“I couldn’t believe that in 2015 a teacher would respond in that way to me.”
New South Wales teenager Tyran Fennell, who has Autism Spectrum Disorder, was looking forward to his year 10 formal next week.
According to his mother Deanne Fennell, the 16-year-old boy rarely had events to look forward to, so the formal meant a lot to him.
But when the Ms Fennell called up a teacher to find out more about the plans, she learned her son had been invited to the formal by “mistake”.
“She said she would not be attending because it’s her son’s birthday and they don’t get paid to attend and what would he get out of it anyway,” Mrs Fennell told Fairfax Media of her phone call with the teacher.
“I said back to the teacher I thought he would get what every other 16-year-old would get out of attending a year 10 formal, which was dressing up, dancing on the night and enjoying the night with their friends,” she elaborated in an interview with ABC News.
“[I was] absolutely gutted, I couldn’t believe that in 2015 a teacher would respond in that way to me and that’s why I’ve had to take things further.”
Ms Fennell, from the Hunter region of New South Wales, wrote letters to the school and met with the deputy principal, who did not agree with the teacher’s response. She was ultimately told Tyran is allowed to attend next Thursday’s event.
He will be escorted by his sister.
But throughout the process of sorting out the formal issue, Ms Fennell discovered a year 10 camp had been held throughout the year without her knowledge.
When brought up her son’s exclusion from the camp with school management, she was told it was “an oversight”.
“I just said, ‘Well, I can’t believe if you’ve only got eight students in your [supported learning] class and how could you think not to invite to the camp’?” she told ABC News.
“The lady now that I spoke to at the Department of Education has come back and said the year 10 camp he wasn’t academically suited to go [on], that was the answer,” she said.
“I am questioning now how many things he has been excluded from that I haven’t known about.”
A Department of Education spokesman told the ABC that “all year 10 students were invited to the camp and formal” and claimed that “Cessnock High is an inclusive school, providing a caring and supportive learning environment.”
It added, however, that the school was “reviewing its communications for such events”.
Top Comments
How could the parent not know about the camp? As another poster commented, do they not read newsletters? How about involving yourself with the school and your child's education.... I would suggest the school aren't the only ones in the wrong here!!!!!!!
He was never uninvited to the formal, the Mother called his teacher, expecting the teacher to accompany Tyler on the night. It's not the teachers job to organise the students social lives in their own time, the Mum should have organised for his sister to go with him in the first place, not just assume the teacher would be free on the night, I don't think the teacher was rude at all.