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

sezam, sorry haven't read whole thread, but I think you are on wrong board. Maybe try SN for more constructive responses?

I haven't got any advice. However, I can remember the frustration of going into school and being told xyz behaviour "came out of no where".

Yes what your DS did was unsafe and completely unacceptable. (Which you know). Yes, the HT needs to look at how the whole day is affecting his behaviour and what is working and not working in his currently class, particularly as you are only weeks into the new term. Sorry I haven't got any more practical advice, but I think you might find it on the SN board.

sezam actually yes, it IS overkill. The punishment to miss the next swimming lesson was appropriate to the infraction. Tacking on that he needs to miss another playtime is not necessary, especially when they also are at fault for the situation (not his specific behaviour, but the situation of all the children being out of control) due to the lack of effective supervision.

I can't believe the attitudes of some people on this board. The OP never suggested that her DS was in the right or should not face consequences for what he did. She was probably feeling very stressed when she posted and a lot of the posts on here will not have helped at all. Please bear in mind that there may be more going on than meets the eye when criticising a poster.

Her DS almost certainly has SN. It sounds like she may have been concerned about supervision ratios. Also, encouraging children to get to the other end first could be misconstrued by some (especially those with an ASD) to try and stop the competition. The OP could well be unhappy about the way in which the exercise was explained to her DS.

Are you sure missing the playtime is a consequence of the same incident ? Seems odd as a 6yo may not even make the connection.

Yep. They had circle time, discussed water safety and now everyone go for playtime excepted for X and Y.

sounds a reasonable consequence to me but they could have just banned both of them from swimming lessons this term on grounds of safety, with the missed playtime as the 'consequence'

They're only going swimming this term so if they get banned, they'll miss out completely.

good job they both only got a one swim ban then. our school says, anyway, that they get a term ban (like you, they only do a term every few years) if they mess around dangerously. i don't know if they follow through on it though - might ask the kids

Your 7 or 8 year old pulled another child under the water and your response is to ask what did the school expect?

Sorry but my judgy pants are hoiked under my armpits

As the mother of a dd who was pulled under the water by another child during year 2 I know what the consequences can be. It took me 3 moonths to get her back in the shallow end. Oh and their swimming lessons were Monday morning so not sure what the mitigation was there.

You should be backing the school to the hilt and talking to your ds about how dangerous and unkind his actions were.

YABVVU

I apologise OP. Ive just seen some of your other posts that i missed when I skimmed through the first time. I over reacted. It sounds like you've reacted perfectly well and taken steps to ensure he knows where he went wrong. Judgy pants back round my ankles.

listsand- I agree totally. It is disgusting.

lists aw, don't leave 'em around the ankles. Very hard to walk that way.

combust read the thread.

I haven't read the whole thread. I would say that your son just has to take the punishment on the chin. I would also say that 12 six/seven year olds being supervised by one adult is ridiculous.

Am I allowed to be cross that school as well as dealing with at the time and arranging that DS would miss next week's lesson have also made him miss playtime yesterday afternoon?

Dunno about here on AIBU, though it’s allowed on Special Needs

I wouldn’t actually ask the school to withdraw him from swimming. Let the school take responsibility for that decision, because if they do then that would be solid evidence that they can’t meet your son’s needs without extra help.

It is very difficult for a school to manage a child whose needs and (dis)abilities haven’t been properly assessed, and yes, schools do tend to go for the immediate explanation (single parent yadda yadda) unless they get solid medical evidence there’s something else going on. So you're doing the right thing to keep chasing that paediatritian appointment and any follow-ups.

Whether it's right or wrong or indifferent the school's punishment what actually can you do?

Remove him and home ed

Remove him and find a new school

Make a formal complaint

Or accept it, document it with school and then move forward with the assessments and your relationship with the school.

As for the HT - you know she's not a machine. Have you considered that she is as weary as you at the length of time this is taking? If she is running a school, teaching, heading CAFs and SENCo then she has taken a lot on. If your case has gone on and on then she may well be deflecting her frustration at the system towards you... Been there and done it to teachers myself and had it done back to me - Often it's because we all desperately want to get it right for the child.

You know what I would do:
I would send her an email and say further to the incident and our discussion I am really frustrated that there are ongoing issues. I have therefore contacted the community paed / CAMHS (whoever) to ask that we expedite the appointment / move to next stage / re-engage x support. I appreciate the frustrations this causes and share them. I would like us to consider increased supervision / ending swimming if DS has further problems when he returns next week to swimming.

You could also try a social story to support your son in processing it - children on the spectrum process very little of the verbal reasoning. Less so at that age.

Swimming was a NC requirement - there is a list and it includes swimming 25m, sculling and other stuff. What he would do instead is up to school really - I had to keep home but that is actually an illegal exclusion I just agreed to so my son had a good experience. It is a KS2 requirement though not KS1 so there is no curriculum requirement yet for your son by sounds of it (if it ever will be now curriculum has changed)