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Hi All
I am new to this forum, and hoping someone can give me some advice,
i will cut the story short,
I have got a 12 year old son, who i have seen for most of his live, i went to court a number of years ago to get parental responsibility and also a contact order
At the moment i am not seeing my son due to my Ex not allowing me after a couple of arugments, this has happened on a number of occasions over the years,
What i want to know is with parental responsibility can/am i allowed to contact my sons school etc to get copies of his school reports and also to find out how he is doing etc????
Also how legally binding is the contact order ( As over the years we have verbally agreed to change when he comes to my house etc, due to my work and also with us moviing to a smaller hosue) yes she sometimes throughs this back at me saying you don't see him as per the contact order, But she also has no problems saying he won't be coming next week becuase we are doing something or he is going to visit his uncle for a week
Hi Halifaxdad, and welcome to the forum.
Nice and simple answers to your questions. Yes, parental responsibility does give you the right to contact the school - you should ask them for copies of all reports to be sent to you automatically, so you don't have to keep asking, likewise any other communications (such as notifications to parents evenings). If the school uses an electronic form of communications, then you can be added to this.
Court orders are legally binding - the parent with care is legally bound to have the child available for contact (annoyingly, it doesn't compel the Non-resident parent to turn up - not relevant in your case) and not complying is contempt of court. Unless the court order states otherwise, there is normally lattitude to make arrangements to vary a little (let's face it, if both parents agree, how is the court going to find out anyway) without going back to court to vary it. However, the court order still stands, so either party can insist that this is stuck to. If the change has been fairly consistent for an extended period, it would be reasonable for either one to go back to court and put a case to get the contact order varied using the new contact arrangements as a basis, though mediation would be the first step before doing this.
Have a quick search through Yoji's recent posts - he explains the steps necessary to get the order enforced if it's being broken.
Thank you Actd for the info,
I will send an email to the school in the next couple of days requesting all information, but from what i have heard is that she has told the school not to speak to me with regards to my son at all, and according to her the school has agreed to this,
With regards to the contact order, it was at first setup for me to have my son friday evening to sunday, But as he was getting older she wanted to spend some weekend time with him aswell, which i did not mind as she deserved that, so then it changed to alternate weekends, but she did not like that, so it went to every saturday and alternate weekends for stopping over night, then after not seeing him again after another argument it went to just every saturday with the occiasional overnight stop, and that is how it has been for the last 4 years.
Again thank you for the info,
Hi
Personally, I'd be inclined to ring the head teacher rather than email initially to have a friendly chat and explain the situation - much more personal at this stage, and tell them that you'll send a copy of the court order giving you parental responsibility.
Take a look at this posting:
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That might help with your discussions
Good Afternoon everyone,
Sorry for not letting you all know how things went.
I got in touch with the school and explained who i was etc (they already knew about me from my ex), i explained that i had Parental Responsibility,
Told them i was not seeing my son at the moment (Still not) and i will like to be kept update with school reports etc,
The school has agreed to this and just before christmas i recieved my first school report. so hopefully this will continue
Regards
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