I'm a Teacher in a Pupil Referral Unit. Ama

[teachandsleep]

Ask me anything. Work with Secondary age children

I'm a school nurse with two referral units on my caseload so I spend a lot of time there. There is in my experience a disproportionate amount of safeguarding to manage at those schools, prompting the question (for me at least) does the difficult behaviour cause pressures at home which contributes to the safeguarding levels or does the poor parenting impact negatively on behaviour. I'm fairly convinced it's the latter. Kudos to you OP, I know it's not an easy area to work in. To the poster who asked about injuries one of the staff members I know had a broken finger breaking up a fight a few weeks ago

Do the kids only go to school 4 days a week?

Sadly some parents push for a diagnosis as it attracts DLA when really their parenting lacks.

This is largely bullshit but I am unsurprised that a teacher would say this as I came across this attitude multiple times in teachers over the last decade when both of my children were diagnosed with autism and various other conditions. I have literally been baffled at times at the ignorant shit that certain supposed education professionals have come out with at times. Complete ignorance of even basic knowledge of how autism presents “well we don’t think she’s autistic because she’s maths is a weakness for her, all the children I have know with autism loved maths!”

My actual question for you is can you perhaps go on an autism and other spectrum course immediately and if you already have and still hold your views can you please start looking for alternative employment PRONTO!

Name change as hugely outing but I got punched in the face about three foot away from the Ofsted inspector. Twice.

JamesBoredom in a case like that do you/the school bring charges for assault? Or is it kind of written off as expected behaviour?

Our school is 5 days a week. School hours. Because it is a school!

We don't blame parents. We want to work with them. Sometimes we do have to make referrals based on disclosures, but we don't make inferences about parenting from behaviour.

No charges. Management seemed somewhat incredulous they I’d let it happen twice (we didn’t practice restraint.) I left not long after.

There was a documentary on the BBC and the group of referral units it featured only had a four day week of school. The fifth day was for home based learning.

What do you think are the positives and negatives compared to mainstream?

Have you been assaulted (and if so, much?) I ask as I manage behaviour in a mainstream, threats of violence/aggressive behaviour happens but actual assaults on staff are very rare, but I often hear accounts of serious incidents at our local PRU.

@EllebellyBeeblebrox in mainstream we definitely notice that the trickiest kids have the most chaotic home lives (most with social care involvement etc). I think without a doubt chaotic home lives/poor parenting/abuse causes poor behaviour, but this in turn causes tension and conflict in the home which probably influences parenting and the cycle continues.

I'm interested to learn what you mean by "chaotic" in this context. Thank you.

We have a 5 day week.

As do all the schools in our group.

Our children do not tend to do much at home!

Some do work experience for one day a week though.

I thought this was teachandsleep's AMA?
It bugs me when people in the same job start butting in and answering the questions put to the OP.

@martinidry
It was clearly explained what chaotic meant. Social care involvement.

Have you ever had a child you just wanted to wash your hands of completely?

Has the OP namechanged?

@ourkidmolly the op said mostly social service involvement. With respect to op even that doesn't explain much to someone who isn't accustomed to the way things are done here and in this context. Do you think I asked to cause argument? That's not my intention. 🙂

What strategies do you use for behaviour?

What do you find works best?

Thanks btw.

By chaotic I mean there are factors that make home life unstable and impact on a child's wellbeing/functioning, usually parental substance misuse, mental health or domestic violence . They're the 3 big ones. Also families heavily involved in crime or a parent in prison. Often those families with have multiple children in PRUs/ALP not just one.

Ours do a 5 day week. Yes I have been assaulted but it is quite rare. In this setting you do get the constant verbal and derogatory comments.

Do you do lots of enrichment trips?