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?!

If you want the situation to improve why don’t you support the parent to secure additional support, or at least signpost them to services that can support them? It shouldn’t be left to other parents but it often is. For example, signpost them to IPSEA, SOSSEN, NAS, Contact, Support SEND kids. Let them know support in schools is based on needs, not diagnosis and they can apply for an EHCNA themselves. Let them know they can, and should, appeal if refused.

Secondary school governor here. You can normally permanently exclude a secondary child who is endangering the safely and disrupting the learning of others. Sounds like this child easily meets this threshold.

I would write to the school and encourage others to do so. If you email they have to take it seriously.

It is worth approaching the LA, even if it is an academy, because the LA has duties from a SEND point of view to the child in question - it might speed up whatever they’re doing in terms of EHC needs assessment or issuing EHCP or trying to find suitable special school…

What more can be done is one-to-one support. Primary age children are relatively small. A well-built adult can easily manage their behaviour, given the correct training. As for not checking that the child doesn't have a sharp implement on them - this is very negligent.

The child needs structured play time activities. If there is a likelihood of him stamping on someone, his routines need to be managed and his activities diverted to something more positive. They need time with a mentor. All these ideas are very obvious and all headteachers would know about them.

Ask to see the behaviour policy and try to identify whether it is unfit for purpose, or not being followed.

You maybe need to go beyond the governor's and head and tell the LA that you want your child to go to another school. After all, if the school's behaviour policy is inadequate to manage one single under 11, how could they cope if two or three who had challenges joined at the same time?

I had simar with my son. From reception until year 2 he was terrorised by a boy in his class. This boy had a rough background and also ND. But it was nearly daily. Ranging from mean words, punching, pushing and then ended up with a strangling where my son said he couldn't breathe. I took my son out of school for a few days as he was terrified. I was told the child would be missing break times (was back in the playground the next day).

I ended up writing a VERY long email quoting their own policies from their website that they were going against and making it very clear that if anything happened to any child in the class then it would be because they went against their own policies ect ect. The teacher didn't even acknowledge it. So I forwarded to the head and the governors and git a call that afternoon saying a meeting was being organised and the next day this boy then left my child alone. So obviously he did have the understanding to. They had just never put much into stopping it before. Anyway, he left for a SEN school in year 3. We pass him regularly and he seems happy and friendly enough. He obviously wasn't getting the support he needed either.

This sounds appalling.
Why does the rights of a violent child trump the rights of non -violent children?

This violent child will seriously injure another pupil by the sounds of it- And when they do, I hope the parents of the injured child sue the school for allowing it to happen.

The mother has several children including this violent one, and is adding another into the mix?

It seems insane to do that.

Care for the ones you already have! Don’t add more to a ( probably) chaotic household.

A lovely lad ( Now a man) is blind in one eye from being stabbed in the eye with an implement as a child at school.
It’s terrifying that these violent children are allowed in mainstream schools.

I think it is interesting that those familiar with secondary schools tend to say they would exclude / punish for this behaviour whereas those posting from a primary perspective focus on SEN, meeting the child’s needs and providing 1:1 supervision.

Is there an age/size point where this switch in approach happens? So if a child in Y5 or Y 6 is the same height / weight as a female member of staff, is that the point? Is there a level of violent behaviour at any age that is a failure of supervision / empathy / diagnosis, so is the punitive ‘secondary school’ approach then unacceptable? Is it about the age at which we expect children to be aware of the possible consequences of their actions (some SEN children nay never acquire this)? Is it in lone with criminal responsibility? Or us it simply that we expect primary schools to be more ‘nurturing’ (and thus we tolerate and excuse more ‘low level’ violence towards children and staff within them) , whereas secondary schools are ‘expected’ to remove those who overly hinder their main role of education?

Not implementing the actions needed to keep the children safe, is the main issue. I would have lost faith completely in the school leadership, in your shoes. There seems to be no understanding of basic safety.

We had one who was very violent attacked my child and made death threats the boy had to be held back by other students (all age 8ish) there was also class room disruption and the whole rest of the class would be removed, and left to watch a film!! I made it very clear to the school I didn't care what the home situation was or anything else it was absolutely unacceptable children were being subjected to this and missing education, he was removed from classes for teaching then the school.

Sadly the child will only start to get the help they need when they cause a serious injury to themselves or another child… unless things have changed massively since I ran a PRU

I'm writing as a former teacher and SENCO supporting children with behavioural difficulties in mainstream schools. As pp have said, focus on the safeguarding aspect. Is the school doing what they said they would to support the child? Document when they are not and follow the complaints procedure to highlight it. Have a close look at their behaviour policy. Is it being followed! Is it good enough? Does it specify what happens when children or adults are hurt? Has that happened? Our policy outlined 4 different levels of sanctions and the kind of behaviour that triggered them. The fourth level was exclusion for physical, deliberate harm to children or adults. This was fixed term in the first instance but escalated to permanent if the behaviour continued . Is there a risk assessment in place for the child concerned? We always did one if violence was an issue. It wasn't a risk assessment for the other children but one for the violent child. It focussed on ways to prevent violence and what would happen if it happened.

The only additional thing you can do is also contact the police if children are being physically attacked because there may be negligence charges the school's safeguarding team could be picked up on and not keeping kids safe from bullying and violence.

I would suggest with a number of parents you visit the Head Teacher. And refuse to leave the premises unless there are proper processes in place to ensure safety. Be prepared to be on site well beyond school finishing time.

The poor teachers. It must be impossible for them.
Move your child to a different school OP.

I really hope you are joking here.

They’re not going to share anything about this child with you because it’s frankly none of your business. I understand your concerns (I’d be beside myself too if my child had been hurt/their education was suffering like this), but rather than demanding the child is excluded, demand to know what is being put in place to keep your child safe. And get angry at the system that is failing everyone here including the disruptive child. I don’t envy anyone who works in education at all- there’s not enough of them, there’s not enough funding to meet basic needs and it’s a shit show basically.

I would remove my child. And send emails and letters of complaint to every source available from the governors to social services to ofsted. Consider calling the police every time.
Parents strike sounds good.

It is probably worth emphasising the financial position the school is likely to be in here.

Unless and until the child has an agreed EHCP with the hours of 1:1 funding written into it, the school has no money to pay the salary of a 1:1 member of staff. Already, due to real terms budget cuts, staff numbers in many schools are being cut - often by removing class TAs so classes with a single adult (the teacher) are more and more the norm. Funding issues are particularly acute in small village-type schools that do not always have full classes of 30, and where small overall numbers mean that the costs of eg Head, part time SENCo, cook etc have to be met out if a smaller overall budget.

Calls for ‘full time 1:1 supervision’ by whom? Funded how? What are you willing to be cut in the school to pay for it?

The trouble with removing your child to a different school is that the disruptive child might be removed to that school too. When I ran the PRU it wasn’t unusual for children to have attended 10 plus different educational establishments by the time they joined age 11. History would repeat itself at each place. The aim is to try and keep disruptive students in mainstream education

The worst thing is that each child who leaves as a result of the behaviour decreases the school’s funding, thus decreasing the dwindling pot of money they have to staff the child’s support (until funding is secured , and even then it is usual for the school to have to find the initial few thousand pounds unless the parent fights the LA very hard for absolutely full funding).

It's incredibly unlikely the school will or can do anything.

And for all those posters saying the child just needs better support, even when children have an EHCP that miraculously covers the right support, good luck trying to get 1:1 staff when you pay peanuts and the poor staff member is faced with violence, bodily fluids and swearing. They don't exist any more.

The only guaranteed course of action is to move your child, but you can't guarantee that any school you move to will not have similar problems.

To some extent primary is about holding in there until the buck is passed to secondary.

I think they should be excluded. The challenge is some LAs lack alternative provision. This sounds awful for the child and others. Push this to the highest level. Try head teacher, head governor, academy chain, local council, MP, Ofsted, threaten to go to local newspaper in the way of not naming names but this is what happens at this school

good luck trying to get 1:1 staff when you pay peanuts

If the 1:1 is specified and quantified if section F of the EHCP the provision must be provided. Ultimately it is the LA who is responsible for ensuring the provision is provided, even if that means they have to fund the 1:1 at a substantially higher rate. They won’t do so unless forced to though.

@user1496262496 is your last sentence correct? What is the rationale for that?