his fingers hoping to chop them off" (I presume unlikely) then I'd suggest the boy is at least as unqualified to pass judgement as the car driver.