AIBU to think holding children down for “educational” purposes is bad?

[MakingM2]

I watched “Don’t exclude me” last night and there were some interesting ideas but I’ll cut to the chase.

In one scene, if you haven’t seen it, the teacher is physically restraining a very young boy who clearly has additional needs. They are basically on the floor in the playground. She is holding him down. He is pulling her hair. It’s all fairly horrific. She claims this is “trauma informed practice”.

The deputy head said - it feels wrong when you do it and it feels wrong when someone else does it.

…and my thought is “Sir, that’s because it is wrong”. You are teaching this tiny child that a more powerful person can physically force them to submit to their will - and that this is something that is ok. You may as well get a cane out.

Having been a governor in two primaries and friends with teachers and teacher trainers, I personally can’t imagine many teachers would want to undertake this kind of “behaviour management” even if the children do become more compliant afterwards.

And it occurred to me, given we think that observing violence is bad for children, should we really be doing this type of thing?

So am I being unreasonable to think violence (of any kind, with any justification) has no place in an educational environment?

YABU - nah, this is fine, stop being so precious
YANBU - education should be violence free

But this is a TV programme edited so the full picture might not be shared.

Yes I agree with this, there could have been previous incidents that led them to take this approach, it still doesn't mean it was the correct one, but it is hard to judge from a heavily edited programme designed to get viewers.

I'm sure it can be agreed that there isn't enough support given to schools to be able to care for and teach every child and their differing needs currently.

@ichundich

I think the problem with this child was that he is in a mainstream school, which doesn't have the resources to cater to his needs. It's not fair on him, his classmates or his very inexperienced teacher, who might end up leaving the profession because it's so stressful. My friend's son couldn't walk until he was 6, he is non verbal, unable to be toilet trained. Yet she was initially only offered a place for him at our local primary school (who said that they would not be able to teach him, but only to provide childcare). She had to go to the local press and contact our MP to get him a place at the special needs school.

Yes this is also an issue, it is extremely hard to gain a place and the threshold is really high. I do think there is more of a middle group who don't thrive in mainstream but wouldn't necessarily require attending a special needs school. Not sure on the answer as to how best those children would be supported would be though.

@Thegirlwiththeeagereyes

In my LA, we don't restrain children anymore. We used to have annual training on safe restraint, but not now. The only time I would restrain a child now was if they were about to run out in the road. It is very difficult, and at times means whole classrooms are wrecked, or means I am punched black and blue...but still better than restraining a child - it always made me feel a bit sick when I had to do it.

And yes, schools are dealing with an ever-increasing number and variety of needs, and more funding and training is desperately required.

How can allowing a child to wreck a whole classroom or allowing him/her to punch an adult black and blue be better then restraint? Obviously restraint is a last resort, but come on, however angry a child is, or whatever their needs, they cannot be allowed to trash classrooms and assault staff.

What about the other 29 children in the class?

@Ricekake I agree with you that there is no middle ground currently in most schools. It's either the child is a square peg in a round hole in a mainstream classroom with the teacher doing their best in an impossible situation or it's special school which are nigh on impossible to get a place at.

One local mainstream primary school here has a hub. A separate part of the school for children to access the full curriculum, if they're able, but not in the traditional classroom environment. Much smaller numbers, quiet spaces, movement breaks more readily available. These children don't have learning difficulties usually but they're unable to cope with a 30 child traditional classroom for whatever reason. They children can then, if they want or can, join in with break and lunchtime, assemblies, PE so that they're still part of the school community - ie not excluded.

It's a great success. They had a special grant for it apparently. There's arguments on both sides I think. Some people want inclusion at all costs and if schools had the funding that'd be great but it is not possible to meet all children's needs in a mainstream classroom without lots of staff and space. Which schools don't have and can't pull out of their backsides. Some people want all SEN children in specialist provision so that their own children are never disrupted by them - that's not right either and not necessary. But having a proper additional resource in a mainstream school with properly trained staff who can both teach and work with SEN children is a balanced approach I think.

Unfortunately it's a pipe dream because there is no money for this!

@MyCatEatsPrawnCrackers

I agree that Education should be violence free, so if a child is being violent to others then he/she should be stopped. If that means by restraint as a last resort, then so be it.

What's your alternative OP?

Allow a child to be violent to others, or a risk to themselves, or restrained by fully trained professionals as a very last resort? Schools should be a safe place for everyone, and unless you've witnessed such a violent outburst, never mind had to deal with it, then you unfortunately have no insight as to the severity of a situation that has this difficult outcome.

[quote Elephantsparade]@DoubleShotEspresso my sons last school got 32k to have him in for 45 mins 3 times a week for the whole academic year. Id love to know what they did with it. Theres zero accountability[/quote]
This! My child was at a school for 18 months with funding for a full time 1-1, funding for the staff to have training in various strategies and therapeutic approaches to use with him, funding for specialist equipment... and for most of that time he attended for less than 2 hours a day. The school basically stole from a disabled child. The money wasn't spent on him, but nobody holds them to account over it. It's disgusting.

It was BBC2 so not the usually Benefit Street type nonsense.

Interesting comment. And by interesting I mean classist and shitty.

All schools will have a restraint policy. I can only assume OP has never been around a child so out of control they are likely to harm themselves and those around them.
What to do in this situation? Let them do it? What do you say to the parents of the other children injured? And those of the child who hurt themselves- “we saw it escalating but didn’t want to appear violent to passers by so let him tear out the teachers hair and scratch up another child’s face before allowing him to bounce his own head off the playground”
That would go down REALLY well.

www.gov.uk/government/publications/use-of-reasonable-force-in-schools

childlawadvice.org.uk/information-pages/discipline-within-school/

Team Teach has responded, MG is not trained by them. I think a lot of schools use TT

DS3 was disruptive in mainstream, the school supported the LA for the tribunal! but fortunately we won and he's now in a specialist. He has ASD ADHD and sensory difficulties

Whenever school messed up (and they admitted so) they were "only human" but when my son did it was "unacceptable" and he needed consequences.

The tribunal process was so stressful and it really isn't easy. The fees and travel for DS3 are eye-watering.

I have seen in some of my SEN groups that some parents of the DC featured have said child/ren do have a diagnosis but the program didn't want to focus on that? But I've not seen the comments myself so it's a bit of "my friend's neighbour's aunt's dog walker said..." situation

@boobsonthemoon @Elephantsparade

My DD's school are going the same way.

They receive 26k EHCP funding. 1.3k PP. 4k bums on seats for her. So over 30k for her. Yet they refuse to provide her appropriately differentiated work so they can show she can't keep up.

She has never trashed a classroom, hurt another child etc. She had one lashing out at a teacher incident when they had her cornered. Her biggest is she is a flight risk but her flight is run and find a small hidey hole for 5-10 minutes and she calms down. We had an incident this time last year where she was restrained. Why was she restrained? Because she was in her EHCP specified den organising her colours because she had been overwhelmed by a fire alarm. She was in the den 7 minutes and the teacher decided it was work time. DD went from ok in the den organising to self calm to having a shed load of you must do x, y and z immediately by no less than 5 members of staff. She was 5 years old. So then she got upset and loud so she was restrained as she was disrupting the other children learning.

The whole incident escalated because of her ehcp being ignored and completely needlessly. She is still scared of the member of staff.

She isn't a violent child at all.

I've had to restrain kids in school to break up fights and even restrain my own child at home because she was very violent.

It's not nice but no-one does it for fun. It's an adults duty to prevent kids in their care being hurt. I've seen a kid injured after other teachers froze and didn't intervene in a fight.

What do you mean by appropriately differentiated work? What does this look like to you?

I ask because when people say this, they usually want either a completely different lesson planning, or a different resource. Both of these things take time to plan (over and above regular lesson planning). 1:1 TA funding is usually school hours only so no time for them to plan. Teachers are limited in their time too (2 hours PPA a week on average). Legally the responsibility falls with the classroom teacher to differentiate and ime the majority work their hardest to do everything possible. But we are humans with our own time limits too. Spending 30 mins a day planning a resource for one child isn't sustainable.

The issue is there is no alternative provision . Our local SEN school serves 3 boroughs, it's massively over subscribed and it's harder and harder to get a space. They don't have the space (or staff) to take in more children and still keep numbers low in the classroom.

DD's (mainstream)school is brilliant for SEN , but that means the LEA just dumps kids that are severely struggling or excluded from other mainstreams on them. There's no recourse . Then if the school can't manage (like they've warned and documented before the child started) they need to show they've tried everything, then implement whatever new suggestions, document again for a while, prove they've done it and it's still not working and so on before the LEA finally relents or a space becomes available at the SEN school. In the meantime that child has already spent years in an unsuitable environment through no fault of their own, their parents or staff.

My school is similar, we have classes with over 10 children on the SEN register, 3/4 EHCP's , medical needs etc. The funding is scarce and the LEA are dragging their feet, but somehow in a class of 30 we have to provide various 1:1 support to 3 children but there's just me and the teacher .

And there is absolutely no place to go for children who are academically very able but with severe behavioural/emotional /MH issues, leaving parents with a really shitty choice where their child loses out anyways. Either academically in a SEN school(which are mostly geared towards SLD) , or in a mainstream school that doesn't suit their needs.

To be fair, differentiated work is an expectation of teaching.

If a child can’t access the curriculum it is the teachers role to help him access it. It shouldn’t really take thirty minutes, assuming not NQT/ECT.

Depends on the situation although I think there are too many dc being forced through mainstream school that shouldn't be which is bad for al dc.

When I was at primary school in the 90's there were two boys that were extremely disruptive to our class: I don't remember being traumatised whatsoever when a teacher made efforts to restrain a dc if they were about to kick off. Only relieved as it meant they wouldn't hurt us. One time a teacher locked a boy in the cupboard within our class room as he'd started to lash out and kick the teacher. Over time they knew exactly when to restrain him before someone else got hurt. It meant 30 other dc got an education instead of witnessing or even experience violence.

I do wish there were more special schools though more able to deal with such dc.

@Hercisback my DD can do the content but is most likely severely dyslexic (Nearly 7 so still a bit young for the diagnosis). She has a TA read/scribe for her and she shows she can do the content fairly easily so she doesn't need an entirely different lesson. Her EHCP specifies a high level of visual supports within her learning. Her EHCP also specifies planning time to allow these to be prepared.

@accidentallyonpurpose and this is the dilemma I had with my DD. Except she isn't violent, she had a couple of small isolated incidents and the one the school were entirely to blame. Her choices are a specialist that the oldest children aren't doing the level of work she's doing, a specialist for extremely violent children or staying here she is and I will just continue being a PITA parent ensuring her ehcp is adhered to.

I would say special schools aren't always the answer, as they can be more rigid than mainstream with some things.

There was a NAS school that closed and staff were over using restraint and seclusion. And there's been other safeguarding for a large group too.

Ds3 is doing much better in his school but he does now swear like a docker(!)

I would also argue my DD's specification is largely actually something that more requires one off periods of preparation. She really benefits from flashcards with the word and the picture on and she builds sentences with them which is what we've just used for her to do homework this week.

I've had to restrain a child, and i was the last resort, after having chair's thrown at me, being spat at, punched etc. No level of talking would have calmed them down in that state, he even ripped plastic cable covering off and smacked me across the face with it. Needless to say we had to restrain him, to then move him to a safe place to calm down. No it's not nice for anyone but sometimes it's necessary.

I haven't read all the posts but Team Teach who trained this school say this was completely inappropriate for the situation, and a dangerous hold.
I know my DS was held by 4 adults in his previous school when other children could have been moved instead. I can't watch.

@Planningspringflowers

To be fair, differentiated work is an expectation of teaching.

If a child can’t access the curriculum it is the teachers role to help him access it. It shouldn’t really take thirty minutes, assuming not NQT/ECT.

I've been told my DS needs "an individualised curriculum" like this was a bad thing and no child should ever need this.

It shouldn’t really take thirty minutes, assuming not NQT/ECT.

Secondary specialist in maths here with many years experience. Some EHCP requirements do need 30+ minutes daily planning. Visual reminders, printed timelines, different coloured paper, sentences to fill, faded activities, TA filled in on lesson.

Differentiated work is an expectation, but realistic expectations of workload have to come into it too.

As a parent and school staff I've learned that:

Some schools/SLT/teachers can be unbelievably crap.

Some parents can be crap.

The education system, the DFE and especially the government are totally crap and don't give a crap about the staff,the kids or their parents. Especially when it comes to our most vulnerable(for whatever reason) children.

They are continuously cutting funding from schools and other places of support , as well as shutting them down. Then they shrug and wonder why the numbers don't look good. And it's all about the numbers, not the kids.

@ArianaDumbledore

Team Teach has responded, MG is not trained by them. I think a lot of schools use TT

Yet despite what TT have said, people will still pile in here saying it was reasonable to use restraint - when they haven't even watched the clip in question!