Incident at school

[Namechangeagain225]

I am in need of some advise please as I am really upset and am not sure what i should do. My dd is in y2 and they've sat her next to a child who has special needs. I do not know the full extent of his needs, but I know he has a lot of health issues. He is behind in work apparently, he used to always be sat at the table where children needed more help with learning. Since the last term they stopped grouping children according to how well they perform. They've mixed all the children. I found out from a mum that this boy has dropped his trousers and showed his bits to to my daughter. When I queried this from my daughter she seemed to have been traumatised by this, she started crying and almost shivering , thinking she had done something wrong because she saw his bits. She then told me that he was facing her and he dropped his trousers and was looking down. Both my dd and the dd of this mum who told me about this said the teacher witnessed what happened. The teacher just told him to put his trousers back up. I wasn't informed of this by the teacher , and my dd didn't tell me either, until I asked her tonight. During the parent consultation which took place before half term , I had already asked for my dd to be moved as there was an incident where this boy hurt my dd by grabbing something off her, and it caused a deep cut on her finger. When we returned from half term break , they still hadn't moved my dd or him. For context, my dd doesn't have any siblings so hasn't seen boy bits before. I am really annoyed with the school that they are not taking this as seriously as they probably should be. What should I do? Speak to the headteacher? Email the headteacher? Also, this child disrupts my dds learning. He is constatly copying from her and my dd ends up having to teach him. I feel like the class teacher finds it convenient to keep her sat next to him ,so she can do part of the TAs job. I am really annoyed by this all. I dont want children flashing at my dd. What would you do?

It is what we put up with daily leaving little to no time to actually teach 😩. We parent the parents as they can’t parent their own children 😂

Definitely. This is the kind of referral that gets social workers through the day.

The person claiming to be a middle manager is lying.

Yes yes yes.

i came on here thinking this, then was slightly persuaded by all the “this is a sexual assault, stand up for women” stuff but it seems very reductive (don’t even know if that’s the right word) and removed from its context

one of my first thoughts was this child is likely to learn I must be dramatic and sacred (by willies!)

and the advice from someone whose just been on a safeguarding course yesterday to call social services..no no no!! Speak to the teacher first, and don’t undermine them, work with them

the social workers at SS will be prioritising kids in real danger of severe neglect or death from their own parents and rightly so

Calm down, no one has been assaulted. This is a third hand account that may well have been embellished in order to add drama.

This needs to be dealt with calmly and without hyperbole. Thankfully we no longer live in times when ND children were hidden from view in an institution. Some of you on here sound like you’re ready to get your pitchforks out and start a witch hunt on a small child, just take a breath.

I’m so sorry, you do an amazing job I’m sure in very difficult circumstances, and many people appreciate you.

Definitely. This is the kind of referral that gets social workers through the day.

I have no idea what anyone would expect social work to do here. Young child with additional needs exposes himself in class, teacher deals with it. There’s no criminal or harmful intent as far as anyone can tell, all a social worker can do is check the school is aware and has measures in place to support both children - and it’s really not our job to police other professionals. There’s no ongoing safeguarding risk.

Surely as a parent you have a conversation with the teacher about the incident and say you were surprised to hear about it from another parent. I’d also question my child being used as a support for the other child, but would also be working with my own child to make sure she speaks about things that are distressing her. If my child had seen another child’s “bits” in class I’d know all about it, because it would be the first thing out of their mouth at pick up. I could then address it in a timely way both to support my child and speak to the school.

And the person who apparently was on a safeguarding course needs to do it again, there is no mandatory reporting duty in England, there’s talk about introduce legislation but it’s not in place yet, so no such thing as a mandated reporter.

Again. The additional needs bit is irrelevant here.

The additional needs bit is wholly relevant in determining the right response to the child and supporting their behaviour going forward. There’s may be particular sensory needs, a lack of awareness of privacy or poor impulse control all of which would need different strategies and responses from school staff to prevent a recurrence.

It doesn’t have to be sexual in nature to still be a safeguarding issue. The OP and neither do we know the circumstances of how this happened. Some posters have decided that, despite not being there, that this was absolutely an accident. It could well have been though I wonder how his presumably elasticated underpants also fell down. The dsl needs to investigate this for both the welfare of the op’s daughter and the boy. If it wasn’t accidental this is just as concerning for the boy as it is for the other pupils.

She didn’t claim that, she said she was a retired teacher.

Schools have a duty to safeguard children. The cut is alone enough for the parent to flag. Schools automatically get graded 4 by OFSTED for inadequate safeguarding.

Thank you all for replying. I am still going through all your replies. To those who are trying to minimise - It wasn't an accident. Nor were they getting ready for pe. They go in wearing pe kits on pe day. The child apparently undid his trousers and dropped them , so no, its not like his trousers just fell off him. Also, the teacher had to tell him to put them back up. It is not gossip, it is a witness account. Either way my child saw his willy, and the school didn't let me know. My child was too embarrassed to tell me, and if you educate yourself on child on child abuse this csn happen. The victims can feel embarrassed and guilty that they are a victim.

And so you need to work with your daughter on telling you regardless of embarrassment - it’s a bigger safeguarding issue that she isn’t able to speak up. You’re jumping to sexual abuse rather than more likely explanations eg that his additional needs means he is disinhibited, unaware of privacy, whatever. The school need to have a handle on it, which you don’t know because you haven’t spoken to them. It may well be the first time he’s shown this behaviour, the teacher may have been caught off guard and dealt with it calmly and in a low key way in the moment, while knowing she needs a plan going forward. You need to speak to her.

It’s not in this context. What has been described is completely typical behaviour at that age.

In addition we don’t know there are additional needs at all. The OP has assumed this.

“retired school middle manager”.

They're either lying or don’t know anything about age appropriate development.

I disagree.

If there has been an identifiable safeguarding incident or there has been bullying of some kind, you absolutely can dictate that your child is not exposed to a situation where they are going to feel afraid or at risk.

With regards to helping other children, it's ok to a point but it's absolutely not ok to use a child as a TA or to regulate another child's behaviour. It's an absolute no no from school. You should raise it again as something that's not in the best emotional interests of your child because they are not equipped to deal with it. We had a similar situation and identified how it was negatively impacting our son and pointed out how he was being put into a situation to deal with which trained adult staff were struggling to manage. Our argument was that school was clearly failing to meet his needs and that was leading to them also failing to meet the needs of our child and was leading to our son being emotionally distressed by it. Again this actually falls under safeguarding.

I would speak to the teacher about the incident and find out what their position is first, because that's protocol but also say that you will automatically be elevating it to the head because of the seriousness of the incident but you wish to establish what the teacher has to say first. Yes I do think that the school failing to tell you is an issue. They can't tell you which child did it (your daughter can) but they have a duty of care here and they don't know how your daughter will react. Clearly not well.

Go through the schools policies on wellbeing, bullying and safeguarding and link it to what's going on with your daughter. Schools respond better if you throw the book at them in this way rather than going in screaming and shouting. They can use that against you. So play it super cool and arm yourself with the language they use.

Again.

normal behaviour.

www.healthychildren.org/English/ages-stages/preschool/Pages/Sexual-Behaviors-Young-Children.aspx

My child was too embarrassed to tell me, and if you educate yourself on child on child abuse this csn happen. The victims can feel embarrassed and guilty that they are a victim.

I’m very aware of the dynamics of child on child abuse, it’s quite a jump you’ve made though to decide a 6 year old child, with developmental challenges, purposely and with intent to harm exposed himself to your child. You have no idea what his thinking and intention was. It was done publicly, in full view of an authority figure so much more likely to be a cognitive issue than abuse. In any event, your daughter needs support to ensure she brings anything that distresses her to your attention because god forbid she found herself in a more concerning situation she needs to be able to tell you, embarrassing or not. She also needs to know and be able to use correct names for anatomy so she can articulate what concerns her.

You have a long school career ahead of you, and there will no doubt be issues that need an “all guns blazing” approach, this isn’t one of them.

It’s not in this context. What has been described is completely typical behaviour at that age.

@Ritzybitzy sorry I get what you’re saying, yes it’s in the realms of normal behaviour but the response to the child might change depending on his particular needs.

There are two children in this situation. Both matters.

The boy may be assessed as not posing an ongoing threat. But the incident should have been discussed with parents in some way as the most basic response to ensure he understands it's inappropriate. It's impossible to assess him as not posing an ongoing going risk without having discussed it with his parents.

However the girl was exposed to a sexual act and has clearly been distressed by that. The school knew and should have warned the parent so she can ensure the girl is ok too.

The problem here is that the school have not adequately ensured that both parties are ok.

It might be not untypical for that age and it might be seen as nothing but because it's in school and involves sexual organs it HAS to be taken extremely seriously in every case because of the potential implications. The school should have covered it's arse here with both parties. They clearly haven't.

This

and start by calling it a penis when speaking to daughter

You don’t know that the school haven’t spoken to the boys parents, updated his care plan in school, done some direct work on privacy. Yes they should have told the girls mum so she could support her daughter but that just needs a conversation to understand why she wasn’t told.

Which in the context of this thread is irrelevant.

The girl has not been exposed to a sexual
act.