Re DS dunking child at swimming

[sezamcgregor]

DS is Y2. They are going swimming with school. It's on Thursday afternoons. There are 24 in his class.

The class is known to be "lively" with "lots of big characters". School have also identified Thursday and Friday afternoons to be hard work as children are becoming tired and harder to keep concentration.

So, children split into two groups of 12:

Group A - Non swimmers, armbands on in shallow end, swimming teacher plus two school staff members

Group B - Swimmers (can swim without armbands) at the deep end, swimming teacher

Two incidents occur towards the end of the lesson, one of which is DS pulling a child under the water as he over took her.

Pulled over by Head Teacher today and put forward my mitigation that a) there was one person to 12 children who school know can be challenging b) it was Thursday afternoon which school know is a difficult time slot.

HT totally dismissed my comments.

She said that she will also be speaking to the swimming instructor as she should have alerted school staff earlier that she could not cope with the group. (Surely school staff would have noticed if she were not coping and offered to help??)

DS is missing next week's swim as a consequence - which is fine. I have no problem with that and agree that there should be a consequence.

But AIBU to think that she needs to look at the whole picture? I have a kind of "well, what did they expect to happen" view of it

"Seriously, this thread is one massive glaring fucking example of people who have NO FUCKING CLUE what its like to have a child with behavioural problems."

Oh please.

A 1:1 in the pool with him would be more likely to reduce the risk of it happening by keeping him focused on swimming and keeping him separated somewhat from the others if they are getting silly.

AMotherFuckinghem

Fair enough I agree with no shouting but he should have a consequence at home as well as a consequence at school - cancel fun activity at home and make him use the time to make a "sorry" card for the dunked child and take him to apologise to the teacher ensuring he explains why he is sorry and he understands why he must behave in class if he is allowed in again.

"there's no point shouting when he's not listening." There's little point in shouting anyway. Where did you pick up the idea that effective discipline is about raising your voice? It's absolutely not.

"When does she smile at him and say Good Job?" Possibly never, as we don't live in the US.

"I told HT that DS can promise whatever he likes, what he needs is supervision." What he "needs" is a parent who stops making endless excuses for his poor behaviour.

"WHY it happened in the first place and WHAT they are going to do to prevent it from happening in the future." How about what YOU are going to do about your son's behaviour?

It is very easy for parents to suggest alternative deployment of staff when they see additional adults in the group, as they want help for their child. But there could be a variety of reasons for where the school decides to place them.

One of our classes has five adults poolside in addition to the swimming teachers - but that is because there are two children with epilepsy (not that the other parents know this) so we legally have to have a 1:1 adult for each child watching them every second they are in the water. Another child is so anxious about the water they wont enter the water without constant coaxing and reassurance of a trusted TA. Plus there is the expectation is that this child will be able to swim 25m by the end of the year so we have support her in getting over her anxiety. One TA is on hand to take them to the toilet as several always need to go and the toilets are in changing rooms at a public leisure centre - safeguarding would not, quite rightly, allow us to send them independently. The fourth member of school staff is in the water supporting a child with ASD and cerebral palsy who is a complete non-swimmer but has no sense of danger. All that is in a group of just a third of the class (10 children). The others are in the swimmers and improving swimmers groups with no school staff, just swimming tutors.

Parents sometimes turn up at the leisure centre viewing area to watch and could just as easily ask why 10 children have so much support and some of the challenging children, including a child with hearing loss and another with ASD have no support.

Yes, schools need to support children with additional needs, but the pot isn't bottomless. Just because children have additional needs the school doesn't get additional money for them. Every week they have to make compromises to stretch the budget to competing and varied needs. We had to make cuts in other areas of the school to fund the swimming support for that class. The OP has already stated that swimming with the school was fine last year, so my mind would be thinking I can save money there to be able to use it to support him elsewhere or another child with a more pressing need.

I wonder at the OP's blaming everyone else too, but something that should be within the school's power is proper safety discipline during swimming lessons so that anyone messing around has to get out immediately and go and sit with a member of staff. We had two supervisors for 30 kids in my day and no acting out was tolerated.

Honey I clicked on your damn "Sellek-Clooney sauna pic" !
< seriously tantrumming and dunks honey in the Mumsnet gin pool, where she sinks blissfully>

No amount of supervision will stop a child who intends to pull another underwater as he swims by her.

The OP has said in several places that there has been a distinct change from last year to this, and I don't quite see why I must ignore this and join in the shouting?

For example that they did swimming last year without event. I think this would be a useful starter for an open discussion with the teacher. Not in an accusatory way but in a 'let's work out what's going on' way.

I think the OP has been pilloried enough personally. And I've suggested why and how she might want to tackle this if it's transferable to her rl situation.

I don't tend to think the mumsnet equivalent of the whipping stocks is very helpful, or constructive, or kind, though I'm sure it's fun if you're into that kind of thing.

Ok I am old hand at this one...

Son is now yr6

Dx ASD In yr2 and had been on the merry go round of behaviour from aged 2 until current day.

My son's support has been gradually upped until he now has a full time named 1:1 and that has been in place for nearly 2 years - she is a constant presence tho not necessarily velcro'd. He has lots of intervention now too plus I do a lot at home (always have); plans, routines, behaviour management.

Honest answer?

Ratio means diddly squat.... My son needs support and structure, more of an approach rather than a person. Two, three or four adults shouting would have changed the incident.

Boundaries, structure and preparation might...

My school swimming experience...

Yr 3 - school planned for it and he was supported 1:2 whilst changing and on the bus. It's difficult in the pool but he was a fairly able swimmer.
The whole thing was a nightmare, behaviour downhill and he was very very stressed about it.

Yr 4 - different school. By this point he had met the NC requirements in private lessons which were going well (because I took him home in swim shorts, jumper and towel to prevent using a changing room). I asked school to opt him out of the NC which after some wrangling they did.

Now we can sit here and wax lyrical about equality and exclusion... Normally I am the first but simply school swimming was impossible to manage for him - the whole approach and set up (bus, changed, swim, changed, bus in 1hr 30) meant it was best for him that he didn't go...

However, he had every right to go and school, rightly challenged me to offer him that right, which I took full responsibility for a) declining b) justifying and c) evidencing his NC achievement.

I will add this too; your son was utterly in the wrong. Thursday afternoon or not.

My son put a child in A&E when he was your son's age - there were lots of factors that led to that happening but ultimately I am only interested in HIS behaviour as it is ONLY his behaviour that I can hope to change / support.
I didn't shout but I took full responsibility for ensuring that the incident did not re-occur and it meant removing him from something he liked to do but could not actually manage... Something we went back to 2years later.

Now I got a call last week - an incident at school - fairly serious (an excludable offence in a secondary school) so I banned laptop at home for a day and for good measure I banned it for a further 2 days for lying about the incident. His behaviour issues mean I have to VERY clear, VERY robust, VERY consistent and to him I support the school first and foremost even if I privately think they are wrong.

As difficult as it is he remains your responsibility, even at school and sometimes that is really hard and means making really difficult decisions about his schooling and what he is able to take part in.

Sorry, written an essay... It's hard where you are OP... Really hard - I am still there most days and it has taken me a long time to learn to live with it

Keep going

It's just silly to assert the OP is doing nothing about the child's behaviour.

She clearly is.

She clearly has engaged for YEARS with school and is supporting the sanction school have made here. This is not a child who is being indulged and allowed to behave badly.

This is a child whose behaviour does not fit in with the herd in his school and as the parent of a child who is to some extent similar I have every sympathy with the OP.

It's frankly staggering how unpleasantly narrow minded so many of you are and indeed it's astonishing how willing you are to display this.

"My son put a child in A&E when he was your son's age - there were lots of factors that led to that happening but ultimately I am only interested in HIS behaviour as it is ONLY his behaviour that I can hope to change / support."

I agree with this but some posters need to think about who deals with repercussions that affect the other children in these situations. In nearly all of the situations that I have seen it has not been the parents of the children with behavioural issues.

Sorry Boney but you have missed the point

I ultimately can not control every adult, child and environment my son enters.

I have to concentrate my efforts upon my son and continually model, teach and reinforce behaviours whilst also accepting full responsibility for the behaviours...

I have a very strong ethic that all children have the right to be exist without fear of being hurt so to that basis when my son is not coping with something to the point that he is impacting on others I have to make the decision whether HE continues or not because ultimately I can't change everyone else to fit round him... It's impossible...

I work on the basis that the other children's parent do their job too and I am empathetic when I am approached by them but do not tolerate abuse or gossip. I am rarely approached but we are a social leper these days.

I understood what you were saying, Dayshift - and I was trying to work out how to explain that - but don't need to now!

Posted too soon - I meant to say that it is obvious that you are not trying to minimise any effects on other people, but, as you say, you can't control other people and circumstances - clearly that doesn't mean you are blasé about what happens to other people.

Late night links to:
the guidelines
This is my child

Oh. You're back early Olivia

I ALREADY did the guidelines though.

Yes, Honey, we KNOW.
not that I clicked on the link, oh no

And you learned ALL about the lovely guide lines. Which is much more thrilling than a Naked Clooney and Selleck.

Weren't you lucky?

Maryz. for Shame!