Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

See all MNHQ comments on this thread

Original poster

Re DS dunking child at swimming

340 replies

sezamcgregor · 26/09/2014 11:01

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

OP posts:
bruffin · 26/09/2014 13:34

How do you think extra supervision will help if he is in the pool?

VerityWaves · 26/09/2014 13:34

My goodness you are doing your son no favours by speaking to the head like that OP.

OwlCapone · 26/09/2014 13:36

Where do think this extra supervision is going to come from given you can't be there? The non swimmers need far more supervision for safety reasons, you can't take one away from there.

DS2 sounds very similar to your son. Had he done this I would have put the blame squarely on his shoulders. Thankfully, at 13, he has matured and grown out of that sort of behaviour. Mostly.

pearpotter · 26/09/2014 13:38

Most of "naughtiness" at school I've found is kids forgetting how to behave, rather than doing stuff intentionally. Not true naughtiness but disruptive all the same. If they keep being reminded how they ought to behave then eventually they do get it, and improve. Hence having a positive, not shouty, chat about the dunking, and how he could behave better next time.

Original poster
sezamcgregor · 26/09/2014 13:39

Alice - They took DS swimming last year and there were no issues. I did not think that I would need to meet with school because one of his teachers had him for a few months at the end of reception and the other is the HT who (as I've said) has had a very active role in the meetings/referrals etc regarding his behaviour.

I was actually very pleased about him having these two as they both know his behaviour and I thought would enable a smooth transition and HT would be able to practise what she's been preaching to me for the last year at the CAF meetings (which I had no doubt at all that she would do).

OP posts:
Original poster
sezamcgregor · 26/09/2014 13:42

Thanks PearPotter this is DS to a tea - but it's constant at school.

OP posts:
Jessica85 · 26/09/2014 13:45

why she is so reluctant to put extra supervision in place

There may be a number of reasons for this.
Firstly, having one to one supervision for your child will not necessarily help him in the long run. It sounds like he needs to learn to control his behaviour and take some responsibility for his actions.
Secondly, one to one supervision is very very expensive, and is only really used with children who have very significant SEN, for whom the school are able to claim the additional cost from the government.

Unless he has very significant needs he is not going to have one to one supervision for his entire life, and so must learn to control his behaviour himself.

AliceDoesntLiveHereAnymore · 26/09/2014 13:46

I've found that it's still best to have a brief discussion going over the situation, to make sure everything is sorted beforehand. Better safe than sorry IMO. A lot of things can change in a year.

Original poster
sezamcgregor · 26/09/2014 13:49

VerityWaves - Perhaps not, but she is very rude and I needed to put my point across rather than just being submissive and apologetic like I usually am with her. I always walk away wishing that I'd said things, wishing that I'd asked her when she's spending so much time apparently shouting at him, when is she being positive? When does she smile at him and say Good Job?
Did she even think to tell the teacher before the swimming lesson "by the way, Seza's DS has fuck all attention span, finds it difficult to wait inbetween goes, we find that x y and z work well"?

OP posts:
GoblinLittleOwl · 26/09/2014 13:51

Solution.
(if the lessons take place in a public swimming pool).
The swimming pool staff are responsible for the conduct of the lessons; they are in charge.
Your child should have lessons as part of the National Curriculum, but
in the event of a Risk Assessment, your son is the risk, to other children and to himself.
Therefore:-
go to the swimming pool and ask for extra lifeguard support to be provided during the half hour your son is in the water.
Obviously, you will pay for this.
The other children are safe, and your son is receiving the extra attention you think he needs.

AliceDoesntLiveHereAnymore · 26/09/2014 13:52

Did she even think to tell the teacher before the swimming lesson "by the way, Seza's DS has fuck all attention span, finds it difficult to wait inbetween goes, we find that x y and z work well"?

And that is where having a brief meeting prior to the activity would have cleared that up.

VerityWaves · 26/09/2014 13:54

That may be so seza but this action could have caused real significant harm to another child it's not simply unruly class behaviour and she wants you to take it v seriously and work with her to communicate to your son how serious this could have been.

Surely you both want the same outcome ? Don't you see?

Aeroflotgirl · 26/09/2014 13:55

Yabvu your ds displayed some awful and dangerous behaviour, I hope you are dealing with that at home too. When I was 7 I was pulled under by a girl and nearly lost consiencess. I can remember it 32 years on and still scares me. Mabey tgey should look at their staffing ratios, but your ds is in yr2 and should behave better.

miaowmix · 26/09/2014 13:57

Despite all your son's issues though, what he did was very wrong and potentially harmful, I cannot understand why you wouldn't absolutely come down on him like a ton of bricks for such behaviour?
Does he understand what he did was wrong, and has he apologised to the other poor child?
I find your attitude so blase and you seem unable to accept any responsibility, instead blaming tiredness, attention span, ratios, etc. If my 7 year old behaved like that I would be livid and she would have a serious punishment.

NickiFury · 26/09/2014 14:00

Jessica some kids with SN/SEN will never learn to control themselves because the nature of their needs does not allow them too, yet will still be considered by their school NOT to need one to one support. There are 1000's of children in this country falling through the net in this way, it sounds to me as though this is happening with OP's son.

Bambambini · 26/09/2014 14:03

"The class get unruly, DS always takes it a step too far.
We've had chats with the HT where she's pointed out that children seem to like "getting DS into trouble" by pushing him to get a reaction."

Actually, this is familiar. My child had a boy in his class very much like this. He had control and anger issues. He lashed out, had little impulse control, was the class joker to a degree".

I saw with my own eyes the other nosy leading him on, pushing him to behave badly and laughing and sitting back to watch the show with no come back on them - just the other boy getting into trouble and getting a worse reputation. So, it is possible that others can zone in and exert influence.

AliceDoesntLiveHereAnymore · 26/09/2014 14:03

Ds1 is one of those children that will most likely never fully be able to control himself due to his disabilities. Thankfully, his specialised school has put a 1:1 in place for him during swimming, and this 1:1 goes into the water with him and is within arm's reach of him the entire time he is in the pool/pool area.

Bambambini · 26/09/2014 14:05

Nosy =boys!

CoteDAzur · 26/09/2014 14:08

OP - Why do you keep talking about shouting?

'School shouted at him already'
'Teacher had been shouting at him'
'I don't think shouting at him again will help'
etc...

Nobody is telling you to shout at your child but you need to tell him off. You cannot let the consequences of his action be just a nice chat with mummy about how it was not nice to pull another child underwater.

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 26/09/2014 14:13

Sezamcgregor - I suspect that when you said to the HT that "...he can promise what ever he likes but what he needs is supervision...", she didn't hear you saying that your ds is good at promising to behave well, but not so good at carrying this out unless supervised, and that what came over to her was that you don't think it is up to your ds to resolve to behave but it is up to the staff to stop him misbehaving - so she saw you trying to shuffle off responsibility onto the staff. You thought you were communicating one thing, she heard something very different.

CoteDAzur · 26/09/2014 14:15

"ds is good at promising to behave well, but not so good at carrying this out"

Could that be because he knows that there will be no consequences? That mummy will think "Oh he's already been shouted at at school, so I'll just have a little chat"?

IsItFridayYetPlease · 26/09/2014 14:15

They took DS swimming last year and there were no issues. - What you and the school need to look at is what is different this year? If a child has coped in a situation previously it is fairly safe to make the risk assessment judgement that there will no issues this year, unless there have been changes elsewhere. Has his behaviour deteriorated generally compared to last year? What sort of routines, boundaries and social interactions did your child have over the summer holidays? The change from a free and easy home life, where a child has little or no pressures to anything they don't want to and can be totally in charge of their own routines, alongside few social interactions where they have to think about the needs and feelings of others can set back children who are struggling with managing their behaviours.

I do wonder what additional "supervision" is possible in that situation? Someone swimming alongside him? The school employing an additional swimming teacher to teach him in a separate area of the pool? Supervision itself would not have prevented these impulsive incidents.

OddFodd · 26/09/2014 14:16

Yes I think STDG might be right. I think you've got an awful lot of stick on this thread Seza because you've not expressed yourself particularly well and I wonder if it's the same thing with the head.

Please do come over to the SN board - lots of people there who have been on similar journeys who are willing to help and support.

MrsMcColl · 26/09/2014 14:17

The class contains some 'big characters'? One of whom is your DS, presumably. That sounds like a problem for a start - excusing unacceptable behaviour as him being a 'character' won't be doing your son any favours. I agree with others who've said that you need to put up a united front with school to get him into line.

NickiFury · 26/09/2014 14:17

Yes there's clearly something more going on. About time posters stopped jabbing at the OP I think.

Swipe left for the next trending thread