To question whether this child should be in mainstream school?

[Goldenhandshake]

There is a child in my DC's year 3 class, I do not know the extent of his learning difficulties or conditions, I have spoken to his mum on a few occasions and she has stated he has ADHD, however there may be more she hasn't divulged, always assumed it was none of my business tbh. She was very open in saying he had set his siblings coat on fire previously (whilst the sibling was wearing it!).

However I am becoming increasingly worried, he has had several very violent outburst in class and the playground, he has been pulled off another child after wrapping his hands round his throat and choking the lad, has thrown a chair at the teacher and broken a window. It sounds very much like he has difficulty controlling his anger and I am now concerned for my DC's safety.

I don't want to be one of those parents who pushes out children for being different or having complex needs, but I equally do not want the worry that he will attack or harm my child.

So WIBU to request a meeting or call with the school to find out what they are doing to either limit the risk or manage this child's needs appropriately and keep the rest of the class safe?

maddy we have had similar complaining. And people complaining that ds gets to go out and "play" with the TA every day - what might look like playing to the other children is actually his OT/physio work, they are going to be upset from Monday when he gets to go and do it twice a day instead of once!

Snap! we have had exactly the same, and of course with dd being top of the class the sour grapes all intimated that it was because of the "special attention" she got.
I did once say to a teacher, who told me that children were complaining that dd had adjustments made, that if children didn't understand when they got to early secondary that other people have different needs then I'd consider them to have been failed by their parents and the school. You read stuff on here and realise that it's not only children there's a whole bunch of people lacking insight and empathy and with the "I'm alright Jack" attitude.

It's taken almost 12 hours but MNHQ have finally deleted this disablist hate speech from 10:28:49.

Some of the attitudes on this thread are shocking but sadly, not surprising. Interesting how many experts there are on the management of children with additional needs in mainstream schools. Who needs panels, experts, experience and independent medical reports when you can make an opinion on a child's needs based on a post on the internet?

I suspect this thread was started by a goady fucker and then the usual rabble pile in tbh. Nothing new being posted just another opportunity to kick out at children with invisible disabilities.

And as usual, it's left up for "discussion" and so we can "educate" the gfs (who are clearly beyond education).

No I don't gossip. But I think any parent wants their child to be and feel safe. It doesn't matter to me the reasons behind why a child is being violent, it matters that the school tackles it, so it doesn't happen. It is none of my business why it is happening.

I know in my child's case they had 2 years to intervene - 2 years!!

They allowed the bullying to escalate and the child being bullied got more violent

I moved them

My child's education is more important than the failings of the school - teachers and head and SENCO - you can add the LA and anyone else you like

My child's education is important to the point they were having a break down - school refusal - not eating etc

I don't blame the child in question but I wasn't going to hang round and let my child be continually scared to go to school

More left just after - parents voted with their feet -

It's not about inclusion or anti disability - there were others with SEN who weren't at this daily level of meltdowns -

Whilst children may be protected by law in respect of inclusion there is no law to protect my child from harm - it took a high fight to move them to another local school where similar children had support -

It is not labelling a child to say that they have been violent, if they have been. I understand that there are many reasons a child could be violent. But why should other parents know the details about that childs life or their SEN? That is none of my business. So why would I judge the parents?

It is parents business to ensure their child is okay. Although I am concerned about policies of the school and that they treat other children fairly. But unless it is obvious, it is almost impossible for other parents to judge if a SEN child is being treated unfairly by the school. That is not not giving a damn. that is simply recognising that children and parents have a right to privacy.

Insanity Have RTFT are you me?

In order to get a SEN child the help they need parents need to sharpen their elbows, be prepared to lose their house, career and DH as well as being ostracised from their community. Bypassing the school and aiming at the top of the ladder helps. It is bloody tough and I like many SEN parents have done the walk of shame from school with tears rolling down my face whilst other parents gossip. Eventually I got SS for DS1 and DS2, being a normal kid at a special school is brilliant.

SEN kids can grow up to be perfectly passable adults, much excluded DS1 is currently house/dog sitting .

In answer to OP, write to the school and ask why they are not providing sufficient proactive assistance and support to the child in your DC's class so that your DD can meet her targets, remember inclusion is the aim, exclusion is often the result. Be nice to the parent, do you need to fundraise to get a private EP report. Be innovative, be kind, be helpful and be inclusive. We met a couple of duff teachers along the way, dozens of duff parents and a couple of gems. Should he be in mainstream? Yes, in an ideal world he should.

Hi all,

Thanks for all the reports about this thread.

Jason - we're so sorry for the delay here. As you can see, we've now removed several more posts which we believed to be disablist and will be dealing with a number of posters behind the scenes to get the message through that we don't allow disablist posts on the site.

insan1ty we don't think the OP is a goady fucker - we'd have taken the thread straight down if we felt that to be the case - and in fact we've only received one report about the actual opening post (though we've had several about various other posters on the thread). The OP has been on the site for many years and has no form for starting inflammatory threads.

We do have to point out that we've also had some reports about name calling tonight and can see that several posters have crossed the line. We consider such posts to be personal attacks and therefore in breach of our Talk Guidelines, so we'll have to remove these posts.

In addition, we can now see that there are a number of posters who are sock puppeting on the thread (not the OP, before anyone asks). This is disingenuous and misleading and really not on - again, we'll be taking action against such posters.

Our choice now is whether to leave the thread to stand (with a fair few holes in it) or to take the whole thing down. We're happy to listen to your views - please let us know what you think.

Child with SEN grabs another by the throat and lifts them off the floor
is persuaded to put child back
then runs out across the field
is chased and tackled to the ground (by other pupils)
then collected by staff
dragged (literally) back into classroom and sat next to child they had just throttled
and made to apologise making eye contact

all was peaceful for the next 5 years

the staff have the whole picture, you have a tiny part

Whilst children may be protected by law in respect of inclusion there is no law to protect my child from harm - it took a high fight to move them to another local school where similar children had support -

There are safeguarding laws to protect your child from harm just as there are inclusion laws to support children with SN in mainstream schools. But in both cases there can be big gaps between the law says and what actually happens. Parents of children with SN often have to fight to get the support the law says their children should have, just as you had to fight to get your children into a school that was safe for them.

It's not about inclusion or anti disability - there were others with SEN who weren't at this daily level of meltdowns -

But it is about inclusion and disability, because every child with SEN has different needs and even if the school is meeting the needs of several children with SEN that doesn’t mean it’s meeting the needs of all of them. Daily meltdowns mean that the school is not meeting the child’s needs, and it’s not possible for us to know whether that’s because the child’s needs are too great for any mainstream school, or because the school doesn’t have the facilities they should have, or because they are mismanaging the child.

Dawn Thank you for the apology, but almost 12 hours for what was blatant disablism and sock puppeting really falls below the mark, especially as at least one person from HQ swepped through the thread already at about 1pm and did nothing about it, after at least 4 reports were made.

It’s not just me that needs an apology here, I’m just the loudest of many who are effected, unfortunatly less able to bite my tounge.

That said i have noticed and do think you are absolutely on the right track with the new deletion messages and emailing / messaging the posters to tell them specifically what they have done to warrant having posts deleted. It absolutely shows us that you are trying to put a new system in place.

If you are leaving the thread up there is a post of mine at 13:02:31 which is a personal attack and references a deleted post.

There was an excellent article in Mind (Scientific American) recently about ADHD diagnoses of girls. Specialists now believe that many girls diagnosed with ADHD actually don't have ADHD at all, but rather ASD. It's just that the indicators in girls are different, but this is beginning to be recognised.

To say that ADHD is sometimes misdiagnosed is not the same as saying it doesn't exist. Accusing posters who say the former of believing the latter is unfair. ADHD can be difficult to diagnose accurately; there is plenty of literature about this. In addition, not all practitioners are equally clued up and competent. Someone who understands the criteria, and also spends a large amount of time with a child, may well be in a better position to judge than a professional who sees a child only briefly, and has to rely on information from the previous carers (the ones from whom the child has been removed). Bad parenting does exist: if it didn't, we wouldn't need a care system.

Before I get accused of trolling, I will add that my brother (age 57) has had his life hugely and negatively affected by his ADHD and dysgraphia, because they weren't recognised to exist 50 years ago. I also have a daughter who is dyspraxic.

A child being diagnosed with adhd instead of asd is different from people saying children are being diagnosed with adhd when they are just badly behaved - which is what has been going on on here. A lot of children will have both.

A child being misdiagnosed with ADHD instead of ASD is much different than saying it's used as a placemarker for an unknown diagnosis. ADHD and ASD are often co-morbid.

Bad parenting does exist: if it didn't, we wouldn't need a care system.

Of course it exists. That doesn't mean it's a viable thing to assume PRIOR to investigating for special needs, which is what every parent of a child with SNs faces from medical professionals right from the start.

I think as a parent what grieves me the most that ds1 is not in mainstream is that some teachers were able to be flexible and make reasonable adaptions for his difficulties. With teachers like this he thrived in mainstream and he did not impair the learning of others. Infact dare I say it they might even have benefited from having someone in the class with different views and opinions of the world. Unfortunately, not all teachers seem to be able to do this which is when the problems arised. So yes I do think it is a failure of certain teachers and headteachers because if some teachers can cope with children such as mine why can not others.

I agree one that was exactly it for my friends ds who has since been dx and EHCP. He thrived in mainstream infant school as they were flexible and adapted themselves. It also helped that the HT had a dd with ASD and his class teacher had two kids with ASD so he did really well. Come the transition to middle school, his behaviour suddenly nosedived, a lot of changes, and negative attitude from school, he is manipulative, controlling. He understands what he is doing. Not bothering to find out what causing it, or to gather evidence for an EHCP. They did the minimum they had to in terms of provision and he was permanently excluded and into PRU.

When his parents tried to find him another mainstream school prior to dx or EHCP, mainstream schools in the area put their shutters up, and did not want to have a child with such problems in their school. Yes disablist attitudes of schools still remain, it was shocking when my friend told me. Once he had his EHCP, they visited mainstreams with units, and one asked how much money he came with! They were not interested in his needs 😠 Yes schools can be a big problem too.

This puts pressure onto SS, and my friends ds needs are so specific that none of the SS in the area even the ASD school can meet his needs.

Because the ASD school does not help ASD kids who are very academic, they cater for those on the lower end, so he has to be placed in a very specific ASD school.

Aeroflotgirl That's exactly correct. My ds1 spent the last few years academically wasting away in his special school. He was still doing the same maths for a few years in a row, however, they insisted he wasn't. He stated he spent a lot of his time on math apps/games in class while they worked with the other students. As they rarely sent work home with him, I didn't see it right away, and his progress reports always indicated progress was being made, but no specifics. I looked at some of the work he was doing in mainstream prior to going there and then finally at some he had done the last month or so at school that I managed to get ahold of (after kicking up a fuss), and I realised there had been little to no change as they weren't progressing him at all. Now that he's home educated, he's moving ahead again and really enjoying it as he really likes maths.

As much as it galls me to admit it, the LA person that stated that he would not be pushed enough academically in a specialised school was spot on. The problem we had, however, was that he was not coping in the mainstream school due to sensory overload and the LA was not prepared to continue full time 1:1, which he desperately needed. He barely spent half of his time in the classroom during the day but still was in top groups in everything. There really wasn't a school suitable for him locally.

Kesstrel where do you get the idea that professionals make a diagnosis after seeing a child briefly?
Many of the professionals involved with my son were actually involved for up to 5 years.
Brasty when my child was in mainstream education my priority was the safety and education of all the children, which was why I complied with all their suggestions and strategies (few of which worked) because I thought that would be the quickest way to prove that mainstream education was not the place for my son.

I don't think that any parent will want to keep a child with SEN in a school where their needs are not being met, but most are blocked from moving them until evidence gathered suggests that a move would be beneficial.