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 suspect that the school will tell you on Monday that whilst they could impose a lesser sanction for self defence they chose not to as your son was guilty of the initial provocation (kicking this boy's water bottle). His mother might also turn up on Monday morning aruing that he shouldn't be suspended as his behaviour was in response to provocation by your son. I suggest that you get your arguments ready for this.

exactly

the school were acting completely within their policy and they will refer to the “may” impose a “lesser sanction” explicit statement

the letter from the head will explain why

and i suspect that will be the end of the OP talking about “insisting” anything

out of interest op, are you still a SGL at a primary?

I will be ready for this as seeing someone kicking your bottle does not give them the right to attack my pinning my son to the ground.

The bottle was on the floor - he could have picked it up and gone to tell a member of staff.
He doesn’t “ need “ to touch my son at all whereas my son absolutely did need to touch him as he was pinned down and couldn’t get him off by pushing and his legs were trapped.

Are you a member of SLT in your line of work?
Also, just out of interest into why you seem to be quite passive aggressive and argumentative in both your direct posts to me and also to others in this thread?

no i am not

and yet even I know that “insisting” a suspension is lifted is plain daft

and even I know that if a school is relying on a school policy that means my son is suspended….. i would bloomin well check the wording of the policy

so we have established that 1. school did act according to policy; 2. you will get more detail in writing at some point 3. you need to refresh your SLT training

and on that note, I will leave you not to come back with further detail when you receive the letter providing the detail as to why they chose not to impose a lesser sanction

You’re really rude and quite ignorant as I’ve explained over and over again that not all members of SLT will deal with behaviour but you don’t appear to be able to take that on board

Bearing in mind that the suspension for Monday was not insisted on, I’m actually quite sure it will be a lesser sanction or else surely she would have stood her ground if she saw no leeway here and pinged off the written documentation rather than saying to send him in Monday and send a complaint email over to her but thanks anyway 😀

So all good… 🍾

bet you’re pleased you followed by advice and… checked the school policy 😊

right… my work here is done. Now to walk the dog!

Sorry this has happened to your son. It sounds like the SLT and 3x witnesses’ version of events is the same as your son’s, so I’m not sure why there are so many victim-blaming posters desperate to suggest your son deserved it for kicking about a plain, unmarked water bottle in the playground.

Fighting back when you are frightened is a natural reaction. I’ve posted under my throwaway username as this is a bit outing, but I was attacked on a night out 2 years ago by a group of men, one of them held me down with a broken bottle to my throat whilst sniffing cocaine off his other hand. His friends started to panic because he was so violent, but none of them pulled him off me so it was up to me to make sure he didn’t hurt me any further. I had one arm free, much like your DS, so I used it to wildly lash out at any body part I could find. I punched his nose eventually and he let me go but tried to stab me with the bottle when I got up. This was in a busy town centre by a taxi rank so there were other people around, and the only two who were brave enough to help me escape when I eventually got up were a couple of young, pretty women (I’ll explain the relevance of this) who must have about been 20 years old at the most.

My ‘crime’ was that my drunk friend had run off from our group saying she was suicidal, so I had chased after her. The most violent of the men had seen only me chasing after my friend and hissed as he grabbed me that I was fat and she was pretty so I should leave her alone. When I eventually escaped, I found her trying to jump off the top of a car park so he might have killed me, and her by proxy if I hadn’t fought my way out. My point is that some people are just fucking disproportionately violent towards people they think deserve it because it’s hardwired into them. People who are frightened for their own safety will muster whatever strength is required to fight them off. I mentioned it to the police when they came to help me with my suicidal friend but nothing came of it, and it’s been two years now. I imagine CCTV covered that particular part of town so it would have proved my account, but still nothing was done and I imagine that man has previous (and subsequent) if he was so brazenly violent in public.

This has derailed a bit and I’m sorry, but I really just wanted to say why I believe your son was just defending himself against violence.

I am so so sorry this happened to you 😢
How absolutely horrific and I really hope you have managed to heal after such a traumatic event.

I am not marking my son as an Angel - of course in an ideal world he shouldn’t be kicking any water bottle around however the bottle was on the floor so there was no need for this boy to push him and pin him to the ground and then come back later after my son punched him to get released to then pound my son in the side of the head

I am actually now extremely worried about what else could come of this - this boy could bring a knife into school or anything and I now don’t know what else to do to ensure the safety measures are in place

Thank you so much for sharing x

I too am not sure why the OP has had such a hard time from some posters or scorn over using the word "insisting". To me, any "insisting" would be backed up by evidence to support the case for a lesser sanction. I do think some schools are quick to dish out sanctions to make examples of kids and because they don't have time to investigate properly. There is a term bandied around in academies I believe ("flattening the grass" or some such). It wreaks of the same driving force over tough benefits sanctions - inflict them swiftly and harshly, knowing full well many will feel too fearful of further repercussions, intimidated/worn down to object.

Trust me some teen will have filmed it.

I was surprisingly alright apart from a few nasty bruises, but thank you hasn’t affected me too much but I can imagine it would traumatise some people. I think I was/am too angry to feel anything else! I was extremely lucky though as it could have been a lot worse.

Ask the school on Monday how they are planning to protect your DS long-term, if they cannot provide a satisfactory plan I’d be having a conversation with him about possibly moving schools. He shouldn’t have to do that, but sometimes we have to protect ourselves when other people won’t.

I really hope so

Offer 50 quid.

I'd lay money on tape appearing.

So what I'm not a chav but ok if you attack another person expect it back i was bullied at school and lookibg back i really wish I'd of had the courage to punch them in the nose or slap back bullies deserve revenge to bring them down.

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

But he knew it wasn't his, so shouldn't be kicking it around the playground anyway. Not that this excuses the other child's reaction, but it does give the school grounds to investigate, to ascertain what happened in the lead up to the incident.

Of course - that’s why I wanted the CCTV checked for the whole picture but they said it didn’t cover the playground.

My son knows he was wrong for kicking the bottle - he says he thought it was one of the other friends and they’d finished with it as they often do bottle flips etc with their own bottles when they’ve finished the drink

Completely would support the school if they had given him a sanction ( not a suspension for something quite minor ) for the kicking the bottle had the boy gone and told rather than attacked him.

I believe you. The exact same thing happened to my grandson. 2 kids jumped on him. There were witnesses. He was suspended for fighting back. Other kids got nothing. I’m in Canada. I’m so sorry for your son.

I hope that you get to the bottom of this and the school investigates properly. You’ve done the right thing as he shouldn’t be punished for self defence. I had a fairly similar situation at my son’s school. School rang me to tell me that there had been an incident involving my son and another boy. My son stated the boy tried to hit him but my son somehow dodged him, may have pushed him away, anyway the other boy ended up on the floor. There were witnesses and the school soon decided that my son acted in self defence and he faced no punishment. I hope that you get a similar outcome.

There's some wrong advice on procedure on here..

Have you actually had a letter from school, stating your son is suspended from a date to a date due to a specific reason eg physical assault on a pupil? As school must, without delay, provide you with this.

If so, your son is not allowed to be a public place during school hours when he is suspended, he cannot go on school site, if you send him in on Monday you will be at risk of a fine.
If the suspension is less than 5 days you can make representations to the governors however they do not have the power to reinstate (and by the time the deal with it he will be back at school anyway) they also do not have to meet with you if less than 5 days in a term.

If it's a formal suspension this cannot be removed from your son's file but if the governors feel it was not the correct use of the behaviour policy using this sanction, then it will be noted on the child's file.
You cannot insist.

If you haven't had a letter then is it an in school suspension. (if so they are using weird terminology imo)

My advice, write your letter to the governors but to be honest there's limited they can do tbh.
Remember a headteacher issues a suspension or perm ex based on the 'balance of probabilities' not 'beyond reasonable,doubt ' like the police do

Hi,
No there was no letter at all, just a long phone call from SLT ( not the headteacher ) who said he would be suspended on Monday so to return to school Tuesday.

I gave my reasons for disagreeing ( self defence ) and said I would be contacting the police based on what she had told me once I had spoken to my son and she then told me to put a complaint in writing and send it to her - ) which I did before the end of close today )

She then said to send my son in as normal on Monday and she would give me a call at some point Monday.

I said I would rather a face to face meeting and she said she would try to accommodate this

Ive since emailed her the police reference number and information about the hospital visit along with pictures of my sons injuries ( the wrist is bruised and swollen but he also had scratches and bruises everywhere from his back to legs from being held on the ground and trying to get away ) but have had no reply obviously as it’s the weekend