AIBU to insist my son has the suspension lifted?

[NightmareATschool]

First time in trouble for any kind of physical altercation

My son is in year 8 and yesterday was pinned to the ground, twisting his wrist behind his back as he went down ( we went to a&e to have it checked after school as swollen and bruised ) and was then held down by this boy.

My son is 5 foot 5 and the other pupil is at least 5 foot 9 and a lot bigger built.

The boy was pinning him down with his legs trapped underneath him and his holding both of his arms on my sons right arm ( fingerprint bruising is visible because of this ) so my son used his left arm to hit out and hit the boys head.

Boy then get off and walks across the playground and son sits on a bench holding his sore arm.

The boy then returns, runs at him from the side view and punches down on my sons head.

SLT state both to be suspended due to violence.

I have started absolutely not, that the violence is on completely different levels and one was very much in self defence and one was completely premeditated.

I’ve sent in the complaint from from the schools complain procedure policy and I’ve CCd the SEN governors as my son has ADHD.

This happened at 11am yesterday and he spent the entire day in isolation, only being allowed to go to the lunch hall to get something to eat and then return to isolation.
Surely this is punishment enough for defending yourself whilst pinned to the ground?

Thoughts?
Anything else I could do? Thanks

I'd get snotty, and ask if the school would suspend a pupil for defending themselves against a sexual assault.

"Suspension isn't always a punishment though."

Putting all parties in isolation ( so out of circulation) whilst an incident is investigated is standard.
Suspension can only be used for disciplinary reasons

1. follow complaints procedure exactly
2. schools often “blame” both children for “unkind behavior” which is ineffective
3. schools often lie in their investigations to cover their own lapses in supervision
4. govenours often also defend school

so be aware that school is usually not in the RIGHT side of conflict, they are in the own side. Govenouers have own agenda.
Mainly, schools wants to blame everyone else for their failures.

In writing, ask for procedures and guidance for you & your son’s next steps. Everything in writing. If they call you, send an email directly after summarizing call asking for them confirm that you understand next step/outcome.
You want your son to understand (in writing) from school how to respond to a situation like this when he is not aggressor. So that he can avoid future suspension

And the level of supervision on the playground.

Hopefully other kid parent dealing w their kid too.

They frequently start for no reason

Quite often for the Lols. There may not even be any malice behind it

But it needs to stop. Schools need to have supervision out there and there needs to be proper consequences. Every Single Time

^^ This

Plus police if it is assault

In my experience a very large number of mothers do not know anything about what their child is like at school- I speak to such mothers on a daily basis.

Ask for cctv, my son was hung drawn and quartered for ‘attacking a girl’ within an hour of an incident at school, would be excluded for 3 days and completely vilified by teachers and peers. This was because they ‘investigated’ and got ‘statements’ from the girl and her friends.

If you knew my son, you would know how completely out of character this would be.
Upon an actual investigation at my insistence and viewing of cctv it was revealed my son did nothing and was in fact attacked by the main girl and her friends, who then caused the injuries to the main girl themselves because in their words ‘it’s fun to get him into trouble because he’s weird’.

My son is Autistic and has many other difficulties. I was furious! How utterly cruel and the sheer gall that of staff to treat him the way they all did. Absolutely no ‘innocent until proven guilty’ in sight!
I also highlighted the danger of this group of girls creating stories, what if it had been an accusation of sexual assault?

I cannot wait for my son to finish secondary school.

Don't take those who have voted you as unreasonable they obviously have little shitty bastard out of control brats that go around hitting qnd bullying while there parents do fuck all your son needs to punch his face in if he does it again he wont touch him again iv told my daughter to kick the fuck out of anyone that hits her first its called self discipline hitting back teaches a bully the victim will not tolerate being used as a punching bag i think schools should have teaching in self defence to all kids.

you sound nice. Good advice as well to threaten to punch someone’s face in. Would go down especially well after someone has just been suspended for violence. 👌

Wait to see what the investigation says. But push back on them, it was self defence, so you should politely but firmly insist that he should be back in school asap.

The victim was suspended when he shouldnt have been the other brat needs a good hiding to see what feels like being hurt..

Ask the school to put in writing to you what in their opinion the correct course of action your son should have taken in the event of being pinned to the floor and physically assaulted.

its all very well saying violence is a hard line but are they really going to commit in writing that your son should not have responded physically in any way and should have just laid on the floor and accepted what was happening to him?

I would also ask if this applies to all situations, for example if this boy had pinned down your daughter instead of your son should she too have accepted events and not attempted any physical defence?

I just wanted to highlight this post and the others made by Crisps for sound advice.

This is dreadful. I hope the girls were severely punished. I would think this be considered a hate crime and something you could or could have reported to the police.

‘Kicking the fuck’ out of someone who hits you is called retaliation. Self defence is doing as much as is necessary to stop the assault and get away safely.

What did your son do to get a beating in the first place?

Oh god. You are one of the parents I was referring to on an earlier post (incase you didn’t realise).
It’s called self defence not self discipline.
And yes of course, schools have nothing else to do than ‘have teaching in self defence’ to all kids. Once we’ve sorted out spelling, punctuation and grammar. For the parents as well, obviously…..🙄

Did you follow the anti-bullying policy for the school? I'd be asking the school what they are planning on doing to safeguard your son's safety while he is in their care? You can't really do anything about the other child because you can only advocate for your own child but you can explain what you did here.

Your poor boy being tackled to the ground so violently like that. I'd be wondering where the other kid learned it, along with the responsibility of the kids that would have been around - why didn't any of them say to stop? Were they afraid of this other kid? Tends to happen when there is a bully around, others don't want to put themselves in the cross-hairs and draw attention to themselves.

Best of luck with your discussions with the school.

My son didn’t know whose bottle it was - he thought his friend has just found it on the floor!
as I said it wasn’t a bottle you would bring in from home but a bottle love an Evian bottle

Nothing is happening to the other boys as I asked this question

The reason my son was targeted is because he was the one with the bottle by his foot as the boy ran back towards them

It seems the boy dropped the water bottle out of his bag as he ran past the 3 other boys who were out slightly earlier than my son so they began kicking it and then my son joined in - at the time the boy noticed his bottle had fallen so saw my son with it and went for him

I do know his suspension is for a longer period as I also asked this but it was said in a way that it was longer because this isn’t the other boys first physical offence not because his actions this time around were worse than my sons

I used to be a PCSO. If I had a pound for every mum who told me ‘I know my kids’ and ‘my kids don’t lie to me’ even after being told two PCSOs had seen their cherub doing something anti social - I could probably retire 😂

(Not necessarily saying the OP and her DS are of this ilk to be fair)

If you send your child into school on Monday when he shouldn’t be there he’ll just end up in isolation. Not fair on your child to put him in that position. Keep him off until he’s had his reintegration meeting.

I asked them to view the CCTV and she said it didn’t cover the playground

SLT gave me the account before my son did as he was still in isolation at 2pm when she called me!