To have let rip at the school?

[MajorMam]

DS's (age 15) school just rang me telling that DS had taken an axe to school.

It was actually a polystyrene scythe Halloween prop. He shouldn't have taken it if course.

Aibu to think the Head of Year should have checked whether it was an actual axe before she rang me. I lost it a bit because since DS has started there (this September), they have been constantly ringing me about the most minor of behaviour infractions.

DS has SN with associated behaviour issues (not violence) and this is an SN school who were aware of his behaviour before he started BTW.

I'd love to know how many posters have actual experience of SEN and special schhols. I'd imagine the op may have been more accepting of the phone call if she hadn't already been called about every minor incident
Behavioural problems, particularly when a child has SEN, are not just down to poor parenting as many posters seem to be implying. There is a general tone of "sort out your sons behaviour" like it is that straight forward.
A special school who accepted a student with full knowledge of his needs should be able to manage his behaviour. The school sound like they are really failing him

where no behaviour incidents had been reported

But there had been. Just reported by a child not an adult.

FlyWheel plenty thankyou. DS has ASD & ADHD and can be very, challenging at times, I work with the school rather than against them though and find a middle ground.

The school is failing him when he is bringing stuff in he shouldn't be?

I'm sure someone else will chime in soon too but I'm pretty sure the term 'special school' is not advisable anymore.

'no suggestion that he caused havoc'

Op said it was 5ft. No suggestion that it wasn't made of some springy material so it was still 5 ft when removed from the bag. He took it out on a school bus full of SN pupils. Even if it wasn't a replica scythe. It could have been a replica runner bean and it would still have caused a disturbance. Have you ever been on a school bus, even of mainstream pupils?

I don't understand why you're minimising this, Ceto

Could there be miscommunication here? Are they expecting you to come and collect him when he commits a rule infringement, or do they just have a policy of keeping parents in the loop?

This is a special school so the communication won't be the same as a mainstream.

It could be/ probably is that they have children who are more easily frightened/ more gullible/ very emotionally immature like your son but showing it in different ways who can't handle things your son is doing which in mainstream were just sillyness. Now the needs being juggled are different.

Is it a school for children with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties or a more general school. If his problems are social, emotional and behavioural but it isn't the school's focus it may be an even worse fit than mainstream. Alternatively it could just be that they are more reactive and sheltering than the mainstream because of the needs of all their pupils.

If this school is the only option you probably need to eat humble pie and ask for an appointment to clear things up. Say you think you must have misunderstood their communication policy and would like a meeting to clear the parent-school communication policy up in your mind, and to be clearer what the plan is for handling DS's social, emotional and behavioural problems going forward.

This means you acknowledge that his behaviours can be worsened and improved and are not behaviours which anyone has to merely accept because of SEN

Behaviour of many Sen Children varies depending on their environment. The fact the OP's Ds has worsened says to me that his school are not putting in place measures to prevent things escalating & are actually making things worse.

At the DC's primary school, no toy representation of a weapon is allowed.

You can't take toy weapons into school. The fact that it's a school for children with SN, some of whom may be more easily scared, just makes it worse.

The school were right to contact you imo.

Ceto See I would consider keeping parents informed a positive thing. Much better that than get to a review abd then yhry say 'DC has been having a number of issurs including...'

It always amuses me when people - particularly teachers - think that parents should cringe in fear of being known as "that parent". Since when did we become so subservient?
It isn't the case of 'be that parent' or 'be subservient' and the only people who act like that/claim it's like that tend to be those parents.

People who are 'that parent' love to pick and choose if/when school should be in touch, pick and choose which part of school rules abd expectations apply to their children, tend to undermine school if and when it suits, love calling to to create a massive complaint over minor issues, tend to be thr ones who hear DC's version and then kick off at school, tend to use the phrases 'they were just...' and 'my DC would never lie' etc. They are the ones who love saying they're going to go straight to the head and are usually the ones on MN threads whipping up drama on school threads.

Nobody should want to be 'that parent' because those parents are rude pains in thr backside who prevent teachers actually teaching.

Reasonable parents support the school, are open to thr fact that even good kids make mistakes and even good kids can put a spin on situations (not because they are awful but because they are human). When their DC says a situation has happened, they call the school to calmly discuss it with the teacher and are open to the fact that they may not have 100% of the story. Where the teacher has made a mistake, reasonable parents discuss it calmly with them and aim for a resolution. They are polite and reasonable and usually because they are polite and reasonable teachers are receptive and the situations resolve themselves.

No teacher I know has an issue with reasonable parents raising reasonable issues in a reasonable way.
Every teacher I know finds 'those parents' utterly infuriating, rude and a total pain in the backside.

A lot of you are missing the POINT!

If the school had rung me and told me that DS had taken a foam toy that looked like an axe into school, I am sure my reaction would have been different.

But surely you’d want to be contacted about something like this? Why wouldn’t you want to know? I can’t see the funny side of this in a community of children with SN significant enough to have a place outside of mainstream, and I’m surprised you can’t see how upsetting this could have been for the other children OP. A bit more empathy from the adults here might help out all these vulnerable children.

School write a list of his transgressions in his home/school book daily. Including that he spills ink on his desk, in addition to almost daily telephone calls.

15 years old and just started at sen school sounds like there must have been a lot of incidents at mainstream school prior to placement. Is your son very resentful about being moved? I think you should be building a closer relationship with the school to help him. Something is clearly not working.

Barbie see above post.

I chose to move him Jayfee. The school was not adhering to his EHCP and he had taken to hiding in the loos as he couldn't cope.

It’s coming across as a bit “stop bothering me with all this!” It is annoying to get phone calls and messages every day but if you don’t hear all of this then you are just putting your head in the sand? Either the setting’s wrong or there’s something else going on, but the messages aren’t the problem here.

You love your son and he needs you in his corner...that does not mean accepting challenging behaviour, if that is what it is. Fifteen is a tricky age..you need to work with him and with others to help him.

MajorMam
A lot of you are missing the POINT!
Dubious.

If the school had rung me and told me that DS had taken a foam toy that looked like an axe into school, I am sure my reaction would have been different.
OK. Your gasp would probably have not been as loud. I agree with you on that point OP.

But does the veracity of your gasp and shock really matter? That doesn't seem to be the point of all your posts put together.

Your child is misbehaving at school. He is doing this a lot. He took an imitation axe to school. That's not allowed. It's not right. You know it's not right. The school contacted you. Your child has done wrong, yet again. The school has disciplined him. What have you done?

A lot of you are missing the POINT!

If the school had rung me and told me that DS had taken a foam toy that looked like an axe into school, I am sure my reaction would have been different.

And you weren’t aware that your ds has taken a replica weapon into school?? How??

Who said I 'accept' his challenging behaviour. School should be able to deal with it without contacting me every day unless he has hurt someone in which case I would expect him to be immediately excluded and that would warrant a phone call to collect him. We had agreed on a weekly email system.

Have you ever parented a child with severe learning difficulties Jayfee

Please talk to him as much as possible. You both sound like you need help.

I already explanined that Darles.

No but I have worked with autistic university students. I know how hard it can be for the families dealing with the behaviour of those students when they melt down.

You said you wanted to remove him from school - you can do that via EOTAS.