Complained to the teacher about another child’s aggressive and violence towards my child today.

[crosser62]

I’ve never complained before but I am so sick of it.
They are 6.
Been back 2 weeks and this child has hurt my child 5 times now, all seen by me.
Today it resulted in little one in tears and hurt.
My child says that this boy hurts him quite a lot in school but then is his friend again so he doesn’t tell anyone.
Thing is, this little fella is so aggressive in his body language and manner, normal playing ie running/racing/ chatting turns into him lashing out for what appears to be little or no reason.

Teacher was reassuring, said she would speak to them about healthy friendships, that they don’t sit near each other in class and she has not picked up on any issues.
I did say that I had safeguarding concerns about the child’s seemingly “adult” aggressive mannerisms and that a 6 year old child probably shouldn’t act in this way.

God I feel fucking awful for that little boy but also for mine, I can’t not do something about repeated aggression. Mine loves school but it’s being ruined by this behaviour.

Anyone else had this or similar, is there anything I could have done differently or better?

Sounds like you did the right thing.
Your child had to come first. Noble of you to be all "poor other child" but seriously, your child is what matters to you here. You advocated for him and protected him. Perfect.

You've done the right thing there. Staff can now keep an eye on them at lunch and playtimes too and step in if things look out of place given the new information given.

I'm not sure you can go straight from child turning play into physical lashing to safeguarding about adult behaviour though. On that one I think you've overstepped the mark a little. Certainly his behaviour isn't appropriate but it can easily be a child who has no boundaries, child who has grown up with parents who think rough play is part of having a boy (you know the boys will be boys nonsense), as it could be anything untoward. Depending on other factors it could link to some additional needs, not all additional needs lead to displaying unpleasant behaviour or lashing out, but some can in conjunction with other factors. That's for the school to assess and contact relevant people as appropriate.

The school have a duty of care to all students, yours and this other boy. You've done the right thing.

Thanks, but I do worry about the other little fella, what has he seen and heard to be able to copy that behaviour. It will affect his friendships, relationships, education and enjoyment of what should be happy and carefree years. His mum is lovely on the couple of times I’ve spoken to her, his dad isn’t. I have a feeling that there may be some form of DV gone on (don’t ask me why I just have a gut feeling about it having grown up in a DV household I just have an incline)

Obviously didn’t say any of that to teacher!!!!

Yes, duty of care is right.
That’s all I ask for is for them to be vigilant and observe then act appropriately.

Phew! I'm glad you didn't say that bit to try teacherm
You'd be amazed how often we get stories making all kinds of speculative comments with no evidence about families and children.

(Obviously parents calling to report actual safeguarding concerns as in X has said... My child's friend has shared this and I think you need to know... I overheard this being spoken about and thought it was best to share, are totally right to do so).

If he's displaying inappropriate and challenging behaviour in school then I would imagine staff will also be logging safeguarding concerns as well and/or keeping a close eye as well.

You did the right thing. My DS had issues at primary which the teachers never saw either. It is amazing how little they see when they want. Yet, every time my DS was the instigator - typically as a retaliation to the aggressor - they were all over it.

For me, things only changed when I put in writing to the head and another child saw the incident and also spoke to the head, independently.

Aggressive behaviour like this in a child so young should absolutely be a red flag for safeguarding.

Lola, it’s not rough play, this little boys facial expression just changes to concentrated aggression and he goes into almost “fight mode” there is no joy or smile of being unaware of how much he may hurt, it is concentrated...”I am fighting you” look.

The thing about Safeguarding is that it is often the little bits of information that the school Safeguarding officer can use to build up a bigger picture. As a Safeguarding lead I hear all sorts of opinions from parents, staff and pupils. All are noted. Most come to nothing but you never know when someone is going to give you that last piece of the puzzle. I’m not saying all parents should pass every opinion they have on to staff but a gut feeling is often true.

I have no business assuming anything at all and voicing it to anyone.
All I know is that I too have a duty of care. I have highlighted to the right person my concerns.
I am not doing this to get him punished or in trouble. I’m doing it so that they can help him.
But mostly because I want him to not hurt my child.

crosser62
I didn't mean it was rough play with your child.

I was meaning that if a child grows up in a household where from a young age rough play is expected of boys then violence can be normalised under the "boys will be boys" banner. Often hand in hand with this is a normalisation of men being aggressive, that boys and men sort things with their fists, that you lash out if you're Inna bad mood etc.
Equally it could be that they've observed male pattern violence and control at home, the fight and make up cycle.

But from the outside we can't say which so suggesting reasons would be one step too far.

How the child has been violent to your child is totally not ok.

I was just trying to point out that that sort of behaviour in a boy can come from having parents who have no boundaries and promote ridiculous ideas of how boys should behave just as much as it could be a boy who has observed male violence at home.

You absolutely should have spoken to school about the harm to your son and the child's behaviour. What you can't do is make inferences beyond that without any evidence.
As another poster said, safeguarding often comes from the drip drip drip of concerns so you factually reporting what you have observed (without inferring reasons etc) would be totally spot on.

a father of a dc I knew stated that he told his dc to defend himself physically - point is I don't think any child should be encouraged to hit another dc because accidents (ie a game of football etc) for instance, another child will turn round and punch. how do such young dc figure out the difference (& I don't agree with teaching children violence) this dc - I think op is probably right - something may not be right at home -

mum
We hear the "my mam/dad said if anyone says anything then I can smack them one..." Line more often than we should in schools.

Even in houses without physical violence, there's a certain social culture in places where that sort of response is deemed acceptable. Some homes promote really narrow ideas of what it is to be a boy (eg certain things are manly but others are girly or gay because both of those are terrible i tell you terrible) Those boys are brought up not to cry because it's weak, to man up etc. It's a culture that limits boys and nurtures this narrow view of masculinity.