SEN school and broken items

[WineandMe]

My DS11 is Autistic, ADHD/ODD and sensory. He attends an LA SEN school with around 10 children per class.
Bit of background...He met his new class teacher in July and spent abit of time at the school in July getting to know his new class TA which he had a good relationship with. Started Sept in yr 7 and all seemed to be going well.
Alot of changes happened, students moved around, teachers moved around, TAs changed including DS class TAs. He was put into a new classroom with a mix of the two year 7 classes.
Before they completed the move DS pushed a computer monitor onto the floor breaking it.
TA rung me after school explaining I will be charged up to £90 for this monitor. They couldn't tell me what happened on the run up to this outburst or why it happened except all she said was that they could understand why DS was annoyed and lashed out.

So my question is (sorry for rambling) should I be charged for this? Or should school get insurance pays for things like this?

In the years he's been at a SEN school I've never been charged and at his last school he broke a a window, a door handle, cracked a door.

We've got an Emergency EHCP meeting Tues and I'm getting things together for the meeting and a few friends and family have said they don't think a school like that should charge for broken items in a situation where it could have been prevented.

Thoughts??

TIA

Surely you need to know what happened before the incident and what made him act as he did, otherwise it’s likely to happen again.

Whats the purpose of the emergency EHCP review? Do you think the school feels that they can’t meet his needs?

If he’s broken or damaged property in another school, what has been put in place to avoid it?

It depends on what could have been done to prevent his action. Presumably, the changes upset him and maybe he wasn’t prepared for the move as he should have been.

I don’t know what insurance covers in terms of property that is deliberately damaged, whatever the reason.

This was an accident by a dysregulated child with additional needs, not a malicious act by a child with enough understanding to understand the consequences and do it anyway. Absolutely should not be charged.

Definitely not. My daughter hoyed the class iPad into the penguin pool on a visit to the zoo and no one suggested we should pay.

sorry that really made me laugh.

I’m afraid I laughed when they told me.

Poor Mummy Penguin! She now spends hers days going “get off that screen!” to all the Little Penguins.

No insurance won't pay because there will be a higher excess than £100. A lot will depend on circumstances but you can't use diagnosis to excuse bad behaviour, you would hope they can distinguish between Sen and bad behaviour

When your child is at school the teachers and TA's are "In Loco Parentis" ie they have parental-authority. If anyone should be charged for the broken computer it should be whichever adult was supposed to be supervising/supporting your DC at the time. It's not as if they are unaware that he needs additional support and supervision!

Absolutely do not pay. Hold firm to this. They cannot charge you and they can't blame you when there was nothing you could have done differently to prevent such an incident.

No, you shouldn’t be charged. I’d also expect someone from the office to discuss it with you if they thought it should be chargeable, not to have a TA speculating about how much it might be.

As above, you were not supervising and had no possible way of dealing with their actions/reactions.

I know some schools have it written into parent contracts that the parents pay in these circumstances but I do wonder whether it would hold up in court.

The only time I could see a parent being made to pay is if something they had done led to the issue - e.g allowing the child to take a hammer to school (because it would be predictable that this would cause harm/damage)

If the child at school had injured another child it would not be the parent in trouble - because similarly they were not there.

Thank you for your replies.
I don't know why an emergency ehcp review has been called. It's usually is Feb. So I have no idea, a lady from camhs told me it was happening and then I recieved an email inviting me too it.

I will be asking for a rundown of what happened leading up to the incident.

That's quite a few things broken over the years OP that have needed replacing, you must admit.

I don't think this school should ask you to foot the full bill for the monitor, but maybe you could make a contribution? You are at the start of a new relationship with the staff and some consideration could go along way.

Schools are absolutely strapped.