To be at the end of my tether with school?

[Pillowchase]

DS is in reception, he turned 5 last week.

Thankfully he settled into school the first term and was really enjoying it, I was aware this could change anytime but I find the circumstances upsetting and frustrating and not sure what to do.

Since the start of this term school have phoned 5 times because he's been pushed over, had things thrown at him causing bruising and he was bitten; 1 of which required a medical check up. Its the same child, at the end of the day they're 4, they probably have something else going on (which isn't my business) and I appreciate the teacher has a hard job managing an entire class.

Its reached the point though I'm now furious and really upset about it. Everytime I speak to school I very much angle it as well what are you going to implement to keep my child safe- they always promise this and that but I've had enough. He's been told to always stay away from this child, the teacher says he does do this but what he doesn't always do is immediately move away when the child approaches. So everytime he's playing at a station or whatever he's supposed to drop everything immediately even if he's enjoying himself and with friends if this child decides they want to be go there; ridiculous in hindsight but there we go. Yesterday I had another call saying DS was playing at the water table and because he didn't move away straight away when this child approached it was unfortunate but he was pushed over and basically ended up with his face in the water and his stomach catching the side of the tub. He was told off for not moving away which I was furious about.

Anyway, DS has been up most of the night crying and saying he doesn't want to go back to school. I can't blame him, but what do I do? I've enquired at other local schools and no spaces to transfer, homeschooling isn't an option and for his sake I don't want to keep him off regularly in case he's physically assaulted at school.

I've been understanding until now, probably too much so and haven't advocated for DS as much as I should as I've tried to see the whole picture and feel for the child who evidently isn't getting the support they need; but I've had enough. I've spoken to the teachers and said if the issue is he's being mean/antagonising the child or triggering them somehow let me know and I'll reinforce at home not to do this etc, but they say no he's always just playing with others or minding his own business.

Bye.

I agree, inclusion leads to exclusion. Closing the SEN provision schools and then expecting mainstream schools to cope is negligent to all affected. The child struggles daily at school and the schools - as much as they try, just cannot meet their needs.

Find a way to SPY. Infiltrate the school.
Make appointment with someone, find the group your child is in. Keep regularly watching from a distance. Then make assessments. Don't tell anyone you're doing this because you need to protect your child and the way Social Inclusion is going...........they'll close ranks and accuse you. My third Daughter is .was very calm and studious. A Teacher tried to pick on her , only because she could as she was so fair. I protected her by ignoring the teacher. We need to protect the young even more. While I'm here I should warn you if what's to come...parents have very little influence nowadays esp. around Sexual Health Education. TWENTY YEARS AGO I was given a preview. A Cartoon character doing it on top of a woman And the narrative was proactively promoting the opposite agenda...( I withdrew my child on the consent form but the school disregarded it and she saw the naked characters enjoying marital life)

Don't feel guilty. Your child comes first.
You've done the right thing by calling a meeting.
Ask- is it always your child getting injured, if so then he is being bullied so what are they going to do about it?
If the child has 'issue's' fine, but why isn't 1-1 shadowing the child and preventing the incidents?
Has the other child's parent been informed of all the incidents?
Safeguarding of your child isn't happening so they are failing your child and if something doesn't improve within the week you will be meeting with the governors and calling Ofsted to report.

ultimately we removed him from school entirely, the final straw for us was that there were 29 other children in that class and he was damaging their education and very occasionally hurt them which was not acceptable even with his significant SEN.

May I ask where your son went once you took him out of the school? Did he have an EHCP? It seems practically impossible to get a place in an SEN school!

Sorry your DS is going through this IOP. If the child in question has diagnosed SEN they could be offered an EHCP which would give one-to-one support. Perhaps you could enquire with the school whether or not they are supporting the family for this to happen.

As a teacher, I'd urge you to formally complain and make some noise.
This is the way many schools are going for the sake of inclusion and teachers are powerless.

In my school, behaviour is spiralling out of control and staff and children are being assaulted more and more regularly. The thing that shocks me is how despondent the parents are. They seem to have become desensitised to violence in schools, or perhaps children are being desensitised to it and not reporting it at home?

Only when parents kick up a stink will anything be done.
I hope your poor boy is OK - please do advocate for him and let him know he has done nothing wrong.

There are more and more children coming into mainstream school with complex and severe SEND. It takes a lot of time for referrals, diagnoses, agencies to come and work with these children and for EHCPs to be applied for and given. Should take 20 weeks but that is with all the evidence needed beforehand. Schools are struggling to recruit staff to be 1:1s and many school lack the funding. Even if schools have all of the above in place in reception (rarely happens unless Nursery have been ON IT) and can’t meet need, parental preference for the child and lack of places in specialist provision is a big issue. Sometimes the parents are in denial, despite everything.
It’s awful your son is experiencing this and I’m pleased you’re going to meet with everyone. I hope it helps. Do talk about the behaviour policy and raise a safeguarding concern about the child. School won’t be able to share risk assessments, confirm SEND needs and details about the other child though, as much as they might want to. They won’t be able to tell you have many times they’ve been suspended for hurting others or whether they’re on a part-time timetable. It will go in the bank of evidence needed to support the right provision for the other child. This will be awful too for the teachers and support staff. I wouldn’t be surprised if they dread getting up in the morning to go to work. This is happening more and more in mainstream schools. Schools need more money from the government, access to appropriate provision and to funding to pay support staff properly for the job they need to do. Really am sad to hear about your child and the whole of the mess the education system is in. Maybe write to your MP too. Raise awareness.

The fact that this comment hasn't been deleted is shocking. It is in reference to an autistic child who was clearly struggling in the wrong environment. Regarding the child in the OP, a 4 year old is far, far more likely to be autistic, to have experienced trauma or have other needs than they are to be 'a bully'. That doesn't mean that what is happening to the OP's child isn't completely unacceptable, but calling the other child a bully doesn't help the conversation.

Thought so. Easy to be all holier than thou when it’s not your kid getting hurt isn’t it

OP it sounds like you’ve handled this well and calmly - please don’t feel guilty about taking this approach. We’ve had a similar situation and it escalated to me keeping our daughter off a couple of days, she was also very tired so she stayed at home for a bit of tlc. It did make the teacher sit up and realise they had a problem. I then asked for a meeting with the teacher and we came up with a plan together. I have been firm in her going to school since then so that it didn’t become a habit to stay off. Things have been so much more improved this term. Good luck OP.

Is this in reply to my comment? I don't know what your thought. That was my first comment on the thread. I have two neurotypical children in mainstream - you have no idea whether they have been on the receiving end of violence before.

…. And let them know you are documenting everything and if nothing changes you will go to the police.

might seem extreme for four year olds. But abuse is abuse and currently the school are condoning it.

No sorry it’s not aimed at you, I quoted the poster I was replying to but it didn’t work. I was replying to the poster who was saying we should be more understanding of the violent kid (who then flounced)

@arbitraryarsehole

Remember there's 2 sides to every story. My son has sen needs, and recently bit someone after over a year with no incidents and a very happy time at school.
I was ready to be absolutely furious with him, until I found out more that this other child had been antagonising my son all week, following him in the bathroom and peeping under the stall, breaking the things he was building and slapping things out of his hands. As my son is meant to have a TA with him I was furious, they're now keeping my son and the other child away from each other, so the child has started up on someone else instead. I know I have been ripped apart by the mum and her friends. What the didn't realise is that his father had been in an accident and nearly died the day before, my son had been storing the feelings inside :/

Of course all children will place the blame entirely with the other kid, they always do, I imagine there's been stuff going on on both sides, but nobody ever wants to think their child is less than a little angel!

Tricky.

Been on both sides of this coin.

My child was told to stay away from another child but kept gravitating back. It never ended well. It’s not that easy at 4 or at any age actually.

My child was regularly physically attacked by another child who “had anger problems”. I sympathised for quite a few years but in the end I had to go into school and say that they had a duty of care to all children and to support educating them in boundaries and their bodies. IF my child, as an adult said their partner had punched them, we wouldn’t dismiss it, play it down or try and placate because they “had anger problems”.

Tbh if the school will do nothing what can you do except teach your child self defence? Maybe no one has ever whacked this 4yr old back yet? I know "violence" is frowned upon but wtf else are you supposed to do? Turn the other cheek forever? I advocate teaching your kid a good nose whack for use in situations where nothing else works. Girls as well as boys. It's all very well being lovely to everyone all the time but if you are dealing with violence on a daily basis you have to be capable of defending yourself using whatever works.

This kind of thing always makes me angry. Why us it the bullied child that has to make the changes, they have to move away, move class, move schools etc. They should now be looking at the Bully instead and sorting out what ever the issue there is. But your poor child should not be putting up with this. Have you taken this higher. And if the school is not helpful take it higher than the school. That is not acceptable. Bullying has a huge impact on people's mental health. I have been there and it is stressful watching your kid go through Bullying. Some take it on board, some not so much. At one point the head was a complete B.

It's not been deleted because there is nothing wrong with it. Exactly which child is autistic? Neither the OP nor the person I was talking to have said that their child is autistic. You're making things up in your head here.

Regardless of if a child has autism, if they are consistently targeting and hitting another child, then the victim of the attacks is being bullied. And the perpetrator is the one bullying them. They may need help, more than they are receiving, but they are still bullying.

Aggressive behaviour in school children has suddenly become a massive massive problem. It’s skyrocketed out of thin air. I don’t care how people try to gaslight me, children did not act this way when I was at school in the late 90s and early 2000s. I know many of them are diagnosed with ASD but materially that doesn’t change much - children are still being hit/kicked/bitten, classes disrupted, teachers attacked.

We need to think very very carefully about how much of this behaviour we are willing to tolerate on account of neurodiversity. If somebody’s aggression is excused due to X or Y condition, and that condition is there for life, we are going to face a huge number of adults using it as mitigation in future when they batter their spouse or whoever has looked at them wrong that day.

If somebody has a learning disability to the extent they have zero idea of right or wrong of course that’s different. But I’ve seen some very disturbing attacks waved away on here where the perpetrator clearly has a sufficient level of understanding but ‘can’t control themselves’.

And I’m also a little bemused by all this talk of ‘meeting needs’. What needs make somebody attack another person in this manner? Is it sustainable to ‘meet their needs’ to prevent violent behaviour when the outside world won’t be able to meet their needs as an adult, and there will always be a level of discomfort everyone has to tolerate to live in society?

A woman posted for help in our local parents group last week as her son (7) has started attacking children in his class and being rude. I’m all for ruling out some kind of serious emotional disturbance first, but she hasn’t even tried properly disciplining him (removal of toys or restriction of fun activities every time he hits). It was all ‘chats and hot chocolate’ and the boy was clearly utterly taking the piss. When I suggested she discipline him by doing a screen time ban for the week, people reached like I had suggested sending him to a chain gang. It was wild and I can really see why many children are out of control tbh.

This is really sad.
Yes, the child in question may be SEN but does that mean OP's son does not have a right to be safe at school? We can argue about blaming the school, teachers, funding, government, whatever but imagine sending your child to school and everyday they come home in bruises and being taunted to the point where he's crying at night not wanting to go back to school. I've got a little boy your son's age at reception too so this really hits home for me. Absolutely no parent would be happy about this.

That’s inclusion in a mainstream school nowadays. Inclusion and the exclusion of many, unfortunately it’s no-one’s fault and it’s down to funding. You will be told on here though- that your son should just accept that as should you - because rights. You’ve been warned.
Absolutely this.
Unfortunately this is integration - often promoted so the child with additional needs can benefit from mainstream role models. Often is just doesn’t work from either child’s position- or the Teachers.
Before I’m slated, l spent 30 years in Special Education and in a lot of case integration didn’t work, especially when full time. This Government closed Special Schools and encouraged more parents to go for Mainstream- it is unfair on everyone
Also, why do this child’s ’ rights “ supersede the rights of the child being hurt?

I think part of the problem is that there are no such things as naughty children who can be disciplined anymore, all the ones once labelled naughty are all now neurodivergent and therefore can’t be disciplined because their behaviour is not their fault. All of the other children are expected to suck it up and suffer at their hands.

This is because of the ridiculous government agenda to reduce by 20% the amount of EHCPs issued. There's not 20% less children in need of an EHCP than before 🤦

A lot of parents also don't know how hard they have to push their nursery to get an EHCP, let alone one issued for a special school. With the academisation process, a lot of early years county level advice has now disappeared for parents. And if they do get a special school named in their EHCP, Reception places are like hen's teeth.

I'm glad your school are looking after those 9 and their peers, but what effect will that have on the rest of the school population? Thank you for powering through with your colleagues.

I haven’t read the whole thread, but we had a very similar issue at primary. The school eventually excluded the disruptive/violent child. I’m not sure if he was officially excluded or if the parents were persuaded to remove him.