Formal School Complaint - AIBU

It’ll be obvious if his friends can see them still in school.

I'm currently trying to teach my very timid daughter to stand up for herself. I have told her is anyone pushes or shoves her in future she will have my full support if she tells them to fuck off. If a group of students were trying to humiliate her by throwing food at her in front of 100+ students , I'd hope she would have the confidence to tell them to fuck off. I fear she would just sit there and take it and then cry uncontrollably when she got home. Your son is not in the wrong here and I cannot believe how many posters are being such arseholes about it.

Schools can’t function on giving pupils the option of whether or not to obey staff's instructions.

I’d like to know how OP knows that is the case.

But why are they making it a battle with him? Why are they putting him into a situation where this has had to happen? I literally can’t get my head around why they were trying to force him to leave when he hadn’t done anything wrong and clearly didn’t want to go, and was seeing it as a punishment. It’s not like there was a big gang of the other boys - there was 2 of them. It honestly sounds like it would have been easier to get them both to isolation, which should have been happening anyway!

The staff are completely in the wrong for escalating this into a confrontation where OP’s son’s behaviour could be classed as “defiance” - leaving should have been an option given to him and if he didn’t want to go then no worries.

I’ve just spoken to DP who is head of Year 11. He said he would try and walk OP’s son out of the hall initially to talk to him but if he didn’t want to go he would just stay with him/nearby. He said the boys throwing food would have to leave and be put in isolation. The swearing would be basically treated as a non-issue.

The school has said that. They’ve told the autistic child he is not allowed in school for study leave. The two bullies are allowed in school for study leave

You are ignoring the fact that punishments cannot be meted out for behaviour caused by unmet SEN needs. This is simply a fact of law in the UK.

And why bullying stats for autistic children are so high.

But the school hasn't said that. You are not party to how those students have been handled. A school, in fact any organisation cannot run safely and effectively if students defy those in charge.

This would be our approach too.

Nail on the head and helps explain why bullying is still probably the main problem in schools. Teachers don’t take it seriously.

Thank you! Thats such a kind thing to say.

Good. I hope the school are given appropriate advice and act on it or they face the consequences.

It is illegal

You’re clearly an awesome teacher. Thank you for the job you do for our vulnerable kids

Shocking isn't it. Surely it must be illegal to treat him so unfairly given his diagnosis and EHCP.

Apparently it’s also absolutely fine for those kids to still attend school for study leave but totally fair and legal for the OPs child to be told not to attend

If this happened in my classroom, for example, I actually don’t think I’d even mention the swearing. I would be so cross with the children throwing and I’d just pass them onto SLT for consequences. I genuinely don’t think I would even attempt to remove the child with ASD unless it was offering for them to move to a quiet space. Sounds like a lot of posters would disagree with this.

Interesting that it’s all the teachers that seem to think “defiance” against school teachers is much worse than physically bullying an autistic kid

So I appreciate I teach primary instead of secondary but this seems like such a categorically clear case of mishandling a situation that I can't believe any posters are disagreeing.

I haven’t seen OP saying anywhere that she expected her child to get no consequence at all but in what world is it acceptable for the instigators who (we assume from what OP has said) are not vulnerable to be punished less severely? I just don’t get it. This isn’t how it would be handled in my school at all - I understand the kids are younger but the actual ethics (probs wrong word - just woke up) of it stay the same.

But it's ok to throw food? You can't think it's ok for the other kids to have no sanctions.

Yup, lazy victim blaming which is typical of schools and why bullying remains such a huge problem, especially for SEN children.

Wow so standing up for yourself when you’ve got a disability, have been physically assaulted and are going to lose your lunch is worse than the physical bullying and assault itself!!!

You are totally missing the point.

Please justify why it’s ok to ask one SEN child not to attend school during study leave (when there are study support sessions being put on) but everyone else is allowed to attend?

You’re missing the point completely.

The issue is that just one child has been asked not to attend. This is discrimination.

If all Year 11s were told not to attend then this is totally fine and I agree with you.