To think this child needs a specialist school

[Londongirl86]

Hi all. I am concerned about a child at my child's school and her behaviour. A week ago my DD was attacked by this child at lunch. She rubbed food all over her face and punched her in the back. The teacher said she has problems and that doesn't excuse it but she's dealt with.

I went home happy enough and told my DD to keep away from her. Over the last few days two other parents knew straight away at the gates who had hurt her. The reason being their children had also been hurt by this child. She also gets angry in class and they have to evacuate there kids.

My friends child was hurt by this kid Thursday. And apparently she also kicked mine again. so we reported it yesterday morning. She came out of school yesterday and told me this child smacked her drink out her hand and stamped on her friends foot. The teachers said nothing to me after school. My child said she was taken indoors for being naughty.

Through conversation in the playground at least 7 kids have been attacked by her. She has problems and we know she's fostered. She clearly isn't able to cope. What is really upsetting is the teachers allowing her out at lunch to harm others. They said it's hard to watch her. You would think they would be concerned she will put a child in hospital if she kicks or pushes them wrong.

My child's only been at school 2 months. She's still settling. I'm annoyed I'm in a position now where I need to keep having words with the teachers. I don't want to become that annoying mum that's pestering them every day. But I also AM not comfortable with my child being put at risk by a violent child who is struggling.

What should be happening with all this? Surely she should be constantly with an adult or at a specialist school?

@cindylouwhosplaits

It's always important to look at both sides. It's the same as I don't think my child is perfect either. I'm sure one day she will upset someone etc. Parenting is hard work. It's great you tried to help the child by including her. if I knew this little girl I would want to show her happiness. It's horrendous for any child to be born into a world and be removed from the person who is supposed to always be there. Sadly children can be born into many situations and I know my kids are lucky to not know a bad world yet!

I just in my mind (maybe I'm nieve) thought home school might mean she can go out with her foster parents on trips and meet up with others in groups and have the support of the people she hopefully is now loved by. Whilst I've been told on here I don't have a right to an opinion I only meant it in a nice way. I'm naturally concerned about my child and I have chatted to three mum friends, I'm extremely close to two of them. It was never us saying nasty judgey things about her.

Thanks for reading my thread and explaining things from another point of view. Your little boy will shine I'm sure. My friend has a brother with ADHD and he was so much fun growing up and he's a grafter now. Loves anything outdoorsy. He was never violent towards people but did silly things. We really wouldn't want him any other way though he's made me laugh so much over the years and I always felt safe in the dark with him if he walked me home.

Fingers crossed this little one has a happier life soon and the school start to protect our children

I’m a teacher and this is all too commonplace and is wholly unacceptable. We should NOT be accepting of children being hurt due to another’s traumatic start in life or special needs or whatever else. Pray tell me in what circumstances it would be acceptable to knowingly put an adult in an environment with a violent or aggressive individual without safeguards?

You can be as understanding as you like about the circumstances of children’s lives but it does not mean we have to accept violence and harm towards others children.

The school have a duty to look after the health, safety and well-being of all pupils. Please complain. Not about the child in question but about the school’s inability to keep your/other children safe from harm. Ask for the complaints procedure and take it from there.

OP, I have worked with LAC dc for a long time, I understand trauma pretty well, I have lots of sympathy of dc in the care system.
But I still wouldn't want or accept my dc being hurt on a regular basis.
It is okay to want your dc to be safe and other dc to be supported as well.

I'm pretty sure I was very reasonable and understanding of this little girls situation. I have not once been cruel to her. I have said I sympathize with her and feel she deserves more.

You’ve compared her to a wild animal, described her behaviour as “nasty, nasty”, said she needs to be “kept away” from “innocent” children, and suggested that she be excluded from school.. 🤷🏼‍♀️

she needs more support and she would be better of in a school with professionals who understand her more and have more time for her.

You keep saying she needs to be a different school or home schooled. What you mean is you want her to be out of your child's school.

It may well be that the best place for her is in your child's school with the right support. She clearly isn't getting the right support so something needs to change.

YANBU to suggest she needs to be better supported.

YABVU to keep suggesting that she needs to be in a different school. You aren't privy to any information about what her needs are and how and where they would best be met.

YABVU to suggest that she should be home schooled. That isn't something that should be imposed on any family and it's just another way to say that you want her out of your child's school.

If you really had her interests at heart, you would be focussing on the lacy of support, not just looking for ways to justify getting shot of her.

The school need to be looking into an ECHP for this child in order to get her 1-1 support. As a mother of an Autistic child I understand she has additional needs but that cannot be used as an excuse for her to be able to hurt other children - yes allowances need to be made but not excuses. I would definitely be raising an issue with the school about how they are safeguarding other children.

If the school can’t supervise this child in public areas at break times then they should be keeping her inside until she learns to behave

That may well be extremely counter-productive. If, for example the child has sensory problems or just excess energy, she may need to be able to run around outside when she can and preventing that may push her behaviour over the edge. If her problems are due to disability, this would also in effect be punishing her for that disability and therefore unlawful.

Beveren The foster parents might already be doing this. Fostered children can have a lot of issues that can't be fixed overnight and in the meantime, she still needs to go school.

@Littlemeadow123, if by "this" you mean applying for an EHC needs assessment, my post made it clear that the foster parents might already be doing this; and it nowhere suggested either that it would be a quick fix or that the child didn't need to go to school in the meantime.

I do wish people would actually read the posts they think they are replying to.

This situation, and many others like it, is a ticking bomb waiting to explode. It’ll take a child to seriously be hurt in order for a media narrative to finally emerge about the absurdly inadequate provision for such children in our schools.

Beveren Only legal guardians can give permission for an EHCP referral to be completely. No signature from legal guardians, no submission of a support plan to the LA.

Nope, @SimonJT. It's governed by the Education Act 1996 which defines a parent as, amongst other possibilities, any person who has care of the child. For what it is worth, a school also can apply for an EHCP without parental consent. The local authority has duties in relation to children with special educational needs, not their parents, and a parent can't prevent a child from receiving help when that duty arises.

It wasn't the Tories who wanted all children to be in mainstream schools

So why did they pass two Acts (the Education Act 1996 and the Children and Families Act 2014) which expressly set out the principle that parental preference for mainstream education for children with SEN should be met other than in extremely limited circumstances?

Oh the bleeding hearts.......

What, does it take OP's child loosing teeth, to get some to realise regardless of the cause, OPs child shouldn't be hurt or scared going to school.

Suggesting she complain each time is not good enough, it shouldn't happen once, let alone twice!

With respect, this child's problems are not the fault of the OP's child and they shouldn't have to suffer because of them. And of course the parents are going to compare notes at the gate on whose child has been injured that day- be realistic!

I remember being terrified of a boy at my primary school in the 80s, he used to punch and kick the teachers too. That got them moving on having him placed in specialist education- it wasn't nice, suddenly, when he climbed up a teacher aiming for HER eyes. For months prior he'd been attacking me and my classmates at every opportunity. I know him now too and he's a perfectly lovely, well regarded academic who says the special education was the best thing that could have happened to him, giving him a real chance.

I haven't seen anyone say that it is OK for the OP's child (or any child) to be hurt or scared going to school.

I have seen lots of people encourage her to insist the school keep her child safe.

What people have pointed out is that she doesn't get to decide how the school does that, nor does she get to decide whether the other child should be allowed to be at this school.

@Beveren As an adoptive parent and someone’s whose recent ex who was an ed psych for the LA and a SENDCO before that, you are interpreting it incorrectly. Only legal guardians can give permission for a support plan to be submitted to the LA. They are also the only ones who can approve a draft EHCP during the first draft and after annual/emergency reviews, the only part they cannot approve is a recommended change of provision if the school feel they can’t meet the childs needs. If you go on any LA website you can download an editable support plan, you will see at the bottom of each that it clearly states that a support plan cannot be submitted without a legal guardian signing it.

Foster carers are not legal guardians, just as us adoptive parents aren’t until we sign an adoption order.

Giving out wrong information is not at all helpful.

Can't see anywhere where a pp has said its ok for any child to be hurt in school.

There's plenty of pp who have told the op what she can do, why the system is broken and not working for anyone, why getting help isn't that simple.

Push back is coming from the tone of some posts that imply children with SEND are less worthy, are guilty, just need to go someplace 'other' . Away from the nice, innocent children.

Absolutely soapbox.
Sadly that sort of attitude of "I do feel for them really ... But... (Insert needless unpleasant sentiments here)" is too common. It's usually prefaced with claims of caring about the child, but the language used to talk about the child rarely matches that claim, and too often the desired outcome is "whatever my opinion is eleven though I know very little about education or additional needs or SEMH or trauma etc".

Schools have a duty of care to all children and should be held to account if they fail in that duty, but there's no need for adults to be unpleasant about children.

SimonJT, with every respect, local authority Educational Psychologists aren't trained in the law. (As an aside, if they were, maybe they would advise LAs on the requirement to specify and detail provision in EHCPs). The fact that you keep referring to "support plans" rather than Education, Health and Care Plans is in itself an indication of a degree of confusion, as is the suggestion that it is parents/guardians who submit support plans to the LA rather than the other way round.

If you don't believe me, perhaps you will believe the lawyers at IPSEA? www.ipsea.org.uk/appealing-about-an-ehc-needs-assessment-or-ehc-plan

Quote:

In education law ‘parent’ means you are either a birth parent, have acquired parental responsibility or have care of the child (e.g. a foster parent or grandparent with whom the child lives).

They are also the only ones who can approve a draft EHCP during the first draft and after annual/emergency reviews, the only part they cannot approve is a recommended change of provision if the school feel they can’t meet the childs needs.

Not sure where to begin with this. There is no requirement for parents/carers/young people to approve draft EHCPs. They have to be consulted on them and can submit their comments, but LAs can and very regularly do finalise without parental agreement.

If a child has to move schools because the school cannot meet the child's needs, parents still have a right to name their preference and local authorities have to comply with parental preference unless one of the exceptions in section 39 of the Children and Families Act applies.

If you go on any LA website you can download an editable support plan, you will see at the bottom of each that it clearly states that a support plan cannot be submitted without a legal guardian signing it.

No. You can download a form for requesting an EHC Needs Assessment, parents can't and don't draft their own EHCP and submit that. A random look at a few request forms indicates that standard local authority practice is to ask for them to be signed by parents or carers.

@Beveren A support plan is the name for the EHCP application in many LA’s, it can either be submitted as an EHCP application or high needs top-up funding.

That may be the case in your LA, @SimonJT, but not in others. For those LAs that offer high needs top-up funding, the normal requirement is that the application for that be submitted by schools, not parents.

I think a lot posters are being very unrealistic here. This girl is seemingly making their DCs' lives hell at school. They're obviously going to be very concerned and want her out of the school. And they're not surprisingly talking about it amongst themselves.

The young children won't understand that their bully is only acting out because she's gone through trauma. I remember being bullied in infant school by a boy in my class who had SEN. Looking back now, I can see that he actually wanted to be friends (he certainly liked hanging around me and my then best friend. Then the following year he'd changed schools and I did hear it said that it was a special school.

One PP has said that she's been desperate for her DS to be kept in at break time and the school won't do it. This fits with the experiences of other adoptive parents I've read about on adoption forums. And homeschooling is often what they end up doing and a lot of children really benefit from it. It really isn't being unkind to suggest that. There are no easy answers.

I actually think it should be a possibility for him to have a playground assistant supervising him. My DD2 got into trouble back in reception after accidentally hurting a friend and as a consequence she was kept inside at break time, until I got to the bottom of what had happened (she had clammed up when her teacher had asked her for an explanation). She hasn't been in trouble since, and she's now in year 3.

Our school really does have zero tolerance for bullying. My DD1 has always struggled to form friendships but she hasn't been bullied, apart from being excluded at times, and she's occasionally been teased. But she's never been particularly upset about it.

The school really should be reported to Ofsted. It's totally unacceptable for this bullying to go on for this long.

I actually think it should be a possibility for him to have a playground assistant supervising him.

The funding for staff for this simply isn’t there at the moment in school budgets. I hope nobody suggesting this is voting Conservative next week.

Having a similar issue.

So, I have to tell my child to suck it up and let him bully you because he's had a difficult background, sorry he punches, kicks and screams in your face...oh and that goes for the other children he assaults, not forgetting teachers.

I'm sorry, I only care about mine, probably just a heartless bitch for not giving a toss about the poor fostered kid but he's hurting my child. He obviously can't be controlled so he should be put elsewhere for everyone else's safety with trained staff, so students can learn in a safe environment, not in fear. Which can’t happen because there is not enough funding, so unfortunately our small children have to suffer!

Lizzie0869

Ofsted won't be interested unless the proper procedures have been followed.

That's exactly why the OP needs to focus on raising concerns about her child being kept safe, asking the school to outline how they'll be safeguarding her child and take it from there.
It sounds like the school aren't doing enough and that's why the OP would be wise to raise a formal complaint which has to be dealt with in line with policy.

Crucially, the school's responsibility is to ensure that appropriate safeguarding is in place. This may well be quite different from giving a parent the resolution they want/outcome they think is best. People need to be aware of this.

For example (to move away from the OP situation), a safeguarding situation arises with Pupil 1 and parent A rightfully complains. The school put measures in place to support Pupil 1. That situation is resolved. Parent A is a reasonable person, hasn't butted in with what they think should happen, hasn't got involved in the other child and so is happy the situation is resolved.

Parent B may rightfully complain about safeguarding regarding Pupil 1 but they want X Y Z to happen and when the school resolve the issue but not in the way Parent B wants, they decide the school are accepting bullying and start demanding that Pupil 1 is kept away from their DC in school. As school have already addressed the main issue and have support in place for Pupil 1, the decision is made to move B's child to another class away from Pupil 1. Parent B is now furious that their child has been moved class (even though their demand was to separate their child and Pupil 1) because what they actually meant behind all their "I know best..." and complaining is "I want you to move Pupil 1 somewhere else away from my child and other children I like because Pupil 1 isn't like the nice good children". Parent B was probably never going to be happy with the situation because they were less bothered about a team of professionals making the best call for a child's education and more bothered about "I think... So you should keep this nasty child away from the naice children like mine, put them somewhere else out the way".

IHaveNotAClue literally nobody has said that children should put up with being hurt.

People are giving advice about how to proceed.

Some people are getting cross at the way children with SEND are being described by some posters. Hint; they are not animals.

It is difficult if your child is being hurt at school. I know. I've been there.

It's also difficult when your child has SEND and they come out of school so distressed by how they have been treated that they are being dragged out by one arm, screaming and crying, having the door slammed behind them while the headteacher shouts through a crack in the door that you're lucky they didn't just exclude. Knowing that there's no other school places, support isn't in place, there's no money for support and some how, me as a mother, am supposed to fix all this.

The point is, the system is at fault, not the child.