DDs Classmate smashed a Window today - Would you expect the School to tell Parents?

[Lemonandlimez]

Damage was done on purpose during lesson, Classmate was angry / upset and purposefully kicked and smashed the Window. All class evacuated quickly to another room. Class Teacher spoke to them all as a group after and told them to tell their Parents about the incident. Would you expect the School to also contact us Parents or not? DD is 7.

Some children take time to process things like this. Some won't show an overt emotional reaction and hold it all in. Some will have questions and not feel confident to ask their teacher. She probably only had a few minutes - OP said they were late out so I assume hapenned at end if school day. Not enough time to answer questions from 29 children.

As a parent of a child who a similar thing hapenned to at the same age, and who wasn't told and only found out when my daughter broke down in tears at 3am after weeks of nightmares and school refusal, I absolutely believe parents should be told so they can support their child in an individual way.

I’m surprised at how many posters are surprised by this incident. The truth is that this is commonplace in most schools, secondary and primary, and parents need to trust schools to have procedures in place to keep children safe when a child behaves in this way. Schools have to adhere to GDPR and rules around confidentiality, so to send a bland and non-specific email will
lead to an influx of queries. This child will already be absorbing an extraordinary amount of time, add in another 29 parents all seeking reassurance and information, and the school will be put under further pressure, whilst being extremely limited in what can actually be divulged. The school is damned if they do, damned if they don’t.

I noted one poster questioning what schools are doing about this type of behaviour. Yet again schools are blamed, unfairly. How about asking what the parents are doing? Or the Local Authority? Many children in mainstream education, either through the choice of their parents or because the Local Authority want them to at least ‘try’, are set up for failure and the impact on the school and children in the same class is huge. The vast majority of parents would be horrified if they spent a week in a school; the amount of kids with trauma (the NSPCC states 1 in 5 children in the UK have experienced childhood trauma) and their resulting behaviour is frightening. Trauma Perceptive Practice (TPP) has been introduced in many schools. Why are we not questioning why so many children are being exposed to trauma during their formative years (abuse and/or neglect).

We have to take action, fast, to improve societal values, support families, raise our expectations, reduce our tolerance of anti-social behaviour, improve services to support mental health, make work pay, increase aspirations amongst youngsters and see having children as a privilege and not a right and educate everyone of child bearing age of the responsibilities of being a parent and stop the tsunami of entitlement drowning the UK at the moment.

@CaptainCarrotsBigSword the difference is that it's been managed. There were staff present who managed the situation very appropriately by the sound of things, immediately removed all children from the room, provided emotional support and information to those children and provided separate support and there will be follow up for the individual child who presented with the challenging behaviour. That's very different than an adult acting out in a scenario where noone takes action/ is responsible and there's no follow up.

I understand where you're coming from and I agree that different children will respond differently to scenario like that. But if you're noticing things like that in your child then linking in with the school is the appropriate next step when to me it would then be the right time for them to pass on the information to you and offer additional support to your child. I understand why you'd want it in advance but realistically, not all parents will be helpful, the school would be inundated and probably be unable to give out any further info regardless and it could make life very difficult for the other child who is likely to have SEN or trauma in their background and their parents. You don't want to alienate a child who's struggling and their parents any more than you want to abandon a child who is witnessing challenging behaviour. I think in the midst of gdpr that the school has done as much as they can in this instance.

You say it's being managed @Lavender14 but surely the fact that there are so many posters here saying this is happening all day everyday in schools shows that it isn't being managed effectively at all? Because if schools were able to manage this behaviour they would be able to stop it. I don't count moving everyone away and allowing the child to have a violent destructive outburst as successful management of that behaviour. I don't believe that anything will be happening that will prevent this or similar from occurring again.

That isn't the fault of the school, necessarily, and almost certainly not the fault of the individual teacher having to deal with this. They don't have the resources or the powers needed to do very much at all, we know that.

But you can't say that "this is a shit storm that happens constantly because we can't stop it happening" and "this situation is effectively managed" at the same time.

I didn't say this is a shit storm that happens constantly... not sure if you're attempting to quote me there or not.

At the end of the day, when you're working with children things like this will happen for a number of reasons. The child could be in care/ on the verge of care and is traumatised. Removing that child from familiar places is not necessarily going to be helpful to that child. The child maybe have SEN but not have a diagnosis in which case school is still going to be the appropriate place for them until a diagnosis is secured. At that point it becomes an issue for the local authority and government distribution of resources to allocate children appropriate school places if they need extra help in school or more specialist provision. It may be out of character for the child because something big is happening at home or elsewhere in their life and they aren't coping. It might be a 'temporary' issue that the child needs temporary support to manage such as bereavement/ family illness where expulsion would be inappropriate and harmful. There's a million reasons why a child may lash out. You can't stop it all, you can't even foresee it all, what you can do is manage it reactively (getting others to safety and then debriefing them and offering seperate support to that individual pupil) and then trying to establish safety plans and risk assess going forwards. But again that should fall under the schools behaviour policy.

There's a difference between managing it at individual school and staff level which I feel was handled best they could, and managed at a higher local authority and government funding level which I think anyone in here would agree is insufficient.

I wouldn't expect to be informed.
I think the fact the teacher has told the children to tell their parents speaks volumes.
The only reason I can see for the teacher to do this is so parents complain, it sounds that this teacher is reaching out for action to be taken

I wouldn't consider criminal damage poor behaviour, next thing you know they throw a kid through the windows or beat up another child. Kick them repeatedly. People would be concerned then, and wish parents were informed about it.

Or would they wait until someone was murdered by a school kid during school hours and claim the school is usually so safe?

I never understood this. It's a danger to others. It should be something they report to others.

Yes indeed this is a school and needs to be addressed with them your child and yourselves yes I do understand school can be hard for some yet good for others by working together I do hope things do get better I have gone through this and it was a nightmare dealing with it all

I think parents probably should have been told. Not because it was unsafe or anything but because it was likely quite shocking and distressing for the other children, and parents shpuld always know if something had happened that has made their child upset or scared while in school so that they can support and reassure their child.
We are after all talking about 7 year olds here.

It's not criminal damage. They are 7.

I’d have expected a letter with basic facts so whispers don’t turn it into something bigger

No I wouldn't, although maybe if my child was very upset. My dc have witnessed this kind of thing several times each so they mostly see it as something a bit interesting and a chance to get out of lessons for a bit.

Whaaat?! They inform parents when a child throws something?! That's bizarre. I actually work at a lovely independent school and I assure you that that does NOT happen in mine (ie throwing does, but whole class emails everything someone throws something would be madness)

Erm..no

The perpetrators parents should be told but not sure about other parents. That said i would have told my parents if I had witnessed that behaviour.

Smashed glass, shock n upset.
Yes it is in the parents interest to know what's going on and how it's been dealt with.

In the olden days 🙄 we kids were actively told not to tell our parents stuff that happens in school...
It's at best bad practice and at worst encourages an atmosphere of sweeping things under the carpet and mistrust.

My view the school was right but could just as easily have sent a brief broad message out.

This happened, been dealt with, etc.

Schools should be open and honest (you don't need fine details for this)

No.

Nope. School have handled the situation, removed children while staff dealt with the child who is obviously got something bigger going on. Why would they humiliate the child and the child's parents by telling the whole class parents about the child's behaviour

If your daughter is upset or distressed then go into the school and speak to the teacher.

Otherwise teach her some children have big emotions and haven't learned to handled them yet and need a bit more help

>calling social services, educational phycologists, writing up the incident and ultimately working towards getting the perpetrator child the help they need

Good Lord! A kid had a tantrum and broke something. Does this really rate a 'diagnosis'?

I get what you are saying but if my child witnesses violence I want to know. I want to be able to talk to them about it and keep an eye out for post trauma signs. There is a lot you can do early on after a traumatic event to help prevent post traumatic stress. Witnessing uncontrolled rage like this is at best unsettling and at worst traumatising and physically dangerous. It is also a safeguarding issue. If a child was witnessing this level of rage and violence at home it would be a safeguarding referral.

You do realise that little kids are "violent" towards each other all the time, right? Even in my kids' lovely little private school, kids do sometimes push and kick each other etc. Yes as you say of course if adults were doing this at home it would be a safeguarding referal... because they're adults and they know better! But it is not uncommon for small children. If an email was sent out (so parents like you can apparently look out for PTSD 🙄) every time a child saw anything that could be defined as violent, inboxes would be overflowing. That's the reality.

Breaking windows isn’t normal. I have 30 years experience of working with children. Please don’t patronise me. If a child got so deregulated they deliberately smashed a window, that is over and above what you would reasonably expect.

Kicking a window isn’t deliberately smashing it at age 7. It is unlikely the child knew it would break. In fact, the window should not have been smashable by a 7 yr old kicking it. Unless she can do kung fu jump kicks because all glass at kicking level should be safety glass.

The OP says they were angry and did it deliberately. I’m not demonising the child. They need help and support. But if something like this happens parents should be told. So they can talk it through with their child. My son was in a class where a couple of kids were regularly losing it and acting out. He got punched and kicked. He witnessed other kids getting hurt. It had a massively detrimental effect on his mental health and ability to learn. It effected his behaviour at home and it took us ages to figure out what was wrong because he didn’t say. I’ve worked with hundreds of kids with behavioural issues and the reasons are complex. They need understanding and intervention. AND Witnessing physical aggression can be scary and traumatic.