How commonplace is violent behaviour in primary schools?

[PootlesBobbleHat]

I've NC for this post but I've been around MN for years, rarely post but I just don't know where to get genuine opinions from on this.

I don't want to say too much about my DS because his circumstances are quite specific and identifiable. I don't want this to be about his 'Sen', I'm trying to gauge how normal his experience is at school.

He's year 4 with SEN which can include some speech & language, developmental and behavioural issues (so, he's 8 going on 6) but since he started at this school in year 1 we've had a steadily growing problem with him refusing school because he's afraid. Many times he has told us he's been punched in the stomach, shoulder, face, kicked, drop kicked to the ground, called idiot, stupid, loser etc, or sworn at. Sometimes by children he considers friends - one girl in particular he was best friends with who at times rejects him and spends playtime picking on him with her 'New best friend'. Other times its boys in his class or older who are into bodybuilding, fighting, or who are quite 'macho' and see him either as a soft target or someone they can get a rise out of. School has observed some of this and are aware of it but don't seem to get on top of it. Because he has SEN unstructured time like playtime is difficult so they have spent some time observing behaviour because they initially thought he was instigating it, they identified that he is a target of aggression for other children because of his vulnerability but when backed into a corner will lash out which they then thought meant he was the violent one.

We're constantly in meetings but it's not getting resolved as far as I'm concerned. Their suggestion is he stays in and does colouring etc but he wants to be outside playing, of course.

Thing is, if this is 'normal' behaviour now in primary schools is there any point in moving him? Will it be the same in other schools?

Other options are home ed but that's financially not an option. He won't meet criteria for special education although his OT has recommended a specialist secondary school as she thinks mainstream won't meet his needs.

I'm just trying to gain insight into life in primary schools. Is this type of behaviour commonplace? If we move him, will it be frying pan into fire?

So sorry to hear of your little boy's shit experiences. I think his school should be doing a LOT more to prevent him being picked on and bullied. They are currently failing him as I see it.

As to how commonplace this is, I couldn't say. It wouldn't have happened at my DS's school. Not to say bullying or unkindness didn't happen, but certainly not to the level of physical violence and constancy you describe.

Are there other school.options in your area? It might be worth doing a bit of research on them, and seeking opinions of people whose kids go there.

In parallel, I think I would be stepping up the expectations on the school. I can, in a way, see that they needed to do an observation phase, and it's good that they did that rather than a knee-jerk assumption that your DS Was in the wrong. However, the acceptable level of violence is zero. I can't understand why they aren't trying to achieve this, other than by cloistering your kid (the victim) and leaving the perpetrators to carry on as before.

I hope and am sure you'll get lots of really useful posts about how to practically advocate for your DS.

Good luck and hugs for your DS.

Thank you :-)

They have put a lot of emotional and academic support in for him but the playtime seems out of control. Since last summer he's meant to have a named adult in the playground who know his circumstances (for gdpr reasons they've declined to share his info with all staff...), but i dont think they have, they keep saying there are teachers there at all times but DS says things happen when they aren't looking.

They took an incident where a gang of year 6 boys were surrounding him and challenging him to fights very seriously and this seems to have stopped now.

I can't bear the thought of sending a vulnerable child to school where he thinks he's going to be beaten up every day.

I've looked at other schools but those parents whose children are neurological say there are no problems, but parents of other SEN children say there are frequent issues with bullying so it's hard to judge.

That should say neurotypical

That's awful OP and I'm so sorry that this is happening to your little boy. And no, this is not normal or acceptable and the school is failing to protect your DS. Have you involved the governors? The head teacher? The SENCo? Does your school have a pastoral head? Your DS is being seriously bullied by DC not only in his year, but in other year groups, and despite saying that a dedicated person will be in the playground making sure he's isn't being attacked, he still is, because they aren't actually providing anyone. It might be worth ratcheting up your meetings with the school and involving cc-ing all the above, if you aren't already doing so, but I would also be looking at other schools in the area and considering moving him asap. No one should be bullied like that school.

First off, there will always be members of staff around at every break time, your DS should make sure he is within plain sight of one at all times to ensure those incidents are not missed when 'they are not looking'. Does he do this? In my experience of three different primary schools, it is common to see pupils walking round with the duty staff, so it's not unusual.
To answer your question, the only physical violence I have been aware of at any of my dcs 3 primary schools (bar the usual rough play) came from an SEN child who would regularly run amok and provoke others, who would then retaliate in kind. I'm not saying your DS does this, of course. But that is the only instance I am aware of, so I wouldn't say violence is commonplace in primary schools at all.

Just reread my post and it sounds very unsympathetic, which was not my intent! Hope things get better for your DS!

I’d say it depends on the area tbh. I’ve done supply work in lots of schools and the schools in more deprived areas do have more violence on the playground because more children have behavioural issues and there is often a culture of playfighting that can get out of hand much more than in schools in the ‘naice’ areas ime.
It does sound like the school could be doing more though. The children who are hitting should be the ones kept inside imo - not your son.
Not relevant to the thread at all but are there really primary children in your sons school that are into bodybuilding??

We've involved everyone bar the governors but I'm emailing again today to say we will escalate it if it's not resolved effectively this term by putting in place what they've promised.

In terms of his behaviour, we have encouraged him to stay near the staff but he says he can't do this all the time as he likes to run around playing, either with others or by himself. Then he might get pushed, sworn at or kicked as he's running around. Whether or not he 'runs amok' I couldn't say. One of his issues is tgat hes very black and white regarding right and wrong, and so get involved (rightly or wrongly) if he sees others being hurt or picked on. This annoys them so they tend to 'get him back'.

There's lots about his SEN that's complicated and were working with it, but I'm more interested in school environments. Moving schools would be a hideous upheaval for him but I'm wondering if a smaller school with a strong reputation for pastoral care might be better.

And yes, there are 2 boys into bodybuilding in his class. They often show off their 6 packs and flex their biceps. He now wants to do this because they want to playfight him - he likes playfighting but I discourage it - and he keeps getting hurt. From quite close questioning of him I think these boys are gaining a reputation for being tough and they like to get him into their games as he's not so tough. Then he gets hurt, gets angry, tearful, others see him as angry/violent/easy to wind up and so it goes on. School made attempts to get others to play with him rather than these boys which worked for a while and they did playing like being puppies, etc, which he was happy with, but because he's so 'young' a lot of children don't want to play with him much. He gets along brilliantly with 6 year olds.

One of his issues is tgat hes very black and white regarding right and wrong, and so get involved (rightly or wrongly) if he sees others being hurt or picked on. This annoys them so they tend to 'get him back'.

It's very difficult, but if he's not staying where duty staff can see him, and he is jumping into these situations, what are you expecting the school to do? (He should be reporting incidents to the duty staff, not getting physically involved himself, this sounds as if it is probably the cause of many of the incidents.)

He's not getting involved in things all the time. That was just one example.

I'm not going to list every aspect of his behaviour or his SEN to be picked apart.

As I said, the school initially thought he was to blame as 'the problem' but when they spent quite some time observing, they saw that actually he was being provoked or singled out a lot.

Quite common with SEN.

So what do you want the school to do?

I'd expect them to address what may be a culture of violence amongst predominantly male pupils?
I'd expect them to remove the boys who corner him and punch him in retaliation from the playground, not him.
I'd expect them to educate their lunchtime staff so that they understand that when he's afraid he might growl, stammer, shriek, run as far as he can and not be able to communicate.
I'd expect them to directly deal with pupils who push him over as they walk past, or call him dumbass or loser or ugly or weirdo while he's waiting in the dinner queue.

I guess I'll just have to accept that as he's the one with SEN he's the one with the problem and perhaps school isn't suitable for him if it's normal for neurotypical children to retaliate or behave this way towards a child who is 2 years behind his peers.

As current reports show, a good number of SEN children are not in school because it's just not a safe environment for them.

I wondered if the culture of violence was specific to this school - which is inner city and large - but perhaps not.

I wondered if the culture of violence was specific to this school - which is inner city and large - but perhaps not.

Haven't most ppl said that this level of violence isn't normal in the schools they have experienced though?

Your expectations are not unreasonable, but I am sure that the staff do address these problems as they occur! As far as I am aware, you would not be privy to information about other pupils, so you wouldn't be aware of how it is being dealt with ie what sanctions have been applied to the other children. And if duty staff do not see an incident they are reliant on witness statements, so dealing with it may not be straightforward. Pushing in a dinner queue would be very easy to miss, so what do you propose to counter this? If DS is afraid because he had just inserted himself into a situation where someone else is getting picked on (as an example) and then runs off, what do you see happening there? Even if lunchtime staff are aware of his issues, with the best will in the world, there may not be an extra member of staff available to go after him, find him and talk him down. It's the inevitable result of financial cuts.

Of course not all neurotypical children react like that towards SEN children who they see as different! You seem to have a peculiarly large bunch of them at your school. As a side note, the worst behaviour I have ever seen was in an inner London school, so that possibly does have something to do with it. Moving to a smaller school could well be of benefit, if only because incidents will be seen more easily.

Can you get in touch with other primaries with better integrated SEN pupils and ask what kind of strategies they use? You may find something that staff at your school haven't tried yet.

That's my question, is this normal, not what should we do about it?

He does tell teachers, often the response is, well we didn't see anything, or, we saw you growling/scowling at them etc. So he says there's no point asking for help now as no help comes.

Actually, in his last school he did have a TA who was with him at breaktimes for this very reason, but funding has been cut and he doesn't have 1:1 support now.

I personally have been shocked at some of the things he's told me - for instance he got punched on the arm by a girl at the dinner table after he told her to stop kissing the boy next to her all through lunch. 'They were doing kissing on the lips mummy. With mouths open and everything'. He told them to stop it, they laughed and did it more, he got upset, she punched him.

I haven't been to primary school for nearly 40 years so I've no idea if this kind of thing is normal now or not.

OK. No, it's not.

That is not normal in any school I have taught at.
Poor child, I hope you get help soon

No schools are not normally like this. My DS went through very similar time at his previous primary, we struggled though several years of it. We ended up moving schools and it was so much better.

Thanks. Apart from behaviours of some of the pupils the school is really good and has supported him in so many ways.

DH seems to think 'all schools are the same' and there's the kind of 'boys will be boys' attitude (which I hate) so I was feeling bit out of the loop really.

We're planning to meet again with the Head of Behaviour to really push home that there might be an issue with behaviour in school and it needs addressing as a child protection concern for all pupils as much as anything.

The secondary school next door has appalling behavioural issues so may be it's a catchment issue. I'll look into alternative schools too.

Thanks all

There should always be one or two staff even more on yard at any time. Just tell him to hang around the teacher that way no one will cause him any trouble. Lunchtime there will be a number of supervisors on see if one of them is organising a game or something he can join in maybe. But every time anyone does anything he has to tell a teacher and tell you if nothing is done so that you can catalogue all the incidents

That sounds completely beyond what is normal. At my DC's school a bit of rough housing and some band tempered scrabbling (particularly in years R-2) is all that would be day to day. Very occasionally something more serious like a fight might happen but it would be very quickly broken up and have serious consequences for the children involved (parents would definitely be informed).

This was happening to the DS of a friend of mine. Although not diagnosed yet, he demonstrates many Asperger's traits.was being bullied and in the end he was so stressed and tense before going into school, he probably did end up being hypersensitive to the behaviour and would retaliate violently. He was like a wound up coil. Friend tried many times to sort this and then moved her DS to another school. It was the best thing she did and she wished she had done it sooner. It was a fresh start and pupils in the small new school were sweet and inclusive. His ticks cleared up within a week or so of leaving the school. Good luck OP. This must be so hard for you all.

I can see both sides to a certain extent. Of course it isn’t OK for your son to be targeted in this manner, but children can be cruel and seek out those they perceive to be vulnerable. I can see why other children might take exception to him telling them to stop kissing each other. I imagine they would see that as their own business and nothing to do with him. I expect they would take notice if an adult told them to stop, but not one of their peers.

I may be wrong, but I would imagine that the reasons he said this are connected with his SEND and the way in which he perceives the world in black and white terms. If he challenges children, because he perceives that they are doing the wrong thing, they probably won’t like it and will challeng physically.

I wonder if the growling, scowling type behaviour unsettles others too, although it is part of his SEND and is his response to situations that are difficult for him. It’s understandable that he wants to play with others at break times and doesn’t want to hang around with the adults. To be fair to them too, playgrounds at break times are always going to have incidents, large or small, going on all the time and, from experience, I do know that it’s difficult to notice every one.

It sounds as though you and the school have a good relationship and it’s important to keep that going as much as you can. The better your relationship with them, the more chance you have of reaching a satisfactory resolution I think.