How disruptive does a child have to be to be removed from Primary School?!

[Juggletits]

Ongoing saga at our primary school. One child has been hugely disruptive since day one - attacking other children (stabbing with pencils, stamping on chests, stomach punches, facial damage with nails or sports equipment amongst many others), attacking teachers, throwing chairs, upending tables and regularly trying to escape.

Last term they brought a pocket knife in to school and showed it to other children, cut his own trousers and threatened other children that he "could stab them"

There is an ever growing list of assaults and incidents against many children and the parent community is absolutely baffled as to why the child has not been removed. They clearly need serious and ongoing support and our school is not set up for a child with such a level of additional needs.

The reason from the HT is that "certain thresholds haven't been met"

Does anyone know what these thresholds are from a legal/professional point of view?

It has reached the point that parents are keeping their children out of school because they are not safe in the classroom.

Multiple emails have been sent to the school, Academy Trust, Ofsted and MARU

What more can be done? An entire school is being disrupted by one child - this cannot be right?!

There are likely things going on behind the scenes in that child's home life that you and other parents are not aware off, and legally can't be informed about.

If they are then the child won't be removed from school until they send someone to hospital with a serious injury.

However depending on what other things are going on it is likely the child will disappear at some point.

Sorry should have added -

What primary aged child who is being brought up by parents/family who have a healthy parenting approach would bring a knife into school?

Yikes! I will admit I did some of the first things you described to others when I was at school, but never throwing chairs or tables at people! I wouldn't send my child into the school. And if asked to give a reason why, I would say my child's safety is important, and that if the school can't provide a safe environment then I wouldn't be walking them into there.

It clearly isn't the child's fault (where did he get a knife!) However an entire school shouldn't have to suffer because of one child's behaviour .
Sadly I think the only thing you can do as a parent is insist your child is never in close contact with the disruptive child, when my youngest was at primary school she had issues with another girl following her and injuring her (the girl had SEN).
I went in and explained that I wouldn't tolerate my daughter coming home injured by this girl anymore and they went as far as separate lunch arrangements and different playtime/ never sat near each other in class and never alone together etc.
Maybe if enough parents in your school made the same demands something might be done?
Hopefully it is resolved soon, it sounds like the kids won't be having a great time at school 😔

@Reugny Unfortunately its a small area and everyone knows each others business... based on neighbours experiences, the home life is certainly lacking in discipline but the parents say they are begging for help from outside agencies and the child is ND but they can't get a diagnosis. There are two older siblings and a baby due in approx 12 weeks.

@Keyansier some parents with children in the same class are keeping their children off already and are using exactly that reason. Parents are discussing a full scale strike and keeping children off across the school to make a stand.

@GeneticallyModifiedGrump after yet another incident on Friday, the HT assured parents that this child was having 1:1 support, a modified timetable and different breaks to the rest of the school... yesterday at lunchtime, a pupil was punched in the stomach by the child. They were on the playground as usual. Another issue is that the HT appears to be willfully misleading worried parents and not implementing the actions needed to keep the children safe.

You need to take the path of your child/children being protected from this other child ie safeguarding. If your dc has been injured then you have a legal right to insist that a risk assessment is carried out with regard to protecting and preventing your dc from further harm from a child who is known to be violent and has brought a weapon into school. You really need to make this all about the safety of your dc and the schools legal duty of care towards your child.
I know that the disruption caused by the child in question is massively important for you but you won't get anywhere with it because they have extra legal duties towards looked after children, however the legal duty to safeguard your dc and put measures in place to ensure that they are not physically harmed by this child must take precedence over everything else. You will have to be very clear that any safeguarding measures must not negatively impact on your dc so things like removing your dc's break times or making your dc eat separately at lunch is not ok if anyone has to be moved it should be the perpetrator not the victim.
I have been through this with my ds who was strangled in class in an unprovoked attack by another older child (special Ed school department that mixed 11-18 year olds) it took me a year to get the 16 year old who attacked my then 11 year old son basically internally excluded and escorted through the school and BTW my ds was the 6th child strangled by the young man in question.
Good luck

Keep writing letters/emails of complaint detailing the incidents. Cc in the the local education dept.
There are certain "hoops" that have to be jumped through and a constant stream of written complaints will help.
Keep mentioning safeguarding, bullying & pupil safety within school.

If parents are asking for help and think their child is ND....the school is failing that child, and all the others.
Where is the 1:1 when they are hurting other children? That is the question....

I agree with @Hoardasurass that you need to keep responses focussed on the safety and wellbeing of your own children. Other parents should do the same, with regard to their own children. If specific things that you were told were put in place to protect your child/ren aren't happening, then that's another thing to complain about, making sure you follow the school's complaints policy fully.

Ask the school to clarify if that 121 support is the entire time the child is on site including break time and lunchtime

Bizarrely quite often 121 support is only in classroom.

In this case it clearly needs to be the entire time the child is on site

I would intepret this as the school know the child doesnt have the correct support in place due to funds so if they excluded the child they would risk it being overturned as the child should have had more support . Its perfectly possible to exclude chikdren with SEN and the threshold will be in the schools behaviour policy.

There was a kid like this in Year 6 of my primary school - the usual sob stories about a bad home life kept him in school terrorising the rest of the children.

Unfortunately it was a bit of a ‘Wild West’ farming community - a load of the local Dads practically chased the family out of the village!

As a former Chair of Govs.

We had a very disruptive pupil and despite our best attempts we were told the pupil had to remain in school.

That said :

1. Formal written complaint to Head
2. If the HT does not deal with it properly, formal complaint to Governors- as your complaint would then be about the lack of action from the Head.

The school has a duty to safeguard all pupils, and they should therefore be managing appropriately. Having been in this situation, with the best will in the world the resources we had to work with were not enough to support the child we had in front of us.

I hope this isn’t a stealth SEN bashing thread, nor hinting that parents are always seeking diagnoses to excuse poor parenting. Being neurodivergent does not excuse violence or even cause a child to be wilfully dangerous and violent.

Similar here (no chasing the parents away but the saga saw parents coming into the playground and going toe to toe with the little shit, who predictably shit himself because he was only brave when beating up little girls). Kid is an adult in prison now.

Clearly they are not willing to keep your child safe, so I would be pulling them out.

The child can be permanently excluded but if there is additional needs, the school would need to show that it had done all it reasonably could to prevent the exclusion ( best endeavours duty). Generally moving to a more suitable setting would be better but there is a shortage of suitable settings.

Absolutely not. Neither I, nor any of my fellow parents, are in a position to diagnose this child as being Neurodivergent. This is the reason being given by the parents... the mother is constantly sharing ND child memes on social media and this is the reason given for their behaviour whenever an incident takes place "DC is ND!! They can't help it. Its not their fault. Be kind!!!!" as you pick the pencil graphite out of your child's arm...

Whether the child is ND or not, their behaviour is not acceptable and collectively we want something done before one of our children leaves the school in an ambulance.

There is probably nowhere to remove the child to. Everywhere suitable is probably full.

You need to focus on your children not wether.the disruptive child will.be removed ,the school won't tell.you what's going on with the disruptive child as it's none of your business , however they do have a duty of care for ALL,Children and should be keeping all children safe ,when you speak to school make it about why they are not keeping your child safe .

I'm a primary school governor in Wales and that behaviour would have lead to permanent exclusion here. Sometimes that would lead to.more support for the family.

The HT cannot share details of the home situation although the parents can if they want.

I would complain to the governors that what the HT is saying isn't what is happening.

I echo what PP have said, email the school about every incident. It's sad, there are no winners in a situation like this.

That sounds like very inadequate support being put in place.

The usual way of managing challenging behaviour would be via staffing ratios. One-to-one or two-to-one, but if two-to-one was thought to be needed, I imagine that an adapted environment in a specialist provision might be deemed more suitable.

Whether a school copes possibly depends on the budget they have been able to access and whether they are able to recruit staff. In a rural and sparsely populated area, it just might not be possible for them to supply the child's education.

Well it can be a reason for dangerous and violent behaviour,my severely autistic child will hit out when he's distressed ,overwhelmed,frustrated, obviously I keep him away from situations,where such behaviour is likely to occur and am extremely vigilant,but he does not have the cognitive ability to know such behaviour is wrong

They are not supporting any pupil successfully. Write to the governors, it will help support the school too
Those poor teachers
I'd remove my child stating they are too fearful to go to school as their safety cannot be guaranteed

How can you possibly know all of this ? The headteacher shouldn't be telling you anything other than that there are things in place. The child must have special needs or be vulnerable in some other way.