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?

Absolutely push for assessment

There would / should be many stages before permanent exclusion of a reception age child. What support is in place? What plans for assessments? What strategies are being trialled? Work with the school, they will want what's best for him too.

Ultimately mainstream may not be the place for him, but they should be getting in the experts to observe and make recommendations as well before/as part of that decision process.

A school has to balance the needs of your child against the needs of the other children, and everyone's safety.

All children have the right to receive a good standard of education in a safe environment, including yours.

Absolutely ask what strategies are in place, have they sought external support, have causes been ruled out etc, and how you as a parent can support the school.
But if they have good evidence that he has breached behaviour standards and school have made more than reasonable efforts, or there has been a dangerous incident or similar then governors can exclude. You need to make sure the process is fair and appropriate, so ask for the policies.

If he’s hurting other children then he should be removed, why should the other children be put at risk?

YABU. They have a duty of care to all children at the school. I doubt the other parents are happy about their children being hurt and are wondering what is being done about it

Permanent exclusion should be an absolute last resort only after every other avenue has been exhausted.

Five weeks is very quick to jump to this option! Sounds like the school doesn't want or doesn't know how to help your child.

YABU he can’t cope with mainstream school.

It’s unfair to him and everyone else to keep him there when he is obviously struggling.

OP if the school aren’t willing to push for a referral then you need to. Email your GP and Health Visitor to get the ball rolling, you need a Educational psychologist to get involved and the early years team for intervention, hopefully you’ll also get some help from an occupational therapist to look at coping mechanisms etc but he needs to be ok the pathway and it sounds like the school are failing him as they aren’t doing enough to get to the bottom of his behavioural issues.

When you say he was threatened with it, what did they actually say?

And what further plans do they have in place to hopefully ensure it won't come to that?

I’ve known children so far worse and being excluded has never been brought up.

Some schools are rather quick with exclusions as behaviour like that doesn’t suit their MAT

Also has the school senco been involved at all?

He's been there less than half a term its not quite as simple as saying hes not suited to mainstream.

It drives my nuts when professionals come out with this crap about not labelling children. Children receive diagnoses, not f*ing labels. Those diagnoses help the adults around them know how to help them FFS.

You need to insist that the school brings in their behaviour support team, learning support team and an educational psychologist as a matter of urgency.

In the meantime, the school staff need to make notes of the lead up to and management of every incident - they will know what to record - alongside observations of him at various points throughout the day so they have a decent amount of helpful information to share with the professionals who come to assess him.

@whatatanker OP I’m sorry you’re already having a tough time after such a short period. Whilst the nursery didn’t want to label him that really hasn’t helped you make a constructive start to school. However, what’s done is done and you need to focus on getting things in place to support him.

Few questions for you.
Does he show the same behaviours at home?
Do you know what the antecedents are? (What happens just before he shows the challenging behaviour hit/bit/chase?)
How is he speech and language development in comparison to other children his age?

They are using the term permanent exclusion.

If he hurt my child I would 100% want him removed from the classroom.

This is so sad, your poor child.

Is he hitting and chasing them to play with them?

does your eldest play fight with him?

I agree with a previous poster that I've seen far worse behaviour over a longer period of time and exclusion hasn't been mentioned.

He is not of required school age until January (if his birthday has been since 1st September), so the school can insist on him being on a part-time placement until January.

What outside agencies have they involved? Educational psychologist? Learning support? Paediatrician?

It sounds like they've done very little other than be reactive.

I mean he clearly has behavioural issues? He can’t be disrupting a whole class of children and hurting other children and just be allowed to? 😂

If he is permanently excluded, then they should be using that to get him the help he clearly needs. It will force the council to assess him far quicker than normal, so they can work out what he needs.

They should have a written behaviour policy; ask to see it to ascertain whether they’ve been following it.

Thats irrelevant as you would have no say in the matter

A 5yo isn't just going to be 'badly behaved'. There will be something going on. Could be ADHD, autism, sensory processing disorder, trauma. Could be something else. But no child that age is 'bad'.

They should be trying to help him. And you.

It's pretty hard to 'step in' before a child hurts another when there's potentially 30 children in the class and if they're lucky 2 adults. Teachers aren't superhuman and can't predict when a child is going to hit, push, bite, kick etc let alone watch that child who has a tendency to do such things and stop them before they do it. I imagine the school are trying all sorts of strategies and have a LOT of experience with children. I would imagine school have realised that the setting isn't appropriate for the child who is behaving in this way and are trying to work out what they can do to 1. support the child 2. keep the other children safe and 3. make the parents aware that there's a problem.