Please help, school exclusion.

[Blossomplease6]

I’m aware this is the wrong board but I need advice quickly and the sen boards are slow and quieter.
My son, 8, is I think on the verge of being expelled from school. I’m so scared, he would be devastated. I’m terrified of him having to go to a bee school who don’t understand him and he would be heartbroken and scared.
He has no diagnosis, we’re waiting for camhs at the moment. He’s having meltdowns at school, which can be quite violent and are aimed at teachers. Never students. We can’t work out why, there are triggers but normally small things that shouldn’t cause such a breakdown.
Where do I stand legally? I have a meeting coming up and I just think they’re going to say they can’t cope with him anymore. He wasn’t like this before. There’s always been issues, and meltdowns at school but he was never violent until his first stint in keyworker school last year. That then stopped when he returned to normal school in September. But has restarted again after Xmas and the latest lockdown.

For now can school design a safe space he can retreat to if he needs a break? This can be as simple as a gym mat with cushions, a corner of the library, or the hall. He can be spoken to in advance about having a break and how to ask for it. Only danger is that he spends too much time there.
Also ask for an occupational therapist assessment it can make such a difference. Does he enjoy jumping swinging forward rolls etc?

Behaviour may just be getting worse as part of natural development, not necessarily lockdown only.
As children grow often years 4,5 and6 become progressively more quiet and academic focused. Children are required to move more quickly Between tasks and it starts to get harder for those children who struggle with transitions but blended in better before

My husband is an SEN teacher in a pupil referral unit. The kids are given time and my husband has unlimited patience and kids who have been violent with other teachers in other settings respond to him. Plus he is trained exceptionally well and understands the underlying causes and quite often gets help accessed quickly when required. It may be what your son needs.

@Salarymallory They haven’t actually said that. I thought they was going to but they haven’t. He’s been excluded once for 2 days. They just aren’t sure what support he needs without a diagnosis. They also haven’t tried enough as up until this point he wasn’t causing them a problem. He was having problems, but they weren’t directly impacting them.

Just pause for me a minute
Why do you want him to stay there?

The school aren’t enthusiastic to have him
They don’t seem set up for him
You don’t seem impressed with current handling of situation by school

So what’s the positives other than familiar environment

I don't see why disagreeing with school staff is disrespectful - it's just not agreeing.

Throwing out statements like we "can't meet his needs here" but not actually doing anything isn't helpful. Hopefully just something said in stress and OP can work with the school to find strategies that help whilst waiting for outside agency interventions etc.

They should be able to look at the child and find what support is needed not a diagnosis.

If school can’t see what needs tweaking they need to ask for outside help. Many specialist schools have an out reach program who help support other schools.

The process of the ECHP needs assessment is designed to specifically assess the needs of the individual child.

It’s when things go wrong that schools show their true colours for how willing they are too support a child. It’s also when as parents we need to shout loudest to make sure things aren’t fobbed off

They won't be able to do an official "can't meet needs" because they have never tried to put in proper support for him. The LA won't have it. They are trying to push you into moving him - one of the variations of off rolling.
Apply for the EHCP. Have all correspondence in writing from now on. If they phone you, send them an email summary of the conversation. When all the ehcp assessments have been done you can look for another school. Many mainstream schools are better than this.

@Salarymallory the senco admitted sending the email this week whilst in a slightly bad mood due to the bad day. They’ve never not been supportive or enthusiastic to have him until this last few weeks. No conversations of this sort have happened before. It’s gone from 0-100 really quick because he’s had a hard time adjusting to all the changes going back and they’ve possibly used the wrong tactics at times. It’s a great school, and he loves it. Not because it’s a familiar environment. Like genuinely loves it. I can’t explain how devastated he would be to leave.

@ArianaDumbledore exactly that. Said it in stress and back tracked quite a bit in the meeting.

I know it doesn’t always mean a lot but it’s an outstanding school with a very good reputation and a lot of focus on emotional well being and pastoral care.

I will definitely follow it up with an email as suggested as there’s a few things I wanted to say but didn’t get a chance too. Plus things you process after the conversation.

If blown up in last week
But the violence has been on and off since last year and picked up again after Xmas... what were they like handling the situation in the many months it was ongoing violence

@Salarymallory the lashing out happened for the first time in key worker school which he attended from may-July last year after being home schooled for months. The first time was because he had been restrained and kept in a room to stop him running around. He was then off for the summer and returned in September with no such incidents, but leaving class a lot. Then returned to key worker school in January-March where I think there were maybe 2 incidents where he lashed out. Then returned to full school in March and in the last month there’s been maybe 3 incidents.
So it wasn’t like previously it was happening regularly, they were quite isolated incidents and were generally when he had been so upset by something that teachers had tried to hold on to him to stop him running away (fight or flight) when they hold on to him he fights to get away. He’s not just being randomly violent. He’s instinct is to run and when he is restrained or cornered he’s hitting out.
Generally they do let him wander round until he’s calmed down but there was one time a month or so ago that during this wandering, he climbed something, putting himself in danger. Since then they have begun to physically hold on to him more often, that’s why these incidents have increased.

Unless there’s more incidents that I don’t know about. The school don’t always tell me these incidents have occurred, which is problematic because it of course effects his mood at home in the evening and would be helpful if id known why. Often I’ve had bits of info from him and emailed the school to see if anything had happened and only then have I found out.

Biggest issues are concentration, not sitting down for long, leaving class, hates writing, needs routine , stressed by change, low self esteem. Other things too. But obviously that’s not what this post was about so I didn’t mention all of that. People are now just assuming there’s random violent outbursts for no reason. Honestly these incidents are not the main problem.
But equally, I’m explaining the bad days. A lot of days there’s no major problems and anyone that meets him would never know he has any issues or sen- until you spend enough time with him to maybe see a meltdown.

@Blossomplease6
There are many of us that understand and have been through similar. There will always be those who are determined it's just naughtiness/bad parenting and I wouldn't waste any energy there.

I really hope you can have a positive relationship with school and can work tog5 get the support your son needs. I have to say some alarm bells are ringing for me, just keep in mind some schools are not keen on outside intervention and can become defensive.

There are alarm bells ringing for me too. I can see a lot of fighting your end that will be required to get what is needed.

Restraint and kept in a room to prevent running around.....I understand it may have been necessary to reduce risk. The point is, in a school that is meeting needs, it should never escalate to needing this. Nor violence, or distress, or anything else.

"The point is, in a school that is meeting needs, it should never escalate to needing this. Nor violence, or distress, or anything else."
I really find statements like this naive and unhelpful. Do people think that in a mainstream primary we can let children leave class whenever they want to calm down or that we have spare spaces for setting up tents or calming spaces? Or that we have spare adults who can keep an eye on wandering children to make sure they don't climb over a fence or onto a roof? What about the children that don't want to do their work and kick off if asked, do we let them just not do it to avoid violence or do we let them fall behind academically? How about the obsessional children, the ones you spend hours making Minecraft themed worksheets to try and keep them from falling further behind, but they come in one Monday morning and say Minecraft is stupid and they love Roblox now?
My point is mainstream schools are limited by the curriculum, by the funding system, by the pressure to get academic results and by mediocrity of its students and sometimes it is impossible to accommodate the outliers.
Blossom the advice you've been given on gathering evidence and fighting for your son is great. The SENCO sounds useless as everything should be communicated good and bad. Maybe with a 1-1 your son might have a chance at staying, but you do need to think about options that offer smaller classes with more personalized attention in order to allow your son to thrive. All the best.

I don't really understand your point, @titbumwillypoo. Of course mainstream schools can't be expected to meet every sort of SEN, that is why we have the EHCP system. However, a school that is failing to apply for an EHCP is in effect claiming that it is fully able to meet the child's needs without additional funding or help, in which case it should not be contemplating exclusion for behaviour which is the direct result of the child's learning difficulties.

Hi. I have been reading posts on mumsnet for several months and your post OP has actually made me sign up and post myself! What you are currently experiencing and how you describe the behaviours that your son is displaying it was as though you were talking about my son when he was that age. I feel for you I really do. We are now 2 years down the road and his mainstream primary did permanently exclude him. We were devastated. He was devastated. They had tried most things that other posters have mentioned visual time tables, reward charts and they even employed a one to one out of the school budget who he became very attached to and no one else could manage him if she was absent. After being excluded he spent 4 months at home and 18 months in a short stay school and has recently started in an independent special needs school after getting an EHCP. He is thriving. He is in a school now where his needs are being met and they understand him. They understand that not all children are the same. His difficult behaviours came out of frustration of not being understood but not being able to express himself through his words. I thought his mainstream school was good at the time. They did try a lot of things and I tried so hard to keep him there but knowing what I know now as bad as it sounds they actually helped him by excluding him. Just wanted to wish you all the luck in the world OP and I hope it all works out well for you and your son xx

@Tilly20 Thank you, I’m glad it worked out and I’ve heard lots of other positive stories like this.
I’m trying to be open minded and not worry about what hasn’t happened yet, otherwise it’s overwhelming. I’d like to see the school try more, and get him seen by an EP before thinking of anything else right now.

I'm surprised the school hasn't requested an EP assessment. I guess like with everything it all comes down to budgets. We were fortunate in the sense that the school arranged this. If they have assessed your son for asd then an EP report would have been useful for the asd assessment. Our son got his EHCP before he was diagnosed with ADHD. It was the short stay school that applied for his EHCP as I was always told by his mainstream school he needed a diagnosis first and they wouldn't help me. The head teacher looked scared when I mentioned I was going to apply for one! As with your,our son had been at the same school since reception class and the behaviours escalated once they started with using SLT to try and control him(or the SWAT team as my husband called them.)Even though we told them on numerous occasions physical contact makes him worse. We lost count of the amount of times I was called to go and collect him early,he was on and off reduced time tables several times...at one point he was in for 1 hour a day! Is a reduced time table something that maybe your son's school could try for a temporary solution? Like your son, our son was triggered by simple things. One day they would bother him the next day they wouldn't. I hope the school are understanding and helpful to you.Unfortunately it took me a while to realise that in our case this wasn't so. They helped in a lot of ways and didn't judge us or blame us but it was so they could show what they'd done to help so they could justify excluding him. As others have mentioned keep a note of things no matter how irrelevant they seem. You may be glad you did and your notes will probably be very different to the ones the school write! It is very overwhelming at times but you'll realise you're stronger than you think you are!

@Blossomplease6
The meltdowns you describe are the result of unmet needs. The school seems spectacularly useless. You don't need a diagnosis for an EHC Needs assessment.

Apply for an EHC Needs assessment yourself, describing the meltdowns, poor concentration, inability to settle in class, issues with writing, need for routine , stressed by change, low self esteem and all the other things, and stress that your child is at risk of permanent exclusion.

Also tell them the school have said they cannot meet needs even though they are giving the highest level of support. (If you have this in writing send in a copy with your request.)

Use the model letter here:

www.ipsea.org.uk/asking-for-an-ehc-needs-assessment

Before carrying out an EHCNA the LA has to consider

• whether the child or young person has or may have special educational needs (“SEN”); and
• whether they may need special educational provision to be made through an EHC Plan

This is the only legal criteria. Any other criteria like having to have a diagnosis , being x number of years behind, school having to spend £6000 etc etc is unlawful.

Good luck.

My son only 5 exlcused 3 times and now school saying he can only stay until 12.30

@Conspiracyornotr

My son only 5 exlcused 3 times and now school saying he can only stay until 12.30

That's not correct. You have to agree to a part-time timetable. If you don't want one, say so. With regard to the exclusions, what have they been for? What additional support have the school put in place? Exclusions are my area of expertise (education professional) so feel free to PM me.

@ThatsShitTryHarder

They will not want to exclude him if they can avoid it - the admin involved is a nightmare if nothing else.

In my LA the process is that they need to submit written evidence of what they have already tried, what’s worked and what hasn’t, to the exclusions team in the LA.

He should have a behaviour plan, which has been agreed with his family, and which is regularly reviewed. At his age he can have an input to his plan.

I have known children with an EHCP for emotional and behavioural difficulties that attracts funding for adult support in the classroom.

Have you had a meeting with the Sendco? If not, contact the school today and make an appointment as a matter of urgency. If your child is at risk of exclusion the school should have contacted you long ago to discuss this.

Yes, all of this.

At a bare minimum he should have an agreed (with you) behaviour plan in place, and the school should be able to provide detailed and comprehensive evidence that it is, or isn't, working. What strategies have the school got in place to support him?

You should be in regular contact with the class teacher, senco, and head teacher. Has he been seen at school by a psychologist?

An exclusion only comes at the end of a very long road, and there should already be a huge paper trail of "tried and failed" strategies long before exclusion is on the table.

The school may eventually suggest a "managed move" which is a step before exclusion. This is either a temporary or permanent move to another local school, as sometimes a change of scenery and staff can break the associations of school=violence.
Or they may offer a few days a week in a nurture unit or pupil referral unit, either in school, if they have one, or another in a local school.

You are obviously very concerned/upset about this. I'd call the school today, and ask for an urgent meeting. At least that way you can all start the new term on the same page.