Year 1 child excluded - help please

[ncforschoolhelp]

Hi all

I have a previous thread about my year 1 child's behavioural issues almost exclusively at school. He has now been temporarily excluded and I am really hoping for advice from any parents of young children who have been through similar, any teachers who could give any advice and any governors who might be able to shed some light on any appropriate next steps for me or from the school.

The reason given today was his level of disruption wasn't feasible for him to stay in the building and he wasn't calming down with the usual interventions the school give.

Happy to answer any q's and apologies for lack of insight so far.

So I would suggest (if you haven’t already) looking at their SEN Policy, if they have details of the “graduated response”, their behaviour policy, and their exclusion policy - they should all be on the school website. If you can print them off you might find it easier.

I’d be asking the school:

• What were the specific behaviours that led to the exclusion - are these behaviours on the list of reasons for exclusion (or would reasonably be considered so)
• what support/interventions do they have in place for him already, what was/wasn’t working in this situation
• do they follow the graduated response approach, and if so, what stage is he at?
• is he on the SEN register, and if not, at what would point would they would put him on there?
• has he been risk assessed, and does he have a behaviour response plan/does this need updating? (Risk Assessment/BRP is often not done unless the behaviour is serious enough to lead to an exclusion.)
• can they evidence that all previously documented support was in place before they excluded him?
• if they feel that they are not able to keep him/other safe with the current plan/resources available, then have they started the EHCP process / requested external support (eg Ed Psych)?

it’s worth noting that as Ed Psych/EHCP etc are costly, and hard to get, many schools don’t go down this route as early as they could - it does tend to be left to a last resort and only when behaviour is particularly disruptive/unsafe. There is huge pressure on schools to manage it within their current resources, which is unfair on staff and pupils.

unfortunately I’ve seen it more than once that the LA will only step up once a child has repeated exclusions/permanent exclusion, and even then it can be hard to get the right support for your child.

Hope your meeting goes okay, and the school use this an opportunity to review his support.

That sounds like my DS. EP & Behaviour team called in for advice. He would do the work in his own if he could have the reward of going to the library and coming back to tell the teacher 1 fact he had learned.

This is a terrible shame and a dreadful way to work as an EP. Thankfully not the way my local area works.

This sounds similar to us. We had some other issues too and now have a diagnosis of autism with PDA. The PDA element sounds like what you’re describing. What referral has been made and are you in a position to go private?
if it has got to the point of exclusion then they need to be looking at an EHCP and adaptations. No child should be excluded due to neurodivergent behaviour unless all measures to support those behaviours and diagnosis have been met.

It may be, if he has some kind of neuro- diversity that a noisy open classroom is quite stressful for him and his window of tolerance is "used up" dealing with this. Then he just doesn't have the tolerance to cope with otter stressors - like not being first.

I think this is a really crucial part to understand. You will often see different behaviour in different environments and this does not always mean (as a lot of people will tell you) that the child is choosing to behave that way because they "can do it" in the other environment. This is basically the definition of fluctuating capacity. The fact the child can cope with something like losing/not being first in one environment is good, because it means there is more scope for moving towards it but it is likely there is something else going on to make it consistently difficult for him in that environment.

Thank you all so, so much.

Some answers:

Not an only child and shares his toys well with his almost 2 year old sibling.

Can't afford 7k for private stuff listed above.

Absolutely can't home school, both work full time and losing a salary would be catastrophic for whole family.

I agree re mixed class setting and is a new thing the school started this year.

I believe he is on the schools SEN register

Iva submitted a SAR today for all things you've called out

The schools behavioural policy isn't up to date online which I've called out

ASD/ADHD: no diagnosis and school (although hip ugh quick to say not diagnosticians) say they really don't believe this is at play but I'm open to anything at this stage:

I'd be tempted to look at another school. A friend had this. She lived in England but close to Welsh border. I have no clue what the differences are but she said when she moved him (year 1) to a school in Wales he was happier and got into less trouble. Whatever they do differently works for him. Not suggesting you move house but maybe worth looking to see if there is a school that is a better fit / has different approaches.

Comments like this are what spiralled me into depression when I was going through this. It’s very unhelpful to blame the parents.

@ForChicPoet thank you for spending your time trying to knock down a fellow parent who's trying everything they can to help their child.
Fortunately I am relatively thick skinned and know that I am actually a great parent just trying to get by, but remember: not everyone is as thick skinned as me and a comment like that might just tip someone over the edge one day.

Kindness costs nothing and anonymity online is no excuse for unkindness.

Have a lovely rest of your day.

What a silly little sausage you are...

Yep. Mine and DP's fault, for sure, for combining genes and producing a neurodivergent kid.

Explain how you know this please?

Start the SEN assessment (GP) process and EHCP process as soon as you can, because being "on a SEN Register" is informal and has no legal status or money attached whereas the above do.

If he starts a cycle of suspensions and even permanent exclusion and it can't be fixed with the above or moving him to a different school (which will still be mainstream without the above and probably even with), then you start getting into things that will mean you lose your job because someone has to be supervising him for most of the day, like part-time timetables and stints in Alternative Provision - the time to put a rocket up everyone to get things moving is now, as they will not have the sense of urgency that you require (except his class teacher who can't do much in this process other than fill in a statement of observations towards the EHCP review).

Children are sensitive and always receptive to what happens at home. If the school hasn't found anything to cause these issues then its reasonable to assume its stemming from where he spends the rest of his time. Basic reasoning, even if the parents don't know they're doing it.

@ForChicPoet kindly and with respect this just isn't the case. I am far from perfect but we give our children a loving home and boundaries. I am very open and receptive to working on my parenting however I need to to help my son but bland comments like it's my fault are neither true nor helpful.

I am a school governor, the school should have policies published on their website that detail the processes. If you wanna dm me I can help when I finish work

As I thought, a combination of pop psychology and generalisation.
Not very helpful, is it?

What happens on play dates with a peer - if he loses snakes and ladders badly does he freak out? Is it worse if friend is crowing over victory?

my son does get so cross in that situation. (age 6).

loads of kids can’t handle losing at this age, so the question is how can he rein in a violent and rude response.

practise games and make sure he loses - don’t let him cheat !

I am really surprised it’s bad enough for him to be excluded - can’t school just avoid triggering activities ?

What has the school said? They cannot permanently exclude unless there is an alternative provision for him elsewhere so you really need to work with the school to find out what they suggest and do everything you can to facilitate that. Any chance he could go into a part time timetable, could you flexibly work around that?

Play dates with a peer we see some evidence of maybe an exaggerated response but nothing like they see at school.

Hello,

My son, who is now 13 and in year 8, had similar issues in the first few years at school. The first week actually in reception I was pulled aside every day at pick up with a concern of him hurting another child from being frustrated. It was a total shock to me, he’d never shown this at home before.

I knew something was at play here, he’d always been ‘quirky’ with other traits. But the school really were awful in assisting us. We moved him to a private school in year 2; the smaller classes and 1-1 helped but I know that’s not possible for everyone (we do receive a bursary so we manage).

I pushed for an ADHD diagnosis when he was younger and we finally saw someone at CAMHS; literally for about 20 mins. They told us they wouldn’t diagnose until he was after 7.

Anyway, we went private in the end as the wait was too long and he was struggling socially and emotionally. Things escalated at home also. He was diagnosed with ADHD, and we only decided together (him involved) to try medication 1.5 years ago.

He is now doing exceptionally well, all 9s and 8s in his reports, behaviour is so much better but still has impulsive moments. School are totally on board though.

It definitely seems your son is struggling emotionally and socially; have you read up much yet? I am going to do school run but can send some your way.

Just to be clear, it's a temporary exclusion for 24 hours not a permanent one. I get the sense it's to show the school is "doing something" rather than a safeguarding exercise but that's maybe my defensive assumption for now.

our experience is that if a child is ahead a academically, the school will be hard-pressed to push forward with evaluations no matter how desperate the situation seems to the parent. In some ways I understand it from the school perspective, a child failing academically is going to be a bigger priority than one who is still successful.

that your son is going well despite behavioral challenges at school can actually be a symptom that is useful information during a formal evaluation. My own child’s academic levels were completely asynchronous with her developmental age and that contributed to her sense of frustration any time she did make a mistake.

we dealt with the problem by going private. It is an expensive path, but it meant we had a plan going forward in months instead of years.

I would start by pushing for a formal evaluation through the school.