DDs Classmate smashed a Window today - Would you expect the School to tell Parents?

No.

Smashed glass, shock n upset.
Yes it is in the parents interest to know what's going on and how it's been dealt with.

In the olden days 🙄 we kids were actively told not to tell our parents stuff that happens in school...
It's at best bad practice and at worst encourages an atmosphere of sweeping things under the carpet and mistrust.

My view the school was right but could just as easily have sent a brief broad message out.

This happened, been dealt with, etc.

Schools should be open and honest (you don't need fine details for this)

The perpetrators parents should be told but not sure about other parents. That said i would have told my parents if I had witnessed that behaviour.

Erm..no

Whaaat?! They inform parents when a child throws something?! That's bizarre. I actually work at a lovely independent school and I assure you that that does NOT happen in mine (ie throwing does, but whole class emails everything someone throws something would be madness)

No I wouldn't, although maybe if my child was very upset. My dc have witnessed this kind of thing several times each so they mostly see it as something a bit interesting and a chance to get out of lessons for a bit.

I’d have expected a letter with basic facts so whispers don’t turn it into something bigger

It's not criminal damage. They are 7.

I think parents probably should have been told. Not because it was unsafe or anything but because it was likely quite shocking and distressing for the other children, and parents shpuld always know if something had happened that has made their child upset or scared while in school so that they can support and reassure their child.
We are after all talking about 7 year olds here.

Yes indeed this is a school and needs to be addressed with them your child and yourselves yes I do understand school can be hard for some yet good for others by working together I do hope things do get better I have gone through this and it was a nightmare dealing with it all

I wouldn't consider criminal damage poor behaviour, next thing you know they throw a kid through the windows or beat up another child. Kick them repeatedly. People would be concerned then, and wish parents were informed about it.

Or would they wait until someone was murdered by a school kid during school hours and claim the school is usually so safe?

I never understood this. It's a danger to others. It should be something they report to others.

I wouldn't expect to be informed.
I think the fact the teacher has told the children to tell their parents speaks volumes.
The only reason I can see for the teacher to do this is so parents complain, it sounds that this teacher is reaching out for action to be taken

I didn't say this is a shit storm that happens constantly... not sure if you're attempting to quote me there or not.

At the end of the day, when you're working with children things like this will happen for a number of reasons. The child could be in care/ on the verge of care and is traumatised. Removing that child from familiar places is not necessarily going to be helpful to that child. The child maybe have SEN but not have a diagnosis in which case school is still going to be the appropriate place for them until a diagnosis is secured. At that point it becomes an issue for the local authority and government distribution of resources to allocate children appropriate school places if they need extra help in school or more specialist provision. It may be out of character for the child because something big is happening at home or elsewhere in their life and they aren't coping. It might be a 'temporary' issue that the child needs temporary support to manage such as bereavement/ family illness where expulsion would be inappropriate and harmful. There's a million reasons why a child may lash out. You can't stop it all, you can't even foresee it all, what you can do is manage it reactively (getting others to safety and then debriefing them and offering seperate support to that individual pupil) and then trying to establish safety plans and risk assess going forwards. But again that should fall under the schools behaviour policy.

There's a difference between managing it at individual school and staff level which I feel was handled best they could, and managed at a higher local authority and government funding level which I think anyone in here would agree is insufficient.

You say it's being managed @Lavender14 but surely the fact that there are so many posters here saying this is happening all day everyday in schools shows that it isn't being managed effectively at all? Because if schools were able to manage this behaviour they would be able to stop it. I don't count moving everyone away and allowing the child to have a violent destructive outburst as successful management of that behaviour. I don't believe that anything will be happening that will prevent this or similar from occurring again.

That isn't the fault of the school, necessarily, and almost certainly not the fault of the individual teacher having to deal with this. They don't have the resources or the powers needed to do very much at all, we know that.

But you can't say that "this is a shit storm that happens constantly because we can't stop it happening" and "this situation is effectively managed" at the same time.

I understand where you're coming from and I agree that different children will respond differently to scenario like that. But if you're noticing things like that in your child then linking in with the school is the appropriate next step when to me it would then be the right time for them to pass on the information to you and offer additional support to your child. I understand why you'd want it in advance but realistically, not all parents will be helpful, the school would be inundated and probably be unable to give out any further info regardless and it could make life very difficult for the other child who is likely to have SEN or trauma in their background and their parents. You don't want to alienate a child who's struggling and their parents any more than you want to abandon a child who is witnessing challenging behaviour. I think in the midst of gdpr that the school has done as much as they can in this instance.

@CaptainCarrotsBigSword the difference is that it's been managed. There were staff present who managed the situation very appropriately by the sound of things, immediately removed all children from the room, provided emotional support and information to those children and provided separate support and there will be follow up for the individual child who presented with the challenging behaviour. That's very different than an adult acting out in a scenario where noone takes action/ is responsible and there's no follow up.

I’m surprised at how many posters are surprised by this incident. The truth is that this is commonplace in most schools, secondary and primary, and parents need to trust schools to have procedures in place to keep children safe when a child behaves in this way. Schools have to adhere to GDPR and rules around confidentiality, so to send a bland and non-specific email will
lead to an influx of queries. This child will already be absorbing an extraordinary amount of time, add in another 29 parents all seeking reassurance and information, and the school will be put under further pressure, whilst being extremely limited in what can actually be divulged. The school is damned if they do, damned if they don’t.

I noted one poster questioning what schools are doing about this type of behaviour. Yet again schools are blamed, unfairly. How about asking what the parents are doing? Or the Local Authority? Many children in mainstream education, either through the choice of their parents or because the Local Authority want them to at least ‘try’, are set up for failure and the impact on the school and children in the same class is huge. The vast majority of parents would be horrified if they spent a week in a school; the amount of kids with trauma (the NSPCC states 1 in 5 children in the UK have experienced childhood trauma) and their resulting behaviour is frightening. Trauma Perceptive Practice (TPP) has been introduced in many schools. Why are we not questioning why so many children are being exposed to trauma during their formative years (abuse and/or neglect).

We have to take action, fast, to improve societal values, support families, raise our expectations, reduce our tolerance of anti-social behaviour, improve services to support mental health, make work pay, increase aspirations amongst youngsters and see having children as a privilege and not a right and educate everyone of child bearing age of the responsibilities of being a parent and stop the tsunami of entitlement drowning the UK at the moment.

Some children take time to process things like this. Some won't show an overt emotional reaction and hold it all in. Some will have questions and not feel confident to ask their teacher. She probably only had a few minutes - OP said they were late out so I assume hapenned at end if school day. Not enough time to answer questions from 29 children.

As a parent of a child who a similar thing hapenned to at the same age, and who wasn't told and only found out when my daughter broke down in tears at 3am after weeks of nightmares and school refusal, I absolutely believe parents should be told so they can support their child in an individual way.

If it was something the school wanted the parents to know about eg to support any children that may have been frightened, I would have expected them to notify the parents themselves, rather than through a 7 year old.

Even the most honest of children may not give the best version of what happened when telling a parent so that they find out what they need to know. Things the parent doesn't need to know will be left out and a child may go into great detail about something not relevant.
If it happened late in the day so no email could be sent by the time the children were leaving, and they were late out, then I can understand that the children were told to say why they were late, but a brief email to explain basic info, that no one was hurt, and what to do if a child was upset by it may settle any concern and save multiple emails/parents asking what happened.

I’m wondering why in the hell does a school not have safety glass at kicking level? The only glass a 7 year old could kick through is plate glass. Schools are required to follow U.K. safety glass regulations.

The school may not be contacting you because they would rather not have the conversation.

The easiest way of finding out is if there is a safety mark on the pane of glass. The manufacturer’s logo and name should be on the glass, with a reference to a relevant product standard. For toughened glass, this is BS EN 12150, and for laminated glass, this is BS EN 14449. If you can see this on the pane, then you know that it is made using safety glass.

Girls can be viscous. In my case was also a girl. A different girl tried to attack another student with hair straighteners (plugged in) on a residential. Another 2 went for another girl with hockey sticks, straightener girl had a prior for trying to use a netball post like a battering ram to break down a door.

my db is a teacher who left a school due to appalling behaviour, including a child seriously assaulting him in a temper

No I wouldn’t expect to, not unless my child was actually involved or harmed.

Well the reason is so that they are aware of the violent outburst their child witnessed and may be very upset by. So they can, you know, parent them effectively without being in the dark.

it’s astonishing people on this thread wouldn't have an issue with not being informed their 7yo had witnessed this.