A Nottingham family say they've been left frustrated that a 14 year old is missing out on his education due to what they have described as a "harsh" punishment. The teenager is a pupil at Bulwell Academy, where he has missed out on education after he felt unsafe completing his isolation days at another school site, the Ellis Guildford School a few miles away in Basford.
The pupil reportedly received two days isolation after he refused to put on his school blazer, which had been soaked by a water bottle from another pupil that morning. The pupil's family claim that due to the incident he was sent home and told he needed to complete two days in isolation at another school, during which he would need to wear his own school uniform.
Bulwell Academy said it uses "alternative reset spaces at sister school Ellis Guilford when staff feel it is necessary to provide students with a more neutral space for reflection".
The student's dad, Gary Grocock, 46, said: "They have no intention of educating my son whatsoever, all they keep doing is sending him to reset or sending him home, and now they've given him a punishment where he has to go to Ellis Guildford for two days or he's not allowed back into Bulwell Academy."
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The family said the teenager attended his first day of isolation at the school, and felt he became a target for the other pupils due to his Bulwell Academy uniform. His family have said he received a number of threats from other pupils.
Gary explained: "He went for the first day and when he came back he said I can't go there again dad, they were threatening me about postcodes and all this. I'm not sending my kid there when he's scared and I've told Bulwell Academy this and they said well he's not coming back here until he's done his punishment.
"He's had two years out of education because of Coronavirus and now they are starving him of education again. He's not getting no education by being sent out or punished all the time."
The pupil's older sister, Courtney White, 22, added: "He's done one day at Ellis Guildford and clearly he is scared, you can see it in his face, he will not go back there as they threatened to stab him, kill him, everything. I said to them why can't he do one day isolation with you lot, and they said no he has to go to Elis Guildford again and shrugged their shoulders at me."
When asked why his son was sent to another school for his isolation, Gary said: "Their reason was because they work with Ellis Guildford they can send him there to have his punishment. I said you're not sending him to a school where he feels threatened, and I told the headmistress this on the Monday on the first day he went there, and they said I'll get back to you when I've looked into it, and they never got back to me.
"He wants to go back to school, it's not like he doesn't want to go to school." Courtney described the punishment as "harsh."
She added: "I've raised this with Bulwell Academy, as he came home terrified, absolutely terrified. I've literally had to go down to the school myself as nobody will ring me back. I turned round and said it's safe guarding that you have to do this as he's petrified, and my little brother isn't scared of anything, but he was scared.
"They just weren't doing anything, they were just trying to shove him in a taxi to go back to Ellis Guildford." Due to the school's distance away from the family, it would take 20 minutes for them to get there and they just want to see the teenager safely return to his own school.
A spokesperson for the Creative Education Trust, which operates both schools, said: “We have high expectations of behaviour at all times at and we make this clear to our pupils and families. Whilst it wouldn’t be appropriate for us to provide comment about the behaviour of individual students, Bulwell Academy does use alternative reset spaces at sister school Ellis Guilford when staff feel it is necessary to provide students with a more neutral space for reflection.”
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