To suggest they ban this child from the SEN session

[Heartofglass83]

DD3 attends a weekly SEN gymnastics session which she loves. It’s got a big inflatable assault course / slide which is obviously really popular. The average age of the kids is probably about 5/6. Occasionally there’s an older child but they would normally have two parents walking round holding their hands etc.

the last few weeks there’s been a boy probably about 12 or 13 with quite visable learning difficulties who is very excitable and climbs to the top of the slide and stops children from going down the slide the supervisor has a few times had to ask his parent/carer to get him down as he jumps about so much the whole inflatable knocks all the other kids down. The parent / carer sits away on their phone the whole time.

DD went into the assault course and I normally follow her down and as she climbs up the ladder I walk back down to the bottom of the slide. As I was walking the boy ran up the slide and sat at the top. DD said “excuse me please” and he grabbed her by the pigtails and yanked them really hard before dragging her by the hair to throw her down the slide. I bellowed at the adults who were with him (who were all slouched away on their phones) and one jumped up the slide to get him off her.
DD has spent the last few hours really shocked and upset. I’m really angry because this is one of her favourite spaces where she can be herself.

i want to flag this to management - am I being unreasonable to say they need to give a warning and then ban this child from attending the session? I don’t blame the child in anyway, I blame the complete lack of supervision and care from the adults in charge of him. He is too big, and too excitable to be playing with small children without an adult constantly being with him. I dread to think of what could have happened as he is already quite a big lad.

@JudgeJ that would be great especially if you could put that in writing, thanks

Really sorry that happened, really awful for your daughter.

I don't think it's an issue at all about age/height and think that's be a red herring, instead focus on safety: the child's behaviour and lack of supervision caused harm to your child and that can't happen again.

I say this as the parent of an SEN child who displays v challenging behaviour and the manager of a care agency, if the adults were support staff then lodge a complaint directly with them (obviously I appreciate you're unlikely to know who they were for but you could ask in the future, either outright or surreptitiously) if they are direct payment staff employed directly by the family then complain to the local authority with the concern being the safety of the young person and others. I do appreciate this might not be easy, I am quite bolshy and I know it can be hard. But my service would be very keen to know and take it very seriously, we do alot of unannounced observations, audits etc. but it's really hard to know what's really going on when staff are out and about.

I don't think you're being reasonable to some extent. As a mum of a boy with suspected SEN which often manifests itself with him being unpredictably aggressive (99% of the time he's lovely 1% he's a loose cannon) I would hate to be excluded from the SEN session BUT there's no way I'd leave him unsupervised, I'd be shadowing the whole way so that I could stop any undesirable behaviour.
I do think it's not appropriate to have 5 year olds and 12 year olds together in the same session and would propose if possible separate classes. I'd also flag to management safety concerns and that the parent of the 12 Yr old needs to shadow their kid at all times, I'd ban phones too, so many parents at classes/park on their bloody phones not watching their kids. Drives me mad.

Thanks for the responses all. One of the reasons we love SEN sessions is the lack of judgement and lots of understanding and generally 9/10 parents are brilliant and it does afford people some much needed rest to give their kids a safe space to play. Tbh the problems seemed to start when they extended the session and put in later in the day.
There’s also a family who leave their kids including a two year old to go outside and smoke - remembered to pop that in my email to the centre about ensuring supervision!

Many 13 year olds are larger than me. They shouldn't be with small children.

It sounds like a supervision issue so should be raised with the management. All the children have the rights to use the facility but for it to be safe for all too

My first question is if there are enough older children to make two sessions viable? If so, push for that.
If not, then strict reminders need putting in place that all children need to be supervised.
It's really hard finding SEN sessions like that. I wouldn't push for him to be banned at all. It would be harder for him to access play sessions like that otherwise. Purely because of his age and size, he wouldn't be able to go on the soft play in usual times. Whereas the younger ones could.
I hope your DD is OK. That must have been really upsetting for you both.

I said to my DH the same thing that’s it’s probably really hard to find activities for him to do that are safe so I would much rather he was looked after but honestly I’ve watched one of the carers just shrug at the manager before when she asked him to get off the slide again. I can see them just not having the inflatable there tbh.

smaller kids can’t access other Softplay sessions either so it would be better I think if they did age split it - they do that with the regular sessions! I guess they presumed Sen kids wouldn’t need the split

It's not fair on any of the kids is it? I think I'd have to speak to his carers myself. Are they his parents or paid carers? I don't know what would be worse though.

I would speak to management and ask them why they can't do sessions with an age limit. It's sad as it isn't the boys fault, he should absolutely be being supervised, but it also is not fair at all that your daughter got hurt, she is only little and also has her own additional needs. If management don't address it, then I probably wouldn't go again, which isn't ideal, but I wouldn't want my child getting hurt.

Yanbu. Children should be supervised at all times by their parents/carers and if that child is unable to respect that others are entitled to use te equipment, they need to be removed.One child's rights should trump everyone else's, special needs or not

My child is SEN but An SEN diagnosis is not a blank card to abuse another child. If they are at risk of hurting themselves or others they must be closely supervised at all times. This boy is allowed providing his behaviour does not put others at risk or harm others - if it happens once his carers must be told they must supervise him very closely so it doesn’t happen again.

that actually sounds quite dangerous. My son is five, he can on occasion be aggressive towards other children, if they enter his space, I would never in a million years leave him unattended as I know I need to intervene if he feels that someone has invaded his space and lashes out physically. I do my best to explain, but he cannot grasp these concepts at the moment. That means I am literally glued to him. It's really irresponsible of those parents.

He needs to be looked after during the session and if that's not enough to keep all children safe then alternative provision should be found. His carers are failing him and that is unfair to him.

I agree they should be supervised but if he gets banned he's getting banned through something (I'm assuming) is related to his disability which is discrimination. You can't have a general sen session and say this type of disability is ok but not this type.

It could well be that the OP's child is overly sensitive to touch, doesnt react appropriately emotionally or socially, the parents of either child have needs themselves around social interaction/ interpretation etc. There is only one side to the story detailed (Not saying this is the case but it could be from the business point of view).

The organisation would be taking one parents word over another if they didn't witness the incident themselves. It's really difficult for them.

It's unlikely from Op's post that an older sen session would be financially viable given the low numbers of older children attending.

Op, if another child does the same but is younger what would you do then? If the organisation puts an age range on the session and the boy is within that range? Children get hurt by other children during normal sessions due to lack of supervision, how would the centre deal with that?

If you write a letter detailing the supervision of this child and the other where their parents go our for a cigarette what would you be asking the centre to do? They can't police all the parents that attend.

@Baileyscream that's not how legislation around discrimination works. This child is being failed by his carers. It's the lack of supervision that is causing other children to get hurt, not his disability.

I would say that your daughter was assaulted because of the carers failing in their duty of care. I would ask for their ID and contact their regulator if a provider rather than a parent. I would also complain to management about the poor supervision of a child causing high risk to others.

@GinForBreakfast I agree about the supervision, I haven't said otherwise but they cannot ban a child for behaviour linked directly to their disability thst is discrimination. A good example of this Is involuntary noise in places like theatres where theatres now have to have a policy for this. I'll find one and link it.

https://thelowry.com/visit-us/access/involuntary-noise-policy/

I agree with you OP. We have a similar set up at a local leisure centre but they have 2 sessions, one for younger children and one for age 10+. My dd is 17 and would love to go to this type of thing, I would t feel safe taking her if there were young children there that she could easily knock over.

Your poor daughter. It doesn’t sound like you’ve reported the assault to the police yet? Non emergency line is open 24/7 I believe if you don’t want to wait until morning.
Right thing to do by your DD, he is above the age of criminal responsibility. The police will determine what further action is necessary. I’d also question if you’d have grounds to sue the place if they knowingly allowing children to be put in danger and harmed.
Report. Pass on crime number and ask what action will be taken to ensure your DD is not assaulted there again.

I agree to some extent (have a Sen child myself) but there has to be a line somewhere. If a child was hurting every other child, they deserve to be protected and if that means the other child can't attend, then that's the way it has to be.

Really? He’s a disabled child, what do you expect the police to do? He was allowed to be there, it’s a SEN session. The fault is with who ever was supposed to be supervising him and partly the venue for thinking it’s safe to allow children of all ages to attend at the same time.

Oh wow, at first I thought this was going to be a YABU. But it's totally not!
Hope your wee girl is ok.

Are you suggesting that the victim should not have her assault reported because the child has additional needs?
Let the police determine what response is appropriate! You can’t just ignore assaults because the guilty party has additional needs. The police will take into account all factors. OP should obviously report her daughter’s assault.