Son and school staff

[Nel81]

Hi, My son, 6, is a handful, gets dysregulated often and lashes out. He is in year 1 and can't cope in the classroom. He spends a lot of time in the nurture room or outside with a member of staff. We are lucky with the school as they have basically given him a 1-1 all day, staff have a timetable of when they are with him and he loves them all, except one. Long before Christmas he told me that she hit him, hitting himself several times on his forehead to show me. I reported it to the head and social services phoned me to ask about it, that was the last i heard about it. A few weeks ago he told me MissJ doesn't care about me, I asked him how he knew and he said "missj said she doesn't care about me." I saw her blank him the day before but didn't think anything of it.I spoke to the head and was told the following day that it was sorted. He told me again today that missj hurts him. We had a little chat and he said that she hurts him by holding his hands tight when he tries to hurt her. Do I say something to the head this time?

I would I think. Your son needs you to advocate for him, however hard that may be.

So she restrained him when he tried to hurt her? This is allowed but I'm pretty sure that a record should be kept each time restraint is used.
Does he often get physical with staff?

You need to keep a clear, dated timeline of what’s been happening including the schools response - it will help build a picture of what’s been happening. Ask the school for a copy of their policy on use of restraint and ask to meet the HT to discuss this teachers relationship with your son.

Thank you, I wasn't sure whether to mention it to the head as I can kind of understand why she would do it. Unfortunately, he does lash out at the staff when he's dysregulated, the same as at home. They do use the team teach methods but it's the alnco who does this and he always comes out to tell me at the end of the day if he's had to do it. I'm going to speak to him tomorrow (he's usually on the gate in the morning) if the yr1 staff have had the training and then go from there.

Are you in England/does he have an ehc? Would a specialist unit be more appropriate?

We're in Wales and have just had the PCR last month. School are applying for the LA maintained IDP, which I think is the equivalent and also a move to a specialist unit within another mainstream school. He has the cognitive age of 3.5 so learning difficulties are at play as well as the significant trauma he's been through. We only found out about the learning difficulties before Christmas following an assessment by the adoption services' psychologist, which I am extremely grateful for as we could have been waiting ages for the ed psych to do one.

I guess you just need to get him through this to the specialist unit. Hopefully that will be better x

Hi, thought I'd update the thread. I spoke to the alnco (who's also the deputy head) and he showed me where he holds during team teach and it's not the hands. F spoke again this morning about missj hurting him and I asked him to show me what happens. He squeezed his hands together and said she pushes his holds them tight. The alnco said that they'd been keeping more of an eye on the two of them when they're together since the last time i said anything and he's aware that there's a clash there. He recorded everything and there going to look into things.