What does it take to be expelled..

[imjusthereforasec]

From a primary school?

A situation at our school involving sexualised behaviour has arisen and the child has been internally excluded but not permanently. The child is not in my child' class but knowing the situation (as half the school does) I feel really uncomfortable with the child remaining at the school. AIBU feeling like the child should not remain at the school?

To clear a few things up, I am fully aware of the situation as I know one of the parties involved and have been supporting. It is distressing and very specific so not something I can go into further. Yes there is gossip but I am not party to that nor do I discuss it with other parents. I came on here to ask advice to get anonymous advice rather than debate with parents!

I would argue that it is instinct to want to put your child first and protect them from harm - there are some very little children just starting school and the school has restricted access to their section from this child and he is under strict monitoring.

Just because I want to protect my and other children at the school does not mean I have no empathy for the child or that have been through a tough time but does their needs trump the safety of the other children?

Op where do you want this child who presumably suffering abuse, to go?

Op you've just changed your stance from protecting just your child to now protecting others.
I still think Yabu but less so now. You need to talk to the school so they can explain what they are doing to ensure children are not at risk especially if this is an ongoing issue.
@YourFace I had a similar thing happen to me by a child who had started school that morning who took offence to me standing behind him in the queue and so picked me up by my neck. Now there were issues with how the school dealt with it afterward from memory (I was 7 or 8 at the time) but sometimes things happen that you could not have foreseen.

Faithless perhaps discussing it here is helping the OP to think more clearly and less subjectively?

There's no need to attack her.

My number one priority is and will always be my child. I have read all the responses and maybe I am being unreasonable wanting to only protect my child there are others at the school equally at risk.

To those asking what do I want to happen to the child, I honestly don't know. If the child is allowed to remain at the school and something happens again (because I can't see how they can monitor at all times) what then - another child severely affected?

A few years back a boy in my son's class acted very sexually inappropriately. He tried to "do something" (I'm not going to elaborate) to my son (who was 10 at the time) my son hit him to get him off. It caused a big row with school as my son got punished for hitting the boy when he was defending himself from this boy's actions. I wrote and complained and I also involved social services. Turned out the boy had a history and had been adopted by a lovely couple as he'd been sexually abused, and had also had to witness his sister suffering abuse too by his birth father and was taken into care etc and then adopted. Terrible. I TOTALLY understand your worryfor your child, it was my concern too at the time, but please have some empathy too. Talk to the school, write down your concerns and log as a complaint, especially if you feel your child is directly at risk. The boy at my son's school wasn't expelled, but he did leave and go to a more appropriate setting where he could receive the right support for the horrors he'd suffered.

I would wait and see what happens after the internal exclusion. For now, at least, your child isn't at any risk from this other child. There are occasions where schools will opt for an internal exclusion rather than regular exclusion as there are concerns about home. If you have concerns specific to your child then raise them with the school.

There are very strict rules in place about exclusion.
the school is exepected to take a whole raft of steps first, eg internal exclusion etc.
Expulsion cannot come out fo the blue, there has to be evidence of breaking behaviour code, then consequence and so on until the final consequence of expullsion.

At each stage where other children are involved the school will be doign a ris assessment to safeguard the other children.

Eg a child who is violent and puts other childrne at risk may need to be accompanied at all times, especially outdoors at playtimes.

The school is in some ways between a rock and a hard place, because they have to consider the welfare of both the victim and the perpetrator, givne that both are children and the perpetrator may be in very vulnerable circumstances.

if a child is excluded, that may throw them back into a situation which is veyr bad for them, as there is no-where else for them to go.

Not easy for the school. But in the end it has to prioritise the safety of all children in its care.

there are some very little children just starting school and the school has restricted access to their section from this child and he is under strict monitoring.

If he is under strict monitoring then is your own child really at risk? Some children are monitored at all times if the school judge that's necessary but managing risk and maintaining safety is the school's business. The risk assesment can't be based on parents' feeling of discomfort because who wouldn't feel uncomfortable?

If you are a parent and not also a staff member then you should focus on you own child's safety. You can ask what the school are doing to protect your child and complain to the head and then governors if it's not enough.

the strict monitoring is there in order to safeguard the other kids, that is what they are doing, and don't underestimate just how difficult and expensive it is for a school to do this, so they really are taking it seriously

The OP doesnt care about the other child at all alsong as he isnt in her childs school.

So when he gets expelled from that school and goes to another and another parent like the OP finds out why he was moved he gets moved again and again?

The school is dealing with it serosuly but that apprently isnt good enough I bet the OP wouldnt care if the poor child was locked in isolastion or to "disappear" aslong as he was away from even the small possiblty he would be a danger (monitoring means he wont get any chance tbh and he will be ostrisced anyway because there are too many parents like the poster that suggested to tell their child in loud voice to leave them alone i dont want to play / talk to you.

So in fact making your children bullies.

but the child is not at school. They have been told not to come in. That is for safeguarding your child and the other pupils. Now in order to ensure the child that has been excluded is safeguarded lots will be going on behind the scenes including meetings, discussions etc as to why its happened and how to go forward. You should not know about that its none of your business!

Quartz - I think the child is internally excluded. That means in the school, but removed from normal class.

Thank you for your responses, I am going to speak to the school to understand what safeguarding is in place other than the monitoring (for what it's worth the latest incident was done prior to the internal exclusion but when they were supposed to have constant monitoring so I don't feel it has worked that well to be honest)

I am going to bow out of this discussion, as I cannot without outing myself give more information as that would be inappropriate.

OP - before you disappear.

I have know schools who have paid lip serive to a safeguarding issue/monitoring issue because (I think) they didn't really believe it.

One example is a child in reception who was autistic and used to bite when distressed. School had only seen him quite calm and happy, and was lax over supervision, even though the point of his 1:1 supervision was to prevent others getting hurt.

Then one day he bit someone. His mum was furious, it meant her son was labelled as the biter when actually she had been saying since day one that he needed supervision. (and he really bit badly)
After that incident the school suddenly became much more srious about his supervision, and it never happened again, although he did get distressed etc, his TA was close enough and clued up enough to see it coming and remove him.

But it took and incident before they really got on board.

This may be similar in your situation

When my DD was in secondary school, there was a girl in her class who exhibited very aggressive behaviour: hitting other children, throwing chairs around, swearing at teachers, inviting other children to look at pornography. I spoke to a senior member of staff about my concerns and he said the girl came from a troubled background and they were working very hard with her with counselling, anger management etc to improve her behaviour. All very sad for her, and very admirable on the part of the school, but it didn't alter the fact that I felt my own DD and the other 20+ children in the class were at risk from this girl's behaviour.

None of us would want to go to a workplace where a colleague was sexually harassing us, swearing at us or being violent towards us, and I guess most of us wouldn't want that for our children either.

Sorry but I think you are unreasonable to only care about YOUR child. This child is likely to have been abused. Your 2nd post is everything that is wrong with the world.
The op is not selfish for putting her child first, nor for not thinking of the other child, her child is her priority!
If she has first hand knowledge then she is going to be worried.
The only thing you can do is ask the school how they are going to keep your child safe.
You can't ask anything of the other child, but you wouldnt be unreasonable to ask how your child will remain safe.

No one actually knows that this child is an abused child. You are all assuming that because of the sexulised behaviour he displayed. And the OP has every right to be concerned about her child and the possibility that her child might be sexualy assulted whilst at school.

There are children who display anti social/threatening/sexual behaviour who are not abused children.

And whilst there is a possibility this child might be abused and of course that is horrendous and they need protecting immediately, allowing other children to be abused by them because you dont want to upset them further is wrong.

From experience, primary schools put safeguards in place but they rarely work. My son was supposedly being 100% protected from another boy at primary school a few years back. Until the next time in the boys toilets when the teachers were not looking and he ended up with broken ribs at the age of 7. I took my son out after this because the school did not protect him. The child who did this however remained at the school.

So in this scenario, my ds missed out on an education he was entitled to and had to leave all his friends behind because the school deemed this other child's needs trumped my ds's.

This is a very difficult, an I understand your anxiety about your DC's safety. Obviously you know that the child in question will only be acting out what he has witnessed in the home, but that doesn't make them less of a safety risk to the other children.

I'm speaking as someone who was abused as a child, and my brother was one of my abusers, this started while he was in primary school. He was copying what he was witnessing in the family so I know he was a victim too.

What I think is most important is making sure your DD understands about her body being her own and private. And that if anything happens that makes her uncomfortable she should speak to a grown up (either family or a teacher). I wish someone had said this to me as a child.

I do feel for that poor child, hopefully they'll get the help they desperately need. I'm sure SS will do a full investigation in view of what's been happening.

The input from the poster below reflects my own son's experience. Her son was supposed to be 100% protected and he wasn't. My son's attacker was supposed to be 100% monitored and he wasn't, enabling him to strangle my son. He didn't strangle him on his first day at school, he had an entire back history of behaviour at the same school.

I was at a school event where the child was allocated a 1-1 support worker and every time I looked at her she was engaged in chat. She didn't see him when he punched another boy and deliberately/aggressively smashed a glass.

Don't blindly trust the school to protect. Not everyone has the same high standards in safeguarding as you might wish for and expect for your child. Forget about the posters on here accusing you of demonising the attacker. It isn't about that. People on here always arrogantly rush to assume that parents are completely unable to empathise with troubled kids. You want to keep your child safe and there is no shame in that. Make sure the governors are alerted. You can't assume they know the full history. You need to make sure that risk management plan is robust and whilst you might not be able to learn the details of that plan, if you are satisfied that those who's role it is to hold those in charge to account are informed, then you are doing what you can.

This place is mad sometimes.

Obviously OP is going to care about her own child first and foremost.

She is privy to the ins and outs and given that; its natural for her to focus her concern on the safety of her child.

I understand that.

But I think it's asking a bit much to expect her to consider the needs of a child who has obviously harmed someone she's close to. A child she's close to.

Removed from the situation, we can of course be concerned for the abuser since the chances are he's been abused himself.

But in the thick of it? Nah.