Teacher and student hit

[Sixpencefaux]

Has anybody seen the footage from a Leeds secondary school where a student attacks another student. When the teacher steps in, the student then repeatedly punched the teacher in the face. It really is shocking.

They not only have a right to an education, but also to try to put in place some interventions that will put them on a different path. Because ultimately, as another poster said, those behaviours will just move with them into their family lives and into wider society if not addressed. That's why we need the joined up thinking around alternative provision as part of the wider school system. And post 16, where it falls off a cliff.

I decided to retire when a child kicked and shattered the glass door when he walked out of my small group (primary).My Head asked what I had done to,provoke him.

It's quite sick. The poor child was repeatedly hit and then the teacher intervened and was repeatedly punched in the face, calls for help and the bully hits the child around the head again.

Vile individual, slap on the wrist but eventually this type of bully will end up doing some serious damage and go to prison - how many people does he have to assault in the process though.

@CanaryShoulderedThorn

You have a wonderful son. The thug he dragged off the teacher is where he should be now.

My son’s high school was not in a particularly bad area but they had security guards who responded to incidents and supervised exclusion.

I ended up on the floor with an injured arm trying to separate two teens (one of whom was trying to strangle the other). Wasn’t the worst I’ve seen either. Not many consequences for them; not even an ‘are you ok?’ for me. When a student, high on something, nearly shut my face in a door as I was trying to eject him, I got asked after a half term if I’d have him back in my class.

I've broken up several fights between teenaged pupils. We're told not to intervene, but how can you not? These were lads with emotional and behavioural issues in a specialist school, and they had no 'off button'. I honestly thought that in one case one of them was going to be killed. I don't believe anyone could just stand by and watch while one repeatedly bashed the other's head against the playground tarmac.

Fortunately in each case my intervention helped. The time that I fell trying to do so, stopped the fight fastest, as the lads genuinely liked me and were worried that I was hurt.

De-escalation really shouldn't be written off though. It absolutely can work. But it's far harder to achieve in a mainstream classroom.

I also don't think people realise how much damage a five year old with no off button can do, either. My late job was with primary children in another special school, and one very disturbed five year old (who was really lovely much of the time) put one of my TAs in hospital, and I was black and blue for most of the year that I taught him.

I don’t get how the kids aren’t excluded for stuff like this. I’ve got a child with asd and when he was in mainstream primary he had ehcp with full time 1-1 (in practise he didn’t get the 1-1 all the time) but he was excluded loads of times for far less incidents like running out of the classroom without permission for example which whilst tough at the time ultimately did us a favour as it was all evidence of school not being able to meet needs and he’s now in a specialist since year 4. The specialist is asd specific so does alot of work on managing emotions, social skills etc. He still struggles with emotions but they can recognise when he needs a break to calm down so send him to walk round the field for example. Ultimately they want him to recognise himself and to give himself a break to calm down, ultimately this is going to help him more in life than keeping him in a primary school where he couldn’t manage in the name of inclusion

Perhaps they need to bring borstals back

The current approach isn't working

Why should adults be hurt by these dc

Or any other dcs obviously

Lack of funding, cheaper to keep in mainstream under the guise of it being inclusion

Absolutely

Not a teacher but I have three teenagers at a very good state school in Scotland. There have been violence incidents for a couple of children through primary and secondary. Latest incident was just before summer when a 14 year old was swinging a hammer round his head in d&t after being repeatedly told not to , it slipped or he threw it depending on who’s telling the story, and knocked the teacher out cold.

Scotland doesn’t really have expulsion, they seem to just shunt problem children between schools in a “we’ll take Jimmy and Bob if you have Mike and Charlie” sort of way.

i’m a very average 5 ft 5 tall and my 14 year old towers over me, and he’s heavy and strong, physically restraining these large “children” is impossible.

The answer to the question of who reduced specialist provision in the name of inclusion is David Blunkett c.2000

Just exclude them. If they are violent and disruptive then they should forfeit their education. It then becomes the parents' problem. If more children learned that they would be excluded permanently for acts of aggression against other pupils or staff then perhaps behaviour might improve.

As it is there are far too many excuses for children. SEN, autism, whatever. In my (probably unpopular) view, none of these conditions is a reason for violence towards other people. I get fed up of hearing 'they can't help it.'

There are children in other parts of the world who walk miles to access a school.

Education in the UK should not be seen as an entitlement, but a privilege.

As long as universal education for all is seen as a right, and as long as specialist schools for children with SEN are underfunded, nothing will change.

That is what they should have been doing in the mainstream too. You don't need a specialist setting when a child has 1-1 to recognise for them when they need a break and gradually teach them to recognise it themselves. That is a school not wanting to, not being unable to. My daughter's mainstream with 1-1 and this is literally what their job is.

I’d rather my child was in a zero tolerance school.

teachers forced to manage violent pupils should sue the school as this is the only way things will improve. They should be able to refuse to teach a class until the violent pupil is removed. Hospital staff do not have to tolerate violent behaviour. Neither should staff or pupils.

"As it is there are far too many excuses for children. SEN, autism, whatever. In my (probably unpopular) view, none of these conditions is a reason for violence towards other people. I get fed up of hearing 'they can't help it."

Imagine you were non verbal, couldn't communicate your needs, couldn't understand ordinary speech, didn't understand what was going on around you and found noise and movement around you so distressing you bit yourself. I would you would behave towards other people.

They should be able to refuse to teach a class until the violent pupil is removed

I sometimes wonder if this isn't the only thing which would make a difference, though it would need every teacher to be on the same page

Obviously it's not ideal, not least because it disadvantages the other pupils, but then constant disruption's hardly good for their education either

I've been injured twice when intervening in situations like this, once was a dislocated jaw and the other was a nasty bruise on the side of my face. I've also had to pin a child up against a wall to prevent them from hurting another child. In all three cases the offending child was expelled. I have no idea what they all went on to become though. Feels very much like we were just passing the problem on for another school to deal with rather than actually help the kids/families.

That’s what my sons 1-1 was for too, but school would use them to assist other kids saying he was fine at that time, then when he’d kick off they’d exclude. I could have fought it but decided it was going to be a constant battle and never any better than mediocre so decided to put my energy into fighting for specialist instead

If I were any of those things then I expect my parents would send me to a specialist school, not try to include me in mainstream education. Children who do have that level of disability are rare.

I'm talking about the children who disrupt the learning of others because their parents say they have ODD and they can't help being violent towards other people.

This is the problem

Not enough staff to meet the needs of EHCP dc at times.

And that is exactly the issue. The school should have been perfectly able to do that, they don't want to. Child behaves as a result of it and gets excluded. If child had been supported in the first place then incident prevented.

Yy to this. It's shit all round. Shit for the kid with needs; shit for the kids whose learning is constantly interrupted; shit for the random kids drawn into their orbit; shit for the school, because other kids see all this and start behaving the same way.

And surely, surely, if a kid has so many needs that a mainstream school isn't capable of dealing, then they shouldn't be in Ms.