Another child hit mine at school .. What to say?

[Notsurewhattosay13]

My ds is undergoing assessment for ASD.

The other child has some sort of additional needs going on too i think - my dc tells me he's aggressive to all of the other children pretty much on a daily basis. They're both 8. My dc is a shy child who is struggling with anxiety around school. He's has issues with this boy before grabbing him and being too physical.

Just before xmas there was an altercation where this boy pushed ds, and ds reacted by calling this boy a pretty mild name. My ds was kept in over break as the teacher didn't see the boy push him. This led to 2 days of school refusal.

Today this boy's hit my dc in the face causing him to cry. Ds tells me he's didn't retaliate this time. Apparently no teachers saw it happen. I want to email the teacher to ask them to supervise both boys (i don't believe my child would have started it but I'm aware i might not have got the full story from my son) more carefully but how do i word it? Ds isn't going to be happy with me raising it with the school.

It's a daily battle to get my ds into school, i don't need this other kid pushing and hitting him!

I was bullied at school i don't want it happening to my child.

1. Ds needs to report it at the time so the teacher can investigate. If they are on the playground then another child would maybe have seen it.
2. In what context does it happen? Do they sometimes play together? Is it entirely unprovoked or is it when a game goes wrong etc
3. As a teacher I would of course want to know when it happens and need more info to unpick what is going on.

Thank you. I know at least 2 other children saw it because my son said they were comforting him.

He's not confident to report it to a teacher in the moment - part of his school anxiety is that he doesn't trust any of the teachers sufficiently to speak up for himself. There's been a couple of occasions where something has happened over the last year or two and he's tried to advocate for himself but the teachers haven't done anything so now he won't speak up until he gets home to his safe place.

Try to talk to DS about what happens around the time he gets hit - was it in the middle of a game they were playing together, did it come completely out of nowhere or was DS doing something which as an adult you can see could have provoked it? Not that it would be his fault he was hit, but it could help the teacher understand the other child's triggers and work on ways for that child to cope better. Then go to the teacher and say "DS was hit by X , it's happened more than once and I just want to nip the problem in the bud before it really becomes a problem. DS is already becoming a bit reluctant to come to school and I want to avoid this problem becoming worse." When the teacher asks for more info (as they should if no adult saw / recorded what happened at the time), give details of the context if you can and say something like "I know there's not a lot you can do if nobody sees it reports it at the time, but I think part of the problem is DS doesn't feel comfortable or know who to talk to"

Obviously this isn't a magic wand and the problem may carry on but I think the above is a good way to at least start a conversation.