My child got hurt at school today…

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By a child that was dysregulated and having a meltdown. Primary age, junior.

I won’t go into too much detail, to prevent giving myself away. There’s a child in dc’s class who is struggling massively in school and has done for a while, they are are very violent, thrashes stuff around and has attacked teachers and injured them. The kids have had to go outside whilst teacher tried to calm him. They’ve been excluded temporarily before. I’m not sure if said child has Sen or just extreme anger issues or both, who knows.

I can sympathise to an extent. Both mine are autistic with learning needs. Dd who got hurt has a mild physical disability. I know it is not easy and the mother is probably at her wits end. I’m fortunate mine don’t have have any behavioural issues and not violent , even though my oldest can at times explode at home.

anyway dd got hurt today in the crossfire of the child exploding at school. I’m angry at the school, the rest of the class were in class, said child was out of class and exploding in the corridor, dd for whatever reason was in the corridor on her own, I think she was asked to run an errand for the teacher (they like to give dd little jobs ending she likes doing) and ended up getting hurt, not badly but she was shocked and upset.

what do I say? Anything? Nothing? Leave it? Ask to speak to the school again - they did ring me to let me know at the time. I guess there’s nothing I can do 😥

Yes, local councillor or your MP - it won't solve the woeful lack of SEN provision but it will continue to raise the issue.

We ‘ jump’ when either of the above contact the LA.

The system is broken. New schools can only be opened by academy trusts. Academy trusts that are willing to take on special schools and have the skills to do so are few and far between. We have plans approved for three new special schools, both awaiting academy sponsor, now up to three years on. Meanwhile hubs attached to mainstream see full of children suspended and for the most in need parents are going to tribunal with private places agreed, including residential, at a cost that can be in excess of £100,000 per year, per child. You can see the cycle....less money left for SEN provision for the majority.

A true mess.

Ugh. I feel your pain. We had such a parent in one of our classes last year: her child was violent and disruptive and we had to evacuate the class repeatedly when he kicked off, but heaven forbid we should remove him or have him spend breaks elsewhere when we could see he was about to kick off because 'he needs to be with his friends'.

SEN Teaching Assistant here. Most schools that I know of have lost a massive amount of financial support, specifically for the SEN departments. A lot of schools, specially primary schools have been the most affected in terms of teaching assistants funding. I am currently in a grammar/secondary school, but my kids primary school had to let go 4 teaching assistants (from the 7 they had last year) and most schools are struggling with this.

From my experience, there is usually a plan in place to manage behaviour like this. But the age of the child is very important for this. Where I work we get trained staff to use restraint mechanisms, and a calming room that only the trained staff is able to go in with the child. But this is post primary age.

I worked in another school, primary schol, about 12 years ago and we weren’t allowed to use any restraint mechanisms. We had 3 children who would become extremely violent in a matter of seconds without any triggers so it was hard to minimise or prevent. We had an extra member of staff for this reason (regarding adult/child ratios). And the protocol was to remove the other children from the classroom or setting while there was an episode. I was assigned to 2 of these children (the ones with violent behaviour). Usually is the adult dealing with the situation the one that gets hurt (i got stabbed in the hand with a pencil, broken ribs, many bruises and a few bites), and sometimes the child hurts him/herself. Unfortunately a few times other children got hurt. And we completely understand the frustration from the “third party” parents, and as a parent i would be very upset if any of my kids were in the “third party” category.

But…. A big but! Staff are completely under pressure and under ratio. And no matter how many preventative measures you have for this child, sometimes someone else gets caught in the middle. I am sure the staff were gutted that your dd got caught in the middle, but Im sure the staff tried their hardest to avoid/minimise the harm.

It is also important to understand that as a parent, what we know of the other children in our kids classes is only a glimpse of what really is going on.

I would encourage dd to talk about the incident, and how she felt. And reassure her that it had nothing to do with her and that this child wasn’t trying to hurt her. I understand she has autism so understanding feelings might be a bit harder for her, but maybe explain to her that this child has some issues that get him to lash like that, and it’s hard for this child to understand that he hurts other people when he is lashing.

what the school should do is a visual story explaining the actions of this boy, and one specifically for this boy explaining how those actions can upset other children. And just reinforce this story from time to time. If your dd has a good relationship with this child, maybe she could tell him that when that happened she felt scared/upset. He might not be able to empathise but it could help him see that his actions hurt other people. But this depends on the children’s age.

I feel so sad that your dd got caught in the middle. But i do think that it’s harder for us as parents to know our child Seen/experienced this xx

Not all of the children that have a special plan or a 1:1 in place have a learning disability. A lot of them have experience trauma in their life so their behaviour is flagged for support. Being in a SEN school would do them and the other children more harm than good. Most schools are trained in ACE and trauma response for this type of behaviour. The problem in here is that most schools are under staffed, with a tiny budget and dealing with a massive impact from the pandemic regarding children’s mental health. And not all the parents work with the school to follow plans put in place, which makes it confusing for the child and harder for the school to manage such behaviour

I'm also the teacher in that situation, with my last class. Violent, disruptive child who hurt others. I reported constantly. Nothing happened. SLT told me that children said they don't feel safe in the class because of that child. Yet still no support, nothing.

It's very likely that the teacher is doing their best. Sadly, some children should just not be in mainstream.

Special needs schools are being closed down to save money and children transferred to mainstream. At least that's the position in Scotland. This situation benefits no one, not the special needs child, the child striving to get qualifications, or staff.

send an email outlining DDs fuller description of the incident to head and class teacher. Ask for a meeting to discuss strategies to keep your DD safe, her disability makes her vulnerable. You would also like to follow up the points made by the speech therapist recently and develop an action plan.

Funding for SEN has been rock bottom under the conservatives. Funding for social care for disability has also been rock bottom under the conservatives. Small state = not meeting the needs of the most vulnerable in society