To think school should be doing more to protect DS and others?

[omegamale]

DS is in year 3 at local primary school. Generally a good bunch of children but one boy in his class has serious issues around ADHD (I think he has some kind of diagnosis) which include violence.
I can think of at least three children who have been removed to other schools directly because of 'Boy X'. He is a bright kid but seems to have no social behaviour filter and is very intolerant and aggressive.
DS wavers between extreme confidence and deep uncertainty, and he's not able to keep Boy X away. This boy is overly aggressive during playground football (for example) and yesterday, when DS joined the game late and picked up the ball, Boy X grabbed DS, threw him down and bit his hand (hard). DS was only trying to pass the ball back and ask to join in. Playground staff were on hand to sort it and Boy X did go to class teacher, who has given him a one breaktime in classroom sanction and also told him he will miss 15 mins of today's PE lesson.
Only a couple of weeks ago, DS went to the toilet, singing away (as normal)
and Boy X, who was in a cubicle, told DS to open the door (which was unlocked), then flicked a dirty toilet brush all over him. I spoke to head teacher about this - not least because of the potential health consequences - and Boy X was excluded for a day but not a great deal else happened and the HT, a born diplomat, suggsted that because only the two boys were present, there was no proof DS didn't do something to annoy/upset Boy X. I know he didn't, and he was pretty traumatised by the episode.
Boy X enters and leaves school via reception instead of the normal route, and spends a good half his school day working on his own outside the head teacher's office - because of his general disruption and more specific bullying - but the school seems reluctant to act properly on this issue.
His parents are pretty strict with him, and his mother is clearly at her wits' end. I have some sympathy for her, but more for DS and his classmates, who are sick of having to put up with this situation.
We have a good relation with school and I don't want to go behind their back to complain to LEA, but I'm not sure what else to do.

In the past it was also much easier for schools to exclude pupils, and before the current trend towards inclusion, many of the most disabled or difficult pupils never made it into mainstream schools in the first place. You can't really compare a 1970s classroom with today, where schools are expected to cope with sometimes severe disabilities or medical needs often with inadequate support.

I don't know what the answer is, except more resources. The OP's son has a right to be safe at school, but child X has a right to an education too. Ultimately if the school doesn't or can't protect other children from violence, and if serious assaults occur, going to the police is probably the only answer.

There was a boy in one of my dc's classes like this, more aggressive to teachers than children though. He was sent to a military style boot camp, initially 4/5 days a week but then gradually reintroduced back into school. His behaviour according to my dc is much better. As a parent I still suspect that there might be some sort of SN - but only based on my interactions/ observations with him. The main thing is that he is now able to sit in class and learn along with all the other dc. He is no longer physically restrained and forcibly removed from class and the class as a whole can actually work.

Obviously as a parent your concern is your child. In a different situation (different class different dc) the teacher was telling me that the child's parents had been spoken to etc etc, I pointed out that the action they take with the child is not my concern (or rather my business), my concern was that they weren't taking bloody obvious steps to safeguard my dc.

We have children like this at school.

Some things that school have tried that have helped:
Insisting that the child with SN use the disabled toilets- so he is the only child in there and so no other children are at risk
At play times having a named member of staff supervising- not as official as a 1-1 but just dividing playground staff up 'Mrs Smith can you keep an eye on X, Mrs Jones can do any first aid and Mrs White can keep a general eye out'
At dinner times there is a social group/club which is run by a dinner lady, she does crafts and things. This means that pupils spend some time in a structured environment (lots of them find unstructured time difficult), the time spent without direct supervision is reduced, and there is time to spend on social skills and modelling appropriate behaviour.

Together these 3 measures help to ensure the rest of the children are kept safe and don't cost too much to implement as they use staff and resources that are already there.