To think that a five year old boy should not be permanently excluded from school?

[whatatanker]

My son has been threatened with permanent exclusion today.

His behaviour is poor, but I have honestly tried so many things - have an older son, who is absolutely delightful and enjoys school.

He is 5 weeks into school in his reception year. He’s emotionally immature and struggles to sit still and has started hurting others in the classroom.

Should this really be happening?

That all sounds like an amazing
plan and not at all likely to traumatise a distressed 4-year-old, @bluesapphire48 . FFS.

OP please don't follow @bluesapphire48 advice- there are far better considered options open to you....

Jesus fucking Christ @bluesapphire48, I've seen some shit advice on MN over the years but that post takes the fucking biscuit. Why not just recommend that she beats the child and have done with it?

Cultivating fear and mistrust in a child does not result in a happy, well-adjusted child and unhappy, poorly adjusted children go on to become umhappy, poorly adjusted adults.

OP, if you want to fuck your child up so badly that they'll one day be discussing their schooling with a therapist probably after some sort of televised murder spree then follow the advice above. If not, then ignore it.

Really though, are you okay? Because that shit is disturbing. Were you hugged enough as a child? Who hurt you!?

There's a process that schools have to follow to exclude a child. I would contact the HT. I had a similar thing happen with a slightly older child. I made it clear I knew what the procedure was. The HT was not happy that this had been said to me.

Op

What did they not want to "label" him as ?

In my experience the label is key to getting the appropriate support.

Joking aside there's huge evidence that exclusion in school fuels and feeds into the criminal/prison system. @bluesapphire48 would do well to do some research before spewing this inaccurate and horrifically poor advice!

Foolish post.

I am a retired teacher, and I sat on expulsion hearings, so THAT is my "research." How involved have YOU ever been with this problem?

Before you spew out your hatred of anyone who counsels "tough love," you should have read my message all the way through. I said there are difficult children, and it's not necessarily anybody's fault. I did NOT counsel mistreatment of the child, but I DID suggest that the parent start taking the school's complaints about the child seriously. OTHER CHILDREN HAVE A RIGHT TO GO TO SCHOOL AND NOT BE ATTACKED BY A CLASSMATE.

Period.

Teachers have a right not to have to constantly deal with children who are a threat to other children.

If parents cannot get their children to behave in school, then both they and the child need to understand that THERE ARE SERIOUS CONSEQUENCES FOR SERIOUS MISBEHAVIOR.

"If he is only four he doesn't legally have to be in school. Could you take him out for a few months? He may be ready in a few months"

This is really good advice. He may indeed just need some time to mature.

The other thing that struck me about what the OP said was his BIRTH ORDER. He is the second son.

I have found as a grade school teacher that birth order accounts for a great deal of a child's personality, and second children are almost always rebels. As they say, "it comes with the territory." It doesn't mean they're bad, in fact, they are generally absolute sweethearts--often very charming and fun, but they just have a different perspective on things.

They just need a different kind of love than the firstborn, and generally more "structure" and attention.

Every child has the right to an education period!

Giving up after 5 weeks seems very extreme.

The education board have a responsibility to find an alternative.

Follow up this conversation in writing. Email whoever you met with, copying in everyone present, plus the headteacher and Senco if they weren't there.
Bullet point the information they gave you, including the exact reference to permanent exclusion, and ask them to respond by the end of the week confirming that this is a complete and accurate record of the conversation. Ask, if they didn't tell you, what the plan is going forward and when this will be reviewed.

Separately, get his eyesight and hearing tested, unless they have been done very recently. Don't assume either is ok; it's not uncommon for children to appear to be perfectly fine at home because it is a smaller, quieter environment and/or by using clues to compensate for any difficulties, but then end up struggling in the classroom, e.g. he maybe isn’t picking up on other children's interactions with him, or finding the work, instructions or routines difficult to follow because he's missing key information.

He is too young and immature to be in a school setting - especially with a teacher lacking experience. Take him out of school for the rest of this year and start him again next year. In the meantime send him to a nursery that can provide support and get him assessed so that when he goes back into school they have strategies in place. Although another year of maturity might be enough.

That’s really expensive!! The la maintained specialist round here are max of £30k, most much cheaper, even the most expensive specialist independents are £80k to £100k but no where near £250k a year, either they are having you on or you live in a very expensive part of the country

What would you actually do though? It’s very easy to be astounded when you’ve not actually been through this yourself, if you did then you would realise how crap the Sen system is in this country

Maintained specialists are generally 20 to 30K. Specialist independents are usually in the 50- 100K region. Transport will be extra. 30- 40k if travelling on own to a distant school.

Well all I can say is I’m glad you are retired and didn’t teach in my sons mainstream, or maybe you did has he had teacher who was clueless about Sen one year

Good advice although the only thing I’d change is not ask them to confirm that it is a complete and accurate recording. In my experience they don’t usually respond and this gives license later on to say that you “misunderstood” something. Instead I would ask them to confirm if anything written was inaccurate by x date otherwise you will assume it is an accurate recording of conversation

Not at the expense of everyone else. Never will that be ok, that one child's need is greater than everyone else's. This doesn't sound like the setting for him and it's not fair to the children and teachers to have to deal with this. Why would the op want to keep/force him there anyway? The school clearly don't want him there, and what kind of experience will he have where he isn't wanted?

So what exactly are you suggesting she does instead?

Hi OP, I know you’ve now said that you’ve had lots of advice and that the comment was an (unfortunate) off the cuff remark, rather than an official one. I would suggest requesting a meeting with the Head and the class teacher. During the meeting, you could suggest sitting with your child for a few days or a set time each day to help him and to monitor him yourself. Then appropriate next steps could be taken.

Given his age have you considered pulling him out of school this year and starting again in reception next year? As a summer born baby lots of areas now allow you to choose to delay reception for a year and it sounds like he might need the time to mature a bit in a less structured environment.

At my then child's school, several parents joined the board of governors specifically to get a reception aged child removed

Regardlesss I sat in on a safeguarding training recently where it was evidenced this could be regarded as giving up on the child. As someone said earlier in response to your other post which I am yet to see….this then could potentially set the child up on a path down some serious future problems!

Yes the other children have that right BUT the school should be exercising every means possible before it gets to a fixed term exclusion and the OP hasn’t said that they are! I find it abhorrent that schools are not following the correct procedure…I have heard of a school in my local area who excluded a child after one isolated incident!!!

As horrible as it is to say, thank goodness you are retired, I feel you need to educate yourself on current policy and come out of the dark ages!!

No, that didn't happen. There are limited places for parents on any board of governors, they can't join just because they feel like it, and the decision to exclude is solely the head's.