To be really confined about these kids/ds

[Eert]

edit: meant concerned not confined obviously!

Ds is 11, autistic and adhd. He goes to a sen school mainly catering for semh. The school in general is good and the kids in his class are nice however he gets a taxi with 3 older boys from the school and is having major problems with 2 of them.
they used to bully/threaten him and hit him but that has been stopped after complaining to the taxi company and a camera added to the car.
however now I get the feeling they're pretending to be his friend but taking advantage. They take his phone all the time and they've added him to random WhatsApp groups. The one they added him to yesterday he put in a locked chat (his phone has been taken away for this and he won't be getting it back for a long time) but it was really.. weird and disturbing. Lots of very racist memes, hitler pictures, some weird man pretended to be Jesus, one of these boys collects swords and keeps sending ds pictures of them, I'm genuinly concerned about all of this and where it's heading, if we lived in America I'd be concerned this kid was going to be a school shooter.
ds lacks the understanding of what is going on and all he's sent to the chat has been innocent like minions memes and stuff. He doesn't get it.
I have blocked both of their numbers this is the first time anything so extreme that I've seen has happened which is why they weren't blocked until now, I monitor ds phone and read all his messages so this is new.

what do I do? Take him out of the school? He's doing really well in all other aspects of school so it would be a shame to do that.
take him to school myself somehow though that will be pretty impossible with my other child
these kids are 14 and 15 so next year they'll be in a different part of the school so the only time he's see them in the taxi.

Raise it with school and with transport department as a safeguarding issue.

I’d talk to the school about it so they can raise with the other boys parents.

You need to do some work with your son though about not joining random groups and removing himself from groups that have people he doesn’t know or has things that are concerning. If your son genuinely doesn’t recognise racism, hitler and sword pictures as not being ok he’s probably not ready to have access to social media because he’ll see much worse in high school and needs to at least know how to remove himself or bring it to you.

I know the other boy in the taxis mum has similar issues as she tells him he has to sit in the front because she doesn't want him near these other boys. I will raise it with the taxi and school again but I don't think they will do anything regarding transport
I'm thinking maybe semh school isn't the best fit for him but none of the other sen schools would take him (pda traits in ehcp) and he wouldn't last a week in mainstream

He is in high school he's year 7.
He didn't join them the other boys took his phone and added him to them.
he doesn't even know who hitler is he has sen needs hence Sen school his understanding isn't of a typical 11 year old but he is very easily led.
he previously only used WhatsApp to talk to his best friend from primary school, im taking his phone and moving his Xbox into the living room as clearly I misjudged the situation and need to monitor him more

My DD is also in specialist provision (similar in that it’s not ideal but better than mainstream for her needs). She’s 13 and honestly the nonsense we’ve had to deal with would curl your hair. The combination of complex needs and phone use is a nightmare - kids involved in and sharing stuff they don’t fully understand with very problematic content. I’m assuming the boys he’s travelling with also have complex needs and limited understanding of what they’re looking at.

I've looked into the chat more and most of them seem to be grown men, this is really scary I don't know what I should do. Police but they seem to be American numbers?

Come down very hard with the LEA (assuming they fund the transport about the taxi situation presenting a safeguarding risk and not being acceptable.

report it to school

They’ve moved onto active bullying to more covert forms of abuse. I would be raising hell if I was you

Bring it up again to the school and ask to see their prevent duty and safeguarding policy and say you are concerned about radicalisation.

This is a safeguarding concern and is happening when under the care of school so they need to be protecting your child and the others in the transport too.

If they are unwilling to help raise this further with governors.

its definitely a safeguarding issue and you should tell the school what the other kids are exchanging in the group. All the kids. Also look up privacy settings for WhatsApp while you’ve got your son’s phone. Change them to the highest privacy so that he cannot be added to WhatsApp groups without permission or only added to groups by contacts he knows. I realise if some the boys are taking his phone that’s a separate problem but checking his settings is a start.

Is there not an adult escort in the taxi? My DDs school all children are escorted in transport. You can also ask his transport to be changed if you feel he’s not safe - I had a situation with my DD and raised hell to get the other child moved to another form of transport.

I assume his transport is provided by the council transport team as you live over the necessary distance from the school which is named in his EHCP.

I'd be sending an email to the transport service, cc'ing in the safeguarding lead of the school and maybe his EHCP coordinator if you have a named person, setting out very clearly that this is an escalating safeguarding risk, he is a vulnerable due to both his age and his SEN, and they need to provide alternative transport for him with immediate effect, and that you require a response/plan from them by x date.
If I was feeling generous I might say I would transport him until the end of term to give them opportunity to have a safe alternative in place by January.

I wouldn't bother with the taxi company - they just fulfil the contract, this is the council's job to resolve.

Name changed just for this. I have a DS similar age to yours, very, very delayed understanding (some areas on 0.1st percentile!) and language but some ability in maths. Been to several special schools, not excluded but asked to leave due to distress.

Now LA are suggesting an SEMH school. DS still takes his clothes off in public due to lack of understanding. I am so fucking worried, I hear so many stories.

Where the he'll are the therapeutic learning disability schools who can accommodate LD and PDA? No one will take my DS.

When you find the answer, please update!

Take it up with guidance or school support. Explain issue re stealing verbal abuse, sharing photos of banned weapons and bullying your son. Get his taxi changed pronto. Duty of care so they could add an escort.

Well one of the kids hit ds in the head with two massive glass marbles today, he was crying when he came out of the taxi and the taxi driver just said "oh I thought you guys where just messing around"
One of the boys grabbed his hood and kept putting rubbish in it and trying to pull it over his gave and the other boy slapped him, hit him and hit him with the marbles.
obviously awful for DS but the only up side is that I emailed the local authority transport team and they've responded really quickly and agreed to arrange him a different taxi without those kids. Very annoyed that they put ds in a taxi with 2 older violent boys in the first place