Violence in Secondary School

[Notchangingnameagain]

My 14 year old has come home from school in an emotional state.

Today, a new student has arrived.

This student has been sat between two students deemed as sensible in form and those students have been told that the new student has been through a lot and to try and support this student in navigating the timetable and the building etc, where possible.

The new student has left one of their lessons and has badly beaten another student.

The victim of this attack did absolutely nothing accept accidentally knock into the new student in a busy area.

The new student has been expelled on their first day.

AIBU to think that just expelling this student won’t solve a serious problem?

Yes, the student, in my view, should be expelled, but what next? What options are left for this student and the parents?

You absolutely cannot inflict violence on anyone.

To have this level of anger at a stranger at any age, let alone in your teenage years is frightening and needs to be supported by professional.

Equally, the victim, should never have to share a classroom or a school with this student ever again.

I feel personally invested in this situation despite no personal involvement.

That could have been anyone in that school, including staff, that was attacked as it was a completely and utterly unprovoked attack.

I feel physically sick for the victim and the family.

WTF is going on in our society.

I am supporting my child and helping them navigate their emotions.

There is far too much of this type of thing happening in all areas of society & it's awful that it's happening in places that should be safe, like schools. Society has gone very badly wrong. There seems to be so little respect for any kind of authority, a complete lack of boundaries, self control, some totally crap parenting and a lack of sense of proportion. It is incredibly worrying & something has got to be done about it. Society & civilisation is going down the pan rapidly & it's heart breaking. I feel very sorry for tge poor boy who got hurt.

@HulaChick I agree.

We can’t just keep expelling students like this and make them someone else’s problem.

We know already that individuals slip through the net so many times.

What happens if someone knocks into them in a shop or the street and they repeat this level of violence and inflict the same level injury or worse.

The cycle needs to be broken.

I really hesitated on that one. Your concerns are very genuine and you put your point across very well. But I worked in a Secondary School for a few years and there is a lot of support happening in the background with violent students that you might not see, know about, hear about. And the other kids won't know about all that work either. You will now know if the child is in care, if they are refugees from a war zone, or if they have a parent in jail. All of this is private. The school will not tell you what is being put in place in order to support the violent child - they can't tell other parents.

At that age, this student has committed a violent crime. Being expelled is the least of his worries. What should happen next is the criminal justice system takes over. Violent criminals don’t belong in an environment where they have easy access to potential victims. This is almost certainly not his first violent crime.

@IfNotNowThenWhat Of course I don’t know and of course so much happens behind the scenes that only professionals are aware of, my point in this situation, is that after one day, this student has violently attacked a student and been expelled, what next for them? For their family?

The school have no relationship built over time, with the student or their family. If my child was the attacker, the school would have a basis of a four year relationship to work with.

They have had 5 hours.

In your experience, what can happen next? Move onto the next school and hope for best?

In an ideal world this pupil is scooped up by a pupil referal unit, has access to someone on a youth offending team, is allocated a mentor from an appropriate charity, is given counselling/therapy and has social services support.

Sadly a lot of these wrap around services are badly funded, have wait lists or are time bound, so the mentor lasts 6 weeks but the person needed 2 years.

@badwolf82 Yes I did wonder about this. The school have a general policy of “we don’t criminalise children” this has been in cases slightly different as they have a relationship with all parties involved in violence. So it can be managed differently.

Expelling them is necessary because a mainstream school is a wholly inappropriate environment for a child who would do this. But they aren’t just expelled. The state still has a statutory duty to educate them. They’ll probably go to a PRU or the like with better resources to try and break the cycle.

Expelling students who display this level of violence is the only answer, you have to provide a safe environment for all of the other students.

Schools are a microcosm of society, some people are always going to be excluded from society because of their actions, schools are the same.

Schools are not magical places that can cope with everything especially with the poor funding and staffing. Kids need to know that their actions have consequences and that sometimes means exclusion.

What do you think would be an answer? Of course, no one would want a child expelled from school on their first day. None of us here know the circumstances that led to the boy being enrolled. None of us know the background and what was put in place before he arrived. None of us know how many schools have been involved, or whether his parents are supportive, or not, or desperate for support.

If you were the parent of the boy who was attacked, surely you’d want to feel that your child was not under further threat, after an attack like that.

If the boy is 14, he is above the age of responsibility and I imagine the crime will be reported. You must realise that he can’t be in school if he is a danger to other pupils and is likely to be so, even when unprovoked.

It’s likely that if your son violently attacked another pupil OP, he’d be expelled too, despite a four year relationship with the school. Of course it’s a sad circumstance, but violence and dangerous behaviour cannot be condoned.

I think you are very sympathetic OP, you might be less so if it was your kid was the victim. This is outing but my DD is in reception and was the subject of a serious violent attack from another girl in reception. School have been trying to play it down. I’m surprised the kid was expelled to be honest. I think the school my dd goes to would rather my dd left, despite being a sweet kid who was minding her own business with her friend.

horrifying that it would even occur to a kid to be so violent. It has so many after effects for everyone around them.

agree with others the mainstream is not necessarily the right place for children who already display violent tendencies as there is not enough support to help them regulate.

It’s a cliche but context matters. If it’s a case of kids getting in a fight and nobody is seriously hurt, then it could be dealt with as an internal school matter, provided all of the kids and parents agree.

But what you have described is a deliberate act of violence where the student sought out the victim in a cold and calculated manner and as you say, badly beat him. Its chilling.

Either this child is a violent criminal who needs to go through the justice system and hopefully learn what consequences mean. Or, he’s so severely disturbed that he can’t stop himself from beating up other students. Either way, he can’t be around other children who can be easily victimised, and the help and/or consequences that he needs are beyond what a mainstream school can reasonably provide.

The age of criminal responsibility in the UK is 10. 14 is old enough to understand that actions have consequences and to take responsibility for those actions.

It is highly likely that the student is on a "managed move" due to similar behaviour from another school and will be well of what would happen if they misbehaved let alone beat up another child.

The schools involved will be putting this forward to higher levels in the hope that they will go to a PRU.