School issue - violent kid

Tbh it sounds like the school are dealing with it, reception age kids are still a bit feral tbh. However they do have an obligation to the other parents to give it a good go to get their child settled and behaving appropriately. I would say to the school, it’s fine if they want to do that but they need to have a 1 to 1 to minimise the risk of incidents until it is resolved. I would not be happy either. DD’s school will withdraw a place if kids can’t follow the behaviour policy but they do have a process for that. This does involve exploring SEN as well which I think is reasonable as small adjustments may enable a child to continue. I imagine thats what they are currently doing. Working through their own internal policy on managing behaviour. It may be worth checking their behaviour policy yourself so you get a good idea of what their processes is.

Sorry to say I also don’t think another child’s difficulties means I have to be understanding about my child being hit. I expect my DD to be compassionate towards other people but not to the extent where she is not allowed to have boundaries around her own wellbeing to accommodate others. Thats the red line. Yes I would complain if she was regularly being hit at school, it’s supposed to be a safe experience for her too.

Reception age children don’t understand the concept of rights. However, the school is obliged to make reasonable adjustments for disability, such as providing additional adult support for him (not on him).

Every parents concern is with their own child. Sorry to say but if my child was being injured by another pupil regularly I would expect the school to seperate the pupil from those he is hurting. If your child was regularly hitting other children, I'd be very surprised if parents were not complaining.

Sorry to sound harsh, but your childs diagnosis is not the issue of other parents.

I think this is everything that's wrong with private education honestly and one of the reasons why I'd never support it. Child struggles - kick them out faster and make them a mainstream schools issue. Meanwhile mainstream schools are struggling financially to support higher numbers of struggling children. Such a shame their parents aren't wealthy hey. Because that's what it ultimately boils down to - a very basic level of the rich get richer. Privileged children get better education better resources better grades better jobs and the others are just left behind. I work in state schools and some have given up their staffrooms and stores and self funded little safe sensory spaces to do EVERYTHING in their power to reach those children and help them sustain school because they genuinely care about all children's outcomes.

I think op what you need to consider is that this is reception. It's early, early doors into the education system for this group of children. Some will be statemented in time (but not at that age), some will have experienced recent trauma that they will need extra support to navigate and again because they are so little that isn't as easy as providing a schools counsellor the way you might for older pupils and at this point in the year the school may not even have enough of a relationship built to identify safeguarding issues at home if that's the root cause.

There's a huge amount of emotional intelligence and resilience work that needs to be done at that age to help a lot of children interact well with the education system and that will take time.

As a parent what I would be looking at are the strategies the school is putting in place to manage this, how committed they are to it, the range and breadth of strategies they're prepared to use BEFORE expelling a child. If they swifty moved to removing a child under the guise of 'safety' I'd be pulling mine because if god forbid tragedy ever befell my family and my child experienced significant trauma and was struggling behaviourally I'd want his school to be a safe consistent space and to try to help him.

Obviously you want your child to be safe and to enjoy school, but there needs to be a balance and these children will need time to learn and adapt to a school setting. They are very little and hitting is not unusual for that age, some will do it in school and some will do it when they get home because they're exhausted and have been holding it in all day so you just won't see it. Speak to the school about the pastoral care they're offering to all pupils and what strategies they're using to support affected pupils while helping the other sustain being in school.

You will be lucky to find a school where there won’t be an incident of a child getting physical

Precisely.

Yeh... and they did. 👌

Nobody has any right to hit anyone. But every child has a right to have their needs supported. Thanks to my son's wonderful school (and the fact that parents were supportive rather than starting a witch-hunt and demanding expulsion) my son is now thriving and doing brilliantly.

That is not what I said at all. Please re-read my comments.

And actually my son does have it really hard - he struggles every day and probably always will. Thankfully in such a supportive environment (this is a top HMC independent school) he is thriving. With parents like you around... Well, it may well be a very different story.

They do thought as they want the money. My nieces and nephews have been to 3 different private schools and bullying was rife. My cousins son went to a private school and bully and drugs were rife

@Worriedmotheroftwo do you honestly think that the child whos is being violent has it worse than the one being physically assaulted? That as a parent of a child who's being punched and kicked I should be saying 'yes I know Timmy is hurting you, but poor Timmy having to kick you'??

State schools cannot afford to give 1:1 support to every child who hits.

An independent school might but it still won't stop every incident.

Sorry but you child having ADHD and ASD does not give your child any right whatsoever to hit or hurt MY child.

the school should have put a 1 to 1 on him if he was physically assaulting other children.

As others have said everything turns on what you mean by getting physical. That could be any of 1. A well meaning child who hasn't learnt good boundaries yet being too rough when playing 2. An child who gets frustrated in social interactions deliberately hitting other children and needing to learn different ways to channel their frustration or 3. A child who is getting overwhelmed by the demands of the classroom (sensory, emotional or pedagogical) having a meltdown, and other people including children getting caught in the crossfire. All of these will be difficult for your DS to witness but they need different approaches from the school and a different timeline to support. So no one here can say what the school should do - they need to respond to exactly what they are dealing with.

I would focus on your DS. Reassure him. Talk to the teacher with him there to clarify what happened, it isn't his fault and the adults are trying to make everyone safe. It is good to learn that sometimes other children have big feelings, hurt people as a result and grown ups have to help them learn better ways to deal with that. That's healthier than learning if you have big feelings people will be angry with you and exclude you. Because whilst he's doing brilliantly now maybe something will rock his world and you want him to know adults are there to help you get your stuff back together when that happens.

My Ds was bit in reception- it was a. Boy now in 6th form - according to the mum - her Ds didn’t want to play with my Ds and didn’t how to stop my Ds .

i think you need to be clear about with what is going on . Playing tough - very different to your Ds is been kicked and punched .

I would approach the two differently - how are you going to safeguard my Ds if the later , if it is the first teaching your Ds how to play with others , tackle not wanting to play these games .

what is going on with the other children is irrelevant here this is about your child

When a child whacked dd in year 1 I wouldn't have expected it to happen again after I reported it and it didn't. I wouldn't have demanded expulsion but I also certainly wouldn't have been saying it's fine for it to continue as it's only a state school. No child should have to put up with being assaulted at school.

My friend's little one is not settling well in the reception. As a result is scratching, pushing and hitting other children and staff. My friend has had repeated meetings about it and been given parenting advice and resources. Told it's up to the family to work on emotional regulation skills. No additional support at school.

Unfortunately what the school don't know is that there are two completely different approaches to parenting and emotions in general going on at home and my friend has said they (both parents) are at logger heads over it all so aren't moving forward. On hearing this I'd be extremely worried now if I was ever told that parents are aware and it's being dealt with etc ...as the school aren't doing anything themselves and not insisting upon parenting classes etc.

Surely it's a safeguarding issue for the children being hurt?

The OP's child is in Reception. While I would very much hope that no school condones hitting, children of this age are still learning self control and no school is going to exclude a child for one incident.

In reception?!

I understand this stance if they are 14-15, but reception kids are 4 and 5. Missing 10 minutes of play time will be the penalty, if that. Many haven't been in a school setting before and might not be used to sharing toys or taking turns yet. One kid snatches a toy from another, that kid lashes out and whacks the first kid and snatches the toy back. Not excusing it, but it happens. Exclusion would be overkill for every instance of hitting in any school ever.

An independent school will face a lot of parental pressure over this which is presumably why they are being pro-active.

They will already be getting parental complaints.

I would expect a plan and improvement within days if not weeks.

In a similar situation in a state school the head asked for volunteers and there was a rota of TAs working 1:1 with the child every afternoon and their job was to make sure he didn't hurt anyone.

i'd expect a noticeable improvement within 48 hours certainly NOT weeks or months. a solid plan in place, when ABC is dysregulated XYZ happens (which might be going to a quiet room to calm down or having 1-1 during recess depending on where the inappropriate behavior is being displayed).
i'd also discuss the contract and being able leave without penalty should further incidents occur.

Your first sentence was that your child had started a new school in Reception. Does that mean that it’s the first school he’s been to, or that the independent school is a new school for him, but the second school in Reception?

It’s good that the staff have approached you and acknowledge the issue. There’s a couple of weeks until the end of term and if they have put things in place, you should see some improvement by then. If nothing is different next term, I’d be insisting on some further action and tell them that you’ll be looking for another school if you don’t feel your child is safe.