Constantly disruptive child in my daughter's class

[waitingforsainos]

DD is Y6 and this other child seems to be causing so much trouble in class every day, shouting at the teacher, slamming doors, flicking light switches on and off, randomly screaming in the middle of a lesson when they don't want to do the work, mouthing off if other kids get to do something different because they've behaved well. DD says it's every lesson.

On the whatsapp group, the child's mum has said it's not their fault, they've got an ehcp for semh (think that's mental health?) and has laughed at the teacher when she's been asked to go inside to talk at the end of the day.

From the parent chat, it sounds like the child has had a few suspensions but doesn't seem to have made any difference.

AIBU to expect more from school? What would happen in your child's school if someone behaved like that?

Yes strange isn't it 🤔
I have never discussed my sons EHCP with anyone or statement before that.

Lots of parents want specialist but the government and local authorities push more into mainstream in the name of inclusion. If they were properly supported in mainstream and had adequate support staff available it might work and they would be more settled but it’s not really inclusion it’s just forcing them into mainstream as it’s cheaper (in short term). I had an autistic child who was in mainstream and had meltdowns and could be violent, he had multiple fixed term exclusions which actually resulted in making him worse. We were initially turned down for even an ehcp assessment as the local authority said the school could manage out of their own resources which clearly they couldn’t. I had to appeal to tribunal to get assessment which took ages to get all the evidence together, not all parents are capable of doing this or representing themselves at tribunal. We eventually got specialist but it took me from year one to year four in total. I’m sure other parents said I was doing nothing

🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️ the fact the child has an ECHP speaks volumes. Their so difficult to get. That alone shows the child has a difficulty of some sort and needs support. People who automatically blame the parents when given information like ECHP ect just look foolish.

We have specialist schools in our area for children who can’t cope in mainstream settings, and they should be sent there.
From infant primary to senior age.
Different schools for different issues too.

Dont imagine that your children won’t achieve there, as they do get their GCSE’s at the secondary. Not all the children but those capable of achieving.

There is a seperate school for behavioural issues, so school refusers, and bad behaviour too.

Yes and

On the whatsapp group, the child's mum has said it's not their fault, they've got an ehcp for semh (think that's mental health?) and has laughed at the teacher when she's been asked to go inside to talk at the end of the day

Of course the mum stated to all the other parents that she laughed at the teacher wanting to discuss her child's behaviour 🤦‍♀️. I doubt she did laugh. Maybe she put a laughing face in the group chat because of people like the OP being ridiculous

That’s a really good point. Where I live, schools will all text the parents automatically if the child isn’t in school, the texts are with them by 10 mins after registration ends. Years ago, they didn’t get in touch at all so kids were able to miss days at a time undetected. It was easy for those days to turn into weeks, then months. Then you just never saw them again.

As a teacher, I have had several parents laugh in my face when I tried to speak to them about their kids behaviour. I have had parents who watched Love island, horse racing and carried on a face time call when I tried to speak with them about their childs behavior.

There are parents like this.

The school is failing all the children...maybe because they don't have the resources they need. Sen support is shit but some schools are particularly bad at it. (They won't even do the free stuff on principle)

And all of that could be avoided if they would just parent their kids. Why is it everyone else’s problem that they are incapable or unwilling? The buck needs to stop with the parents, not other children who are forced to deal with their parenting failures.

For clarity, I’m referring to disruptive kids, before anyone comes at me for being ignorant to disabilities. That’s obviously a separate topic.

I can guarantee you it is not a case of the parents not wanting the child to go
to that type of school it it because is is verging on impossible to get in. My child is in a school like you describe and I had to
go to tribunal even to get assessment for an ehcp and then it was a further fight to get the school. At the minute there is a push from government for more children to be in mainstream schools, because it is cheaper. If you feel strongly against this you need to campaign for sen issues but most people don’t think Sen issues effect them so don’t take an interest then blame parents for not sending their child to an sen school when they have no concept of how difficult the system is

I doubt the parents get to choose. The whole SEN system is in crisis due to the number of children with SEN basically doubling every few years and the budgets being stretched accordingly. We’re no longer about to meet the need as the need is now far bigger than us. It’s having a huge impact on basically every mainstream school.

My best friend has a son of school age and she was telling me that one of the boys in her son’s class got into trouble for something fairly minor.

Of course he told his mum, and when my friend went to pick up, the other boy’s mum was there, loudly proclaiming that when she saw the teacher, she’d be dragging her around the car park by her hair. She didn’t do anything in the end, but 50 people must’ve heard this.

I absolutely believe that plenty parents are like that. It must be so irritating when people pretend that the poor parents are also suffering, that they are in despair about their child’s behaviours and want to do everything to help. Beyond naive.

Do you include the kids who are disruptive due to trauma in that @NC28 ? The adopted kids, the abused kids, the kids in foster care, the kids with PTSD?

Because between them, and the children struggling with additional needs, I reckon that covers 95% of disruptive children right off the bat.

Back to the 90s before the cut down of special schools you mean?

We were not more balanced. There were many more spaces in special schools for the children who literally cannot cope in mainstream schools.

Behaviour has been deteriorating for 20 years, but has exacerbated in the last few, then more since Covid.

SEN numbers are rising, part of that reason is societal changes meaning everything is faster paced, more stressful, more pressured. School now is a million miles away from school in the 90s. Now the pressure on a small child is more than the pressure put on A level pupils in the 80s and 90s.

Perhaps schools need to go back a few decades and take away the constant pressure on children, which starts in primary school.

Maybe that would address the record numbers of teachers leaving, the increasing number of children not thriving in school, record numbers of children unable to go to school, increasing numbers of children being home educated, and the incessant parent blaming.

As for:

Why on earth should 20+ kids suffer because a teacher has to Pandy to a little horror.

Sure start centres have been closed.
Special schools have been closed.
Local authorities spend huge amounts of money fighting parents applying for EHCPs.
Support workers have had funding removed and their jobs stretched as thin as possible.
Targets and pressure are piled on at schools which makes life worse for teachers and pupils alike.
In classes it’s now generally a few pupils who aren’t coping, so usually more than one “little horror” who needs more support, but even with a clear EHCP isn’t guaranteed it.
What should happen to the children who aren’t coping? Currently children reach a point where they stay home, but still the numbers of SN are rising.

So what’s the answer? We stop educating disabled children? Heaven forbid we look at what’s actually going on and try to fix it for everyone involved, I mean, the very idea!

Yes I agree completely. Endless gaming and screens, a UPF diet, poor sleep, hardly any proper social interaction or fresh air and hey presto, emotional needs/anger problems/no attention span.

School now is a million miles away from school in the 90s.

Not my experience at all, having been to school in the 90s and now have kids at primary. I feel a myth is developing that schools were never strict, or really cared about learning. It’s just that, a myth used to excuse away what is happening now.

In my experience of school in the 90s teachers seemed to be allowed to tell you off more. We seem to get a lot more phone calls about "an incident in the playground" or "an incident queuing for lunch" that in our day we'd have just got a bollocking without our parents needing to be involved.

My mother taught in the 1980s in Romford. She would introduce herself to each new class by saying her name and that she had one rule. No-one spoke while she was speaking.

Did she frighten the kids? Maybe. But her classes were calm, the kids were secure, they learned and it was generally a happy classroom. and when she left, she was heaped with gifts and cards from the kids that she had taught over a period of 8 years.

Something has changed and I think it is this nonsense which never describes a child as naughty, cheeky or badly behaved. In fact, I have seen posters write that the word "naughty" should be banned.

Almost every time, a poster comes on to describe the appalling behaviour of her own or another child, one of the first responses is: does the child have any special needs? If so, remember that they might be disabled-take them to the doctor.

I'm sure that is absolutely correct in some cases but I can hardly believe that every badly behaved, violent and disruptive child is disabled but it is always a response, in one way or another, in every thread about it.

If a poster says she has shouted or smacked a child on the bum for trashing the house and calling her a cunt, the response is to tell her that she should be ashamed and I'm sure if a teacher did it, they would be in serious trouble. Children need boundaries and some of them need to be frightened of breaking those boundaries for the good of all children.

So, that's what I think has changed. Not enough telling a child what to do and giving out consequences at home and school if they don't do it and too much medical and educational labelling of children who don't know how to behave and instead of putting manners on them, treating them with kid gloves.

In the meantime, the tiny minority of children with genuine educational or medical needs suffer because the pot from which they might get help is diluted.

There really isn't a way out because we have reached a stage where to smack or shout at a child is to mark oneself as a criminal.

In fact, as a way of proving this, I'm sure there will be responses to this post telling me that I am suggesting brutalising children, do I realise smacking is illegal, what sort of person wants a child to be frightened of breaking a rule, thank goodness we've progressed and similar stuff ad nauseum.

I won't be responding because you can't argue with the indoctrinated.

As someone who has worked in a school recently, I have witnessed two instances where (different) Y6 children have been told to leave the classroom because of their behaviour and they have flat-out refused.

The result was the teacher had to take the rest of the class out of the classroom.

I am not working in schools any more :)

I’m sure you were expecting a response and happy for you not to respond.

You are suggesting that using violence and aggression on a child is the answer to a well behaved child. Interesting.

Let’s teach our children to not hit others by hitting them. Great response.

What century were you born in.

You get what you voted for, not what you meant.

No wonder you don’t work in schools anymore.

Any behaviour such as refusing to leave the class when told should result in an exclusion. Fine the teacher can’t drag them out, but the next day, they’re not coming to school. Let the parent miss work or have their daytime TV show schedule interrupted.

For clarity, the disruptive kids are very likely to be the ones with hidden disabilities, but very often don’t have a diagnosis yet. This pans out when you look at the number of young men in prison with undiagnosed SN (last time I checked it was nearing 70% suspected to be ASD or ADHD, all probably the disruptive kid in school).
If it’s obviously a separate topic to you, then to me it’s obviously ignorance on your part.

Ultimately the buck does stop with parents. There’s very little support out there. Many of us hold out a little hope that maybe, just maybe, our child might thrive in a certain school, with a certain teacher, then very often we realise that that’s far too much to ask.

I don’t know why parents of SN children are such an easy target. Your life sucks anyway, you have no money, no free time, little joy in life, but here we go, here comes yet another poster spouting their ignorant twaddle about parents and showing complete inexperience as they double down because they know it’s the parents that are the problem.

FWIW I’ve had children in school for over twenty years, I’ve volunteered for years, known many of these children from a very young age. Not one disruptive child doesn’t have some sort of special need that isn’t being met. Sure there are shitty parents, some angelic children are the result of the most awful parents, but those who are disruptive and/or violent all have SN or a background of abuse/trauma (which I would also count as SN).

@SilkSquare as someone working in mental health with people from that generation, there is lasting damage from what you are describing.
Plus no two generations are the same. There were jobs for people who weren't academic, and those people would be able to buy houses and cars.
What is there for kids who aren't academic to aspire to these days? Apart from being a YouTuber or influencer? And consider how many porn stars, influencers, YouTubers, celebrities come out as neurodivergent. Compared to those in traditional jobs.

I very much doubt any EHCP says this. It may point out his behaviour is the result of disability and that therefore punishing him will not remedy anything, and obviously the school has to be careful; but the EHCP cannot prevent the school from operating something like a fixed term or permanent exclusion in appropriate circumstances.