Child with SEN had a major meltdown at DC’s school today

[Classroomdisruption]

Child with SEN had a major meltdown at DC’s school today. Last year of primary. Chairs thrown. Tables overturned. A teacher injured as they tried to calm him down.

Class next door to DC. The kid broke away from the teachers and got into the classroom where DC was. Lots of artwork and other things torn off the walls. Equipment thrown. Their teacher told the other children to get under their desks. I asked DC if they can lock the door from the inside, apparently not.

Feel really sorry for the kid who had the meltdown. But the risk of injury is frightening. I anm not overly protective. DC plays a contact sport at a regional level (in Europe, not UK). But this incident crossed the line to violence. Completely messed up a school day.

poor kid who had the meltdown. Poor teachers. Really sad for the other children who were terrified. This is just difficult for everyone.

I'm a SEND teacher. I know the challenges. Families really don't need to know the details of specific incidents. General details sure, of course.
Special school are full to bursting, class sizes are far too big to adequately teach and manage the variety of complex and challenging behaviours. The govt have to commit to building more schools and not pay to have them go to the numerous private special schools around the UK.

re the poster who said special schools likely won't offer a full academic curriculum and a chance to thrive? Of course they can, and do.

We drop our children at school in the knowledge that they’re being looked after and protected by the adults there. If there is a violent outburst in the classroom, then the child who is being violent should be placed somewhere where they can get help. It’s totally inappropriate to expect the rest of the class to be impacted by the actions of one person, and being expected to just suck it up so as not to upset or exclude the violent child.

We found a brilliant special school that followed the curriculum for suited pupils. I think special schools should be more available for those that need them. I don’t see it as my child being ‘separate’? He’s in a school full of other children, just one that actually suits him and his needs.

Not much to say though really is there. Other than 'we didn't meet this child's needs appropriately today hence they had a meltdown'. Whcih will never happen as his needs and send are no one else's business.

Sorry but that’s a lot of shite.

A message to reassure families doesn’t cut it when this kid has literally injured a teacher in the course of their behaviour, and no doubt scared lots of kids.

The school need to be confirming exactly what measures they’ll take to minimise the risk of this ever happening again. A reassuring message isn’t enough here.

My child had a meltdown like this previously. I would have been mortified about someone posting about it online, even anonymously and with good intention, you know how people jump on things and whip them up online.

BTW the school were amazing. They took it incredibly seriously. 3 day suspension whilst they worked out how to keep child, other children and staff safe. Formal letter and meeting with child. Clear expectations set around behaviour, Key triggers identified and plan in place to help reduce them / help child learn skills to cope with these. Took many many months and lots of additional support in and outside the classroom and a lot of understanding but no longer has any meltdowns at school (3+ years) learnt new coping strategies. They are still in mainstream and doing well.

None of this plan would have been communicated to other parents btw. They won’t even name the child let alone discuss the approach with anyone not caring for them.

its almost impossible to get a child into a special school - and not always needed. Proper support and compassion should be available everywhere,

It isn’t just about meeting the needs of that child though is it? It’s about meeting the needs of all the other children in that classroom. They were hugely failed too, because they could have been injured. I would want to know what the school was doing to protect MY child from being under threat of a violent attack. It’s not good enough to say ‘nothing to see here; child had a meltdown. All okay now’.

Exactly, kids hiding under desks is not acceptable at all.

Why don't you come out with what you really want to say OP. It's pretty obvious what validation you want so you don't have to risk getting grief.

@endingintiers I hope there is no way anyone can be identified. Name change. Not in the UK and not even saying which country. Not an English language country so if fellow parents are online they won’t stumble across this. If this was a UK school I would have waited a few days and changed a few identifying details.

The thing is DC and the other children were impacted and are not just brushing it off as easily as they do the other things. There have been plenty of one off incidents and they were at the partner school for a while. This is a whole different level and they were obviously very fearful and felt helpless as they were told to shelter under desks.

This would be my stance too, if this were to happen at my child’s (future) school. I’m not interested in the kid who done it; they have their own parent(s) to do that.

Far too often, it seems the needs of the other kids (which, of course, will include kids with SEN who are quiet, shy, easily scared etc) are at the bottom of the pile.

This is also why I’ll make sure my son always hits back (appreciate this particular thread didn’t involve a child being hurt but many of them do) as anyone who raises their hand to him will always expect two back. He’ll be nobody’s collateral damage.

You're twisting my words, that's not what I'm saying
Anyways. I'll leave it there as people will read what they want to read

No one has suggested that the details of the incident should be communicated to other parents. No one has suggested the actual plan for the child who had the meltdown should be shared with other parents.

but of course the incident needs to be addressed. I’d be fucking furious if my child had witnessed this, been told to get under their desk for safety and then had seen a teacher being hurt and the school didn’t communicate an outline of what my child had been exposed to. Every child in the class is equally important and deserving and it sounds like they were hugely distressed and the rest of the days learning was written off

If the needs of that child were appropriately met they wouldn't be having a meltdown and your child wouldn't have been affected. But you are right to ask what is happening to protect your child. The best way to do that is for the school to ensure the other child is supported properly but obviously they can't go into details of that with anyone else,

And no doubt he will be back in tomorrow as though nothing happened. No winners here. The child is being failed as he is not in an environment that can meet his needs and the children and teachers are at risk.

It wasn't, but as the number of children who need special schools has fallen, the size and number of special schools has fallen. Inevitably, the balance is difficult. Children in special schools often thrive because of the small class sizes, so you have to keep them small, but then your variation margin is tiny. A mainstream school like my son's primary:
2 classes in each of 6 years plus nursery making 13 classes
class sizes can vary maybe 25-30

You have 13X25 = 325
13X30 = 390
That means the school is viable with plus or minus 65 children

If you have a special school where classes are limited to maybe 10 children and you perhaps only have 5 classes you lose 10 kids and that's a class gone.

Supposing also, whereas generally in a mainstream school only age comes into class categories, in a special school you might be separating on disability type and or severity too, and so you can only take 50 kids in that school, if you can group the 50 kids you have into groups that work. You might have to take less if their needs don't all work together. The school is maybe viable if you can get 40 kids that work in 4 groups of 10, many less and you lose another class, or a few kids that need to be in a group of less than 10 and the school is no longer viable. Or you get what sometimes happens where it's a big school where all the kids who's needs "can't be met in mainstream" are thrown together. For some kids, they would find life easier and safer in mainstream then in this environment. Therefore you lose some more to mainstream and the cycle starts again.

Same and totally agree 👍🏻

How?
Money & mismanaged funding by local authorities.

The council pushes back & does not provide what Sen students NEED because it costs money. Many of the employees in SEN decision making are not at all expert in SEN, they are expert in shuffling papers and delaying. Offering places in inappropriate schools after term starts. Sitting back and sighing & feeling good they helped the county by not meeting child’s needs.

The UK needs to get more educated, professional, IT savvy & SEN literate into their education “businessses”.

There will never be enough funding to solve this placement issue. I’m not an expert by any means but I suspect that SN funding was created with a view to it being used in exceptional cases. It was, and is, affordable for LAs as long as it’s used incredibly sparingly. I imagine that a LA can afford to have a very small percentage of kids using the places only.

But given the sharp increase in SEN diagnoses, there’s no way any LA can keep up with demand.

Even if the money were to magically become available, it would take many years to build the schools, train the staff etc. There’s no quick fix and maybe other options need to be looked at; the needed money will never be available. We could come back to this thread in 20 years and nothing will have changed for the better.

SEN professionals that care and are qualified leaving LAs are doing so due to the blame game and burn out. Senior management throw them under the bus to parents. While hiding behind the scenes of their decision making. Parents on social media constantly attack the SEN professionals who are on the front line. Professional parents are demanding private education paid for by the state. The independent SEN schools are charging the LA £60,000 + then transport is often needed another £20.000 +. Money is spent in the wrong places and essentially it is the children and young people who are being failed.

It must've been upsetting for everyone involved , especially for the child who was having a meltdown. Adequate educational support for children with Sen, is terrible in the UK.

How upsetting for everyone.

I'd be concerned as due to my own child's physical disability, hiding under the table wouldn't have been possible for him.

My child has done this. I wasn't even made aware. Another parent told me. It's really hard. But sometimes it's the simplest of answers to prevent SOME of these incidents. The teacher ( when I approached him about it - school didn't approach me) said he had been arguing with her. Don't argue with her. It fans the flames. Send her for a movement break. You can't fix anxiety or burnout with a fight.

I'm a governor at a SEN school. Yes we have incidents. But they aren't the norm dispite very high needs. We de escalate.

With my daughter I feel the first response is a power struggle to shut her down.

At my school school we remove the pupils not the disregulated child.

But yes it's scary. It's sad. We push for Inclusion as it's the cheap option but there's not enough training to implement it or hands to spare. There was no TA in my daughhters class. So no one to distract her out of the situation.

We need more SEN schools and this will get much, much worse

There isn’t even one special school in my town- any children needing to attend one have to be transported miles away. It’s the same for a lot of families, there are children at my DC school who travel for over an hour. Yes more SEN is being diagnosed but for many of these children it is milder and can be managed adequately within a mainstream setting. It’s unreasonable that children with SEN who need a much higher level of support can’t be educated in an appropriate setting, and as this post shows, often disadvantages both the child and the rest of the class. What other options do you think may be viable?

I think there needs to be research into why there seems to be such increasing numbers of children like this, especially in the more extreme cases. I don't think it's down to there being more children diagnosed.