Brodie's Future.

I had a meeting up at Brodie's high school this morning. There were three teachers (Assistant Principal, Yr 12 coordinator and the special ed teacher) plus Brodie and myself. I was thinking that Brodie probably thought that he was being ganged up on considering how many people were there.

The meeting was to discuss what we are going to do to help Brodie either complete Yr 12 or to see if he was going to quit school. I was hoping that we could convince him to stay and finish. Last year Brodie mentioned how he wanted to be the first grandchild to complete high school on his Dad's side of the family. Now that I think of it none of the other kids (apart from myself) in my family finished high school either. Out of Dad's kids that is not his step-children (the oldest 4 are from Mums first marriage). I don't know if they all finished or not.

I could see that Brodie was very peeved that he was even at the meeting and he was getting louder & louder trying to get HIS point accross. Thankfully by the end of it all he was definitely in a better place and didn't feel so bad about the outcome.

Here's what we discussed. Basically there are three options for Brodie and his schooling.

1. He finishes school as is and attends every day that he is meant to be there. Co-operating with the teachers and students without the antics that have happened recently which ended up with his being suspended twice.
2. Brodie works off campus & completes Yr 12 that way. Which means he will be working from home (just like he did in Yr 7 & 8 when he was suspended a lot). The teachers will provide the work for him and he completes it. He may be required from time to time to go into school for some lessons for 1 - 2 a week. That when he is on campus he can request help from the teachers providing the work or from the aide who will be scheduled to work with him while he is there. He also has the option to phone or email the school and get help from the teachers that way. There will also be times when Brodie needs to go into the school for assessments. This will be where he presents his work in front of a small group of people so that he can be graded that way. He is to also keep going to TAFE to finish his Hospitality course.
   Completing school this way will still enable him to access the help that the school can provide. Linking us up with the Futures Program which helps the school and an agency help Brodie find work once school is over. 
3. Find an alternative pathway. That means he leaves now and finds his own way to deal with being out in the 'real' world.

Once the Assistant Principal left the meeting we were able to have a really good talk with Brodie about option 2.  To pass VCE/VCAL Brodie needs to acquire points. Points in different areas such as literacy, numeracy, personal development, work placement & other subjects. I'm not exactly sure what areas need to be completed but the school will work all of that out.

Right now it looks like Brodie is well on the way to successfully completing Yr 12. All we need to do is get him through the next 9-10 weeks (not including the September holidays).

For now Brodie needs to have a really good think about what we discussed at the meeting. Tomorrow we will phone the school and let them know what Brodie's final decision is. So far option 2 is looking really promising.