Child hitting my child at school

[ShepherdMoons]

Youngest dd has two new children in her class. Both have ASD and should be in specialist provision but the school has a new unit and is part of a new programme to help children with special needs be in a mainstream classroom. They spend an hour in the unit each day and then they are in the classroom for the day.

I totally appreciate that both children have many challenges and it must be very hard for them too but my child is coming home each day saying that X has hit her hard on her back, been kicked, pushed. Each day I have been to the teacher as my child is getting more distressed and frightened. The teacher has been putting more measures in place to help the boys but I have also a meeting with the Head tomorrow to voice my concerns.

Today one of the boys kicked the dinner lady and will spend time in the unit for this but then he will inevitably be back in the classroom next week. This is also disruptive to the children learning as there is more noise and general disruption due to them struggling to concentrate. AIBU to consider moving my dd out of this school?

I don’t understand why these children are in mainstream school. There was a boy many years ago at my daughters school, she’s 27 now. He was vile, biting hitting, kicking the other children, he even terrorised his sister at home. It wasn’t until he tried to burn the school down in his lunchtime that anything was done. He just disappeared from her school, don’t know where he went. We do have a local school for children with special needs needs, I know a teacher there who is always covered in bruises. In fact a girl that was originally in my daughters school with special needs ended up going there in the end, she was a nightmare.

Why should all the other children suffer, who wants them in mainstream school? the parents or the authorities?

Apologies I assumed that you were responding to my post saying my opinion is that EVERY child who can succeed in a mainstream setting should be there and that it is better for ALL of us if they are if you weren’t I can’t understand your point?

This child is violent when he doesn’t have the required support. Why would the schools failure to provide mean he should miss out on education?

If you know things you shouldn’t then you haven’t shut down inappropriate sharing of dcs private information nor have you highlighted it’s a breach of their confidentiality to the person doing it or their employer.

It’s interesting to see this constantly trotted out as if it’s the be all and end all to these problems.

Special schools are not necessarily equipped to deal with classes of children with differing or conflicting needs much more than a mainstream school.

Children there will still be violent and disruptive sometimes and still hurt other pupils- the only difference is that all the other children they hurt will also be disabled. They won’t be any less hurt by it though than your non disabled children.

Basically what is being said is “get the disabled children away from the normal children, so that the normal children can have a good education, and dump all the disabled children In together in a system that is equally underfunded, under staffed and under resourced- at least that way they can’t hurt normal children”.

Which is basically what we used to do with ‘special schools’ and children’s homes for the disabled… it didn’t work brilliantly then and it won’t now without massive shifts in the structure of education, and possibly an even bigger shift in the attitude of NT non disabled people.

Perhaps it would be better in some ways for some of the violent children as the inclusion isn't working

But the child demonstrably CAN be at school with a suitable ta without being violent. OP said so. So why do you think he shouldn’t be there? He has just as much right as any other child to go to school.

Perhaps TAs are human beings and she needed to vent about her shitty pay and job to a mate.

Yes, properly funded, resourced schools with enough staff who have enough training and experience to educate and supply the therapeutic input the children need would definitely be better than mainstream for some disabled children- that isn’t what is being suggested when people flippantly say ‘they should all just go to special school’ though.

Yes I get that

It's not on though for other dc and staff to be assaulted though

If you know things you shouldn’t then you haven’t shut down inappropriate sharing of dcs private information nor have you highlighted it’s a breach of their confidentiality to the person doing it or their employer.

I don't police my friends

Perhaps they need to learn how and when to do that in an appropriate way without sharing details about children that aren’t their business to share?

Im a social worker- I know full well how much people need to unload their stress- children getting beaten and murdered and raped is my working life… I don’t tell anyone their names or the school they go to or who their mum is or their Aunty or what’s happening at home or at school or anything else.

If the ta can’t do her job without telling people other people’s private information then she needs a different job.

Is it anymore on for disabled children or staff in specialist schools to be assaulted?

Hopefully you don’t think so- so the answer isn’t to throw out the disabled children and hope for the best with home Ed or shit special schools, the answer is to overhaul the system so it works for all the children.

@Heresapickle I don't think anyone is saying it's ok for disabled kids to be assaulted though are they? You've just made that leap yourself. What's not OK is for any child to be attacked whether they are NT, ND or physically disabled. I imagine the people saying that violent children should be in special schools are envisaging a pupil referral type class, where the adults have specialist training and the class sizes are much smaller.
And frankly if a child can't be in class without hurting others, they have no place being there. Safety has to be the priority over their right to an education. EVERY TIME.

I do wonder this sometimes when I read these type of posts.

Genuine question....
What happens if the behaviour continues, children grow, become stronger, what happens when they take it into secondary school, start on their parent/s or outsiders on the street, once grown into an adult will this behaviour still be seen in the same light as when they were a child.

They may well be imagining some sort of utopian school where everyone gets their needs met and doesn’t exhibit violence as a result of their disability- but those places don’t exist for most SEN children. So the reality of the ‘they should all just go to special schools’ is that it removes the problem of disabled children from non disabled ones, but it doesn’t solve any other problems.

Most parents of SEN children don't want them in mainstream school but we don't have a choice. The LA do everything they can to refuse help, EHCPs take years to get and that's if you are lucky enough to ever get one, then you have to fight for a massively oversubscribed place and a SEN school.

We are now on our 4th attempt to get my 10 year old an EHCP and if this fails I will have to home educate him as no way I'm going to send him to a mainstream secondary. He's happy and managing in primary with huge amounts of support and thankfully all the parents and children are accepting of him. He dies have outbuslrsts but not violent, usually screaming or running away

My 6 year old is currently being assessed for his EHCP, school is hard for him, it's too busy and too noisy. He does have rare violent outbusrsts which we are working very hard to deal with and change the behaviour.

I have witnessed and been told about situations where other children have found the SEN children's triggers and find amusement in getting them riled up. I've had parents complain that the SEN children get to have fidgets and comforts and it isn't fair. I think some of the issues with SEN children could be resolved with a bit of education and acceptance. It should go without saying though that violence should never be tolerated

No this is not on, but as a parent of a child with severe autism and learning delay still in a mainstream (yes really, it's that bad in this country). Please don't blame the parents. I am stuck in my situation because there are no specialist places and I still haven't got an EHCP yet for my son despite being on week 38 (should be complete at week 20) with no finalised plan.

Councils are FUCKING USELESS. I don't normally use capital letters Donald Trump style, but I have no other way of putting how awful, penny pinching and discriminatory they are.

Please don't vote for a political party that thinks this situation is OK and please complain to your local Councillor about the situation everyone is in due to this. Councils are allowed to get away with poor SEND provision because these children are a minority and they are happy to discriminate and not meet their needs as they believe few people are impacted. They don't care about how the school and other children's education are impacted.

I hope you manage to resolve this and your child is ok.

I think a lot of people are spectacularly missing the point on here. The child is not placed in an appropriate school. They need specialist education. Why are people arguing and why is there all this whataboutery about semantics when the solution is a functioning SEND education system with the correct amount of special school places, and not trying to force these poor kids into a situation and school which is damaging for them and their peers?

You're nice.

To answer your question it is most likely the local authorities because they don't have the investment and funding.

They end up in the criminal justice system- ND people, and especially men are massively over represented in prisons.

If the unit was working effectively and used as it was intended rather than as a punishment and IF the child was supported as he was previously by his TA then why wouldn’t he be in MS school? He’s no less able to be there than a dyslexic child who needs extra support or a child with a missing limb.

Yes I'm sure more TAs leaving or going long term sick like the one OP mentioned will help everyone. You realise they are on close to minimum wage typically? I don't know who in their right mind would choose being abused every day and not even being allowed to speak about it with a close friend over working in a shop or restaurant or basically anywhere else.

It's a ridiculous situation, the whole system needs an overhaul and a hell of a lot more money but until that happens maybe we can refrain from blaming the poor put upon, practically saintly imo TAs for being actual, imperfect human beings and not mindless automatons sometimes.

Exactly, we all need to vent

That's why we all spend (waste) so much time on mumsnet 😅

Off to be productive now (not)

@Heresapickle

Something wrong with your thought process. Disabled children can thrive in mainstream. We are talking about specialist units for kids with extreme behavioural problems, and not every one of them will be autistic or have ADHD.

This is a child who managed in school until his ta went off sick, I don’t think that means he’s a child who needs special school.

Some TAs are great, some not so much. They shouldn’t be identifying children and describing their behaviour regardless of their salary. Just as your Drs receptionist shouldn’t. It’s a very basic requirement of the job.