As a parent, would you be happy with this? And teachers?

[ThrallsWife]

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So some schools in South London are now encouraged to not exclude any students "unless they pose risk to another child". In my nearly 2 decades of teaching , I have had my family threatened, racist remarks made against me, chairs thrown at me, as well as books and various other bits.

Students have had to suffer through lessons dominated by the moods of one or two children, made to sit through countless lessons where learning was impossible because the same regular students would disrupt. Sometimes, not a single student was being threatened, but a whole class had to be evacuated to protect them from the rages of others.

Do we really hold the rights of the few above the rights of the many?

"Teachers will be encouraged to try to understand the reason for bad behaviour by using a "trauma-informed" response and are being told not to take misbehaviour at "face value"."

That is a weak response by any school I've ever worked in. Sometimes the answer is just bad parenting, not trauma. And those who have had severe trauma respond much better to talking to a professional with mental health training, which many teachers don't have enough of - nor the time to invest that would be necessary.

It would stop me from ever working in any of those schools, but I fear that this is the road we will all be forced down sooner or later...

Ask the No Exclusions lot whether they would support the exclusion of a child who had raped another pupil and you'll see how little a shit they give for any victims of poor behaviour.

Your naivety is shining through.

And this is one of the issues. What is considered "a risk to other children" is laughable compared to what actual risk is.

It also doesn't teach these children how to deal with real life, where so much of their background doesn't matter and they will live a life of petty crime until it either escalates or their get chucked into prison. And then what?

Or should we all agree that our own children should see it as normal being sworn at/ having others push in line/ walk through our gardens/ steal our bags/ punch in a window and the many other things that barely raise an eyebrow anymore these days in schools?

@PeekabooAtTheZoo don't forget though, that the 'perfect school' for the kids who want to learn is also out there. So whilst you're doing all the soft skills, make sure kids like mine, who don't disrupt, who want to learn are giving the chance to do so in peace and safety. Otherwise the only kids you will have in class will be those who you're being trained to deal with. The others will have gone to the schools that value them.

I've been on the other side of this.

My DD was horrendous her first few years of school. She was never once excluded. School took their time. She went through most of one year mainly outside of the classroom to limit risk and introduced back into class in baby steps. Lots of meetings with me, lots of discussion and working together.

The focus was upon us as adults understanding the issues so they could be pre-empted as well as her accepting school as a safe place via a trauma aware response.

She was not allowed to hurt others, we had maybe 4 blips in 3 years. When she did something that put herself or others at risk she was removed back out of class to help us understand why and a slow reintegration. We basically had to take full responsibility to regulate her and over the past few months we are starting to teach her the tools she needs to start to do so herself.

If a child can't recognise that funny feeling in their tummy is anxiety we can't expect them to respond correctly to it.

The problem is it takes time and patience and a lot of schools don't seem to want to invest either.

If more children at a young age had the time put in during the first few years of school rather than a cycle of exclusions, shaming and not being properly helped to learn to regulate you end up with very big kids with the same issues.

I dont think exclusions are often the answer.

I think exclusion should be the absolute last resort as some kids enjoy having time off school and many have awful homes and parents and keeping them in that environment for longer than necessary is going to make their behaviour worse.

However yet again the good kids that just keep their heads down and behave are going to suffer even further.

I used to work in mainstream and now work in an ARB with students with SEND and SEMH and it has really opened my eyes to why some of these mainstream kids behave as they do and it is more often or not because of what’s going on at home or an undiagnosed SEND.

But even in my ARB we exclude them if they are a risk to other students and there’s always a relief in the air when a particular couple aren’t there and then you feel the worry and tension when they come back, which is so unfair to the rest of the group.

@ThrallsWife Whilst i dont want my child shoved or sworn at, was there ever a time when people were permanently excluded for this sort of thing.

Having had my son hurt physically (now scarred, sadly) by a student who has ever been diagnosed with a condition, but who's violent rages has hurt many students and teachers I have to say this concerns me.

Not all children with violent rages have a condition.
Not all children with a condition react violently
Some children have already had trauma of violence at home and now have to see it everyday at school
Many teachers have had to experience violence before and it should not happen at school. NHS staff are protected. Why not teachers.

This comes down to the same old problem. Teaching in the same way that has been done for decades, without a thought for how the world has changed.
Trying to make every child behave like every other child.
The whole system needs a change.

Good luck to you!

I don’t have children, so I have no part in this really, but my parents were both teachers who retired early cause of the downward turn in teaching and the expectations of teachers.
A teacher should simply be a teacher. If a pupil misbehaves, they should be removed from class temporarily. Repeat that behaviour and it should be made permanent. The standard classroom is not the place to deal with those children who can’t/won’t behave in the required manner.
But, there should be suitable alternatives for excluded children. Somewhere that can cater to them.

No teacher should have to teach a child who has attacked her.

No child should have to sit in the same classroom as a child who has assaulted her.

It is time we brought back the support for dealing with violent children and it should mean instant suspension in the first instance.

At one time teachers could refuse to teach children who has attacked them - that needs to come back.

We do a disservice to the violent/disruptive children and to the others in the class by allowing the child to remain able to behave violently. The other children are so tired of the relentlessness of such behaviour. Let's prioritise them for a change. Some of them also have special needs that go unaddressed because of the behaviour of others.

Children have a right to an education. If mainstream schools refuse to allow such children to remain then the LA will be forced to bring in better provision and more specialised schools adequately staffed.

But the children most likely to be excluded have ASD, SEMH disabilities and attachment disorders. Surely by using a trauma informed response, you can help them stop the behavioura before they start. TIR involves de-escalation and understanding how to mitigate and calm dowm kids who don't yet have self-regulation skills. You wouldn't exclude a child who hasn't learned how to read without significant intervention, so why would you exclude a child with the behavioural age of a very young toddler.

I think it's a really interesting approach

But the children most likely to be excluded have ASD, SEMH disabilities and attachment disorders

Are there any circumstances under which you would accept the exclusion of a child from school as necessary?

The massive part ignored in Southwark's strategy are the other 29 children having to sit in class. Would you work with someone who said that they would kill you repeatedly? Someone who got explosively angry and threw things? What about the trauma and loss of education for those children?

Explosive anger isnt always linked to SEN. We are fastidious in watching triggers and accomodating for them and I would feel very sad if an autistic child or similar could no longer come into our school. What I wouldnt feel sad about is having a safe working environment for staff and a safe school for students.

While I do believe a trauma informed approached is vital, sometimes you get to the end of what you can actually do. Working with these students is very, very difficult and I suggest anyone at Southwark council or someone who thinks you just need the right 'approach' spend a year in a class at my school.

For those teachers who haven't been officially trained in trauma informed etc, I think you'll find that if you're a good teacher you're doing it anyway..

But again, one teacher, trying to get through Gove's curriculum with 30 students, cannot possibly do it all.
A theoretical classroom, not too far from reality:

1 kid has sensory issues and needs quiet
1 kid has adhd and can't cope when it's quiet.
Another kid with adhd also has tourette's and tends to shout out randomly, thus setting off other kid with adhd.
1 kid has an attachment disorder and is very reactive.
At least 2 of the kids are experiencing dv. 1 is violent. The other tends to need coaxing into each lesson.
2 kids are plain, old fashioned spoilt and entitled and like to wind others up.
Small clutch of anxious girls, who need lots of tlc.
1 kid involved in County lines. He's actually no trouble, but you've occasionally had to safeguard for signs of drug use.
1 or 2 add kids, who need lots of prompts.

And one teacher to rule them all, to paraphrase.

And one teacher to rule them all, to paraphrase.
This
It is sometimes not possible to meet every students needs within one environment. As a very easy example, my ASD son does his exams in a smaller room because he needs a number of access arrangements to help him. For one of his recent mocks they put a student who has ADHD in the same room. He was rocking in his chair, randomly banging the table and whistling. Apparently they only have a limited amount of smaller rooms that they can staff for exams.

My DD use to be made to sit next to a weed smoking teenager pupil because she was well behaved. He played on his phone and talk to her non stop, she was thrilled when he use to truant.

There are no lines, detentions or exclusions here in Scotland. There are however, restorative conversations and a nurture based approach. All behaviour is communication apparently! 🤔 Some days are scarier than others.

Some of these issues sound like they could be dealt with by banning phones or using internal exclusion rooms over exclusion.

I absolutley relate to the children all needing different contradictory things. This happens in special schools. Asd and adhd often come together. A sl behavioural difficulties have different causes so if you have a school for behavioural needs they can still conflict.

I think that a lot of teachers will get burnt out very quickly.

I also don’t think traumatised children are that easily placated in the classroom setting. It’s based on the assumption that there is one traumatised child in with 29 quiet, settled children. That is not the reality in many London schools. It is more like a third of children that you are trying to keep an eye on, a third you rely on to just get on with it and a third that you privately hope are ok and don’t really get to find out until it’s too late.

You have children who have just lost a parent in with children whose parents are in prison, or very sick, in with those who are refugees and then those whose whole family are very anti school/teacher. Then there children with very specific health needs (hearing, Down’s), learning needs (autism, dyscalculia). Add in speech therapy, fine motor skills therapy, extra catch up lessons and prep for tests and I really don’t think people quite get how many demands there are on your patience, resources, creativity, flexibility, etc. In the end, so many just walk away.

Yes and quite often kids who need these schools can't actually cope with them. It's a nightmare.

As an ex teacher I entirely agree @titbumwillypoo which is why I don’t believe a busy main stream classroom is always the best place for some students.

Agree with the sentiment of being trauma informed but they can do that while they have been excluded One child's experience of trauma and the way that manifests themselves in how they present at school isn't something that should disrupt the learning of 30 others and simply isn't fair.