AIBU to insist my son has the suspension lifted?

I am writing this as a secondary school teacher with behavioural responsibility. As others have said, it might not have arrived yet but if they are going ahead with the suspension they have to send paperwork and on there it gives you how you can appeal. If you win the appeal, the suspension days are removed from your child’s record. If you send your child in on Monday and they are accepted into lessons as normal, they have decided not to suspend. If he is put in isolation, they may still count it as a suspension on his record (and just not tell you) so you need to get that clarified if you are adamant that he should not be suspended over this.
From what you have said, and what you say you have been told, it sounds like a knee-jerk ‘suspend both cos they both hit each other’ reaction from the school. It is very likely that you were the second call, the first being to the other child’s parent who responded with ‘well my kid was hit too what are you going to do about that’ and the response, to pacify, was ‘he’ll be suspended too’. Not ideal, not if we are honest what should happen but unfortunately what does happen sometimes.

If you can, take him in on Monday morning and ask to speak face to face with someone. Explain the situation and what you were told over the phone. If the story hasn’t changed , a reasonable face to face conversation fresh on Monday morning will probably yield much better results than a fraught Friday afternoon phone call.

I was completely on your side until the water bottle update.

ok so it was a generic water bottle, he wasn’t aware it belonged to someone. My questions would be why did the other boy attack your son and not the 2 boys originally kicking the bottle?

Normally my position would be fine, school rules say suspension when using violence to defend themselves. I’d be telling the school verbally in front of my child my child did nothing wrong, put it in writing then taking my child out for some fun during the suspension, there would be no consequences at home.

if the attack happened because my child willingly or unwittingly did something to instigate the attack. I would be talking to them about how their actions, innocent or not had started this. We don’t know if there was something else going on with the other child or not. They aren’t in trouble at home but at school we will take the punishment, noting our disagreement but hope they learn from the situation to be careful going forward.

But I do agree with the rest of what @Buntycat has advised

@Buntycat OP said that SLT told her exactly the same, so its not "her sons version of events".

i thought it was a sensible and balanced post from a teacher

Yes.

Have you even bothered reading past the first post?

It’s understandable that you take your son's side, but you need to be cautious. Presumably you have only heard his version of events. There might well be another version, and as a teacher I can tell you that children don’t always tell their parents the full story.

It's good that you are following the school's complaints procedure. You could ask for a meeting with a senior person at the school and ask them to explain fully why they think your son was to blame. If you are not satisfied you could escalate it to the Chair of Governors or equivalent at the school.

Do stay calm and be reasonable, though. Just because your son is physically smaller and has ADHD, that doesn’t automatically absolve him from any blame. I suspect there might be more to it than you currently know.

If SLT have given you this version of events, it's very unfair, and I agree you should report to the police as your son just defended himself and this child assaulted him.

You can't insist they remove the suspension, but you can treat it as a holiday and have a fun few days with your son, obviously around your work hours.

the policy they have referred to re violence… is it documented anywhere?

absolute no previous bullying of your son by this boy op? your son ever even mentioned this other boy?

You're believing your son over what the school say, despite the fact that you weren't there?! Righty-oh!

So the timeline is that the OP's son and his friends were kicking another boy's water bottle around.

The other boy retaliated by being extremely violent to the OP's son who retaliated in turn.

There is no excuse for violence under any circumstance and suspension for both the violent boys would be the default for most schools. And quite rightly.

The school will also have taken into consideration that it was the OP's son's friends who had somehow initially obtained the other boy's water bottle and were kicking it around.

Not an excuse for the ensuing violence, but an explanation of why it happened.

What happened to the other boys who were involved in the water bottle incident @NightmareATschool ? Does your son have any idea why he was targeted and not them, given he only joined in later?

YAAbsolutely NBU, I work in a school. I have seen (lower level) similar. It's very unfair, child A attacked by child B, A defends, both treated same, it's not fair at all.
Definitely push and complain about this.

Sounds like your son and his friends were bullying the boy , by kicking his water around and the boy reacted .

@Nanny0gg It's assault. Speak to the police. I am sick of these school attacks.

^This, exactly.

Can someone please explain why a HT would choose not to report a crime to the police? Am I missing something here?

If I, as an adult, are assaulted, I have a right to use reasonable force to protect myself, and I would report this to the police.

Why is it OK to not report to the police that a child has been assaulted?

I really detest this idea that self-defence is violence, and should be punished in the same way as attacking someone. When this happens in schools it teaches children that they should be passive and submit to physical attacks by bullies.

So your son and his friends started the altercation by kicking the other boys water bottle around

Punches to the head can be serious. I am guessing this is why the school are taking this line. The summary us your son was in a fight. He didn't start it according to him but nevertheless he punched someone in the head. I would expect the other student has a longer suspension but you won't be told that. If you send him in he may just have another period of isolation.

You can't insist anything

@NightmareATschool - I am so sorry for you and your son. My DS (when he was 9yo) was viciously attacked at school by a child that my DS had several run ins with. Each attack on him was unprovoked - the TAs bore witness to this. In the end, he attacked my son so viciously that the school called the police on this child (child was a year older, coming up to the age of culpability). The mum of this child actually had the audacity to text other parents to in an attempt to tarnish my son’s name and give the idea that it was my son causing these fights (again, the TAs were great because they could prove that he was not). In the end, we pulled my son out of the school but it took every last bit of strength not to march up to that mum and give her a piece of my mind! I would speak with the school and see if this attack was witnessed by a member of staff, ask the school what they will do to prevent future incidents and even contact the police about this. I hope your soon is on the mend soon

I would also be asking why you were not called immediately if your son was a) injured and needed treatment and b) if they considered the offence so bad he is being suspended they should have called you.

It’s bang out of order and you were right to challenge the school. It’s absolutely ridiculous do they not realise children are humans who feel panic and fear when someone is pinning them down not robots that you can programme to never hit back. I’d question the merits of trying to indoctrinate children not to defend themselves ever. Where does it end?

Slightly off topic but I wonder if it’s part of a wider problem that the laws on self defence seem very murky in this country. I was attacked by a woman on a tram (that I later learned had a long history of assaults) I had to be very careful with defending myself and everyone (bystanders and police) said I’d shown amazing restraint considering she literally tried to strangle me with a piece of my own clothing. The reason is because had I smacked her on the face I knew the police may have charged both of us. I’ve seen this kind of thing happen both to children and adults . Even as things were, the woman still tried to get me charge with assault!

I work in schools and often I see the bully getting away with lots of unacceptable behaviour because the schools don’t really know how to deal with them anymore. It’s easier to deal with victims family and claim it’s was mutual, as they can be often more reasonable. We have one parent who after being called into the school about her child being a bully damaged lots of staff cars. The police didn’t do anything. The school avoid calling the parent in at all costs now, meaning he gets away with a lot more.