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?

Teachers are also often very young and by definition don't have children yet therefore parenting experience.

We have some of the youngest teachers in the whole OECD.

The sources of expertise they used to be able to draw on (perhaps in the local authority) are gone too.

When you have 4 relatives (grandfather, uncle, brother and mother) with dyslexia, I don't see how you can thing there are no 'accepted facts'.

Same with ADHD.

Neither of which are about a lack of intelligence, btw. BUT there is a clear hereditary link.

The ed psych of the mother said this when she was a child. As did the ed psych of the youngest child. (30 years in between). Would seem to disprove your assertion.

I have 4 children and 3 of them are perfectly behaved however my ADHD child is not. It is not that I cannot be arsed with my ADHD child at all I work bloody harder with them if anything and I think most parents with children like this do too.

@Witchtower @Wildflowers99

SEN needs haven’t risen, they have been recognised. Many of these children left school early years ago and it wasn’t compulsory for them to attend.

65 years ago, my father was made to stand in the corner facing the wall, for not reading in school. He was dyslexic. Never had a formal diagnosis, but it was so clear in him. His children and grandchild show very very similar issues to the ones he had.

SEN has always been there. Those children were labelled stupid, disruptive, naughty. In the same way some on this thread are labelling. We should be past this.

ND conditions are proven to exist, but the jury’s still out as to an exact cause, and because of vast differences in presentation it can be difficult to diagnose.

Genes have been identified linked to autism and ADHD, as time goes on the research becomes more refined.

It’s not a perfect science because gene mutations can also cause ND conditions, and some ABIs can present similarly to ND conditions. It’s not one very obvious thing.

The thing that makes it tricky is that humans are individuals, and no individual is going to act or react in fully predictable ways, so the more that’s learned the more diversity is found.

There always used to be a saying about Amish families not having any autism in them. This has been proven false, but what the Amish do is live at a much slower pace, so people aren’t left behind like they are in today’s fast pace. They also involve everyone in the community in ways that they can manage.

Western society as it is means that more and more people cannot cope, and need support. This won’t change unless society changes.

I disagree, for many well thought out reasons. I don’t believe what we are seeing now is what was hidden back then.

The science behind antidepressants is quite shaky too, but millions of people take them daily with enormous benefit. I’m genuinely not sure what your point is - the idea that autism (for example) is genetic is proven and some of the genes have been isolated? We don’t know everything (yet) but we know a lot more than we did when these children were ‘disappeared’ rather than supported, thank goodness.

When on earth were children ‘disappeared’ in the numbers that they’re being diagnosed now? Does anyone know a ‘disappeared’ child?

The SEN system may be "bankrupting councils" but very little of the spending is reaching children, teachers and parents, while a great deal is going to the legal profession.

Councils could maybe start by following the law and pushing back on the dafter government initiatives (and vice versa).

Meanwhile parents blame other parents.

Divide and rule. Disgusting.

It's a really hard situation and I feel for everyone in the class. My child was the disruptive child. She was fine until year 3, but once she got to year 4 she couldn't cope with the social and academic demands of mainstream. Her behaviour regressed, and she'd hide under tables, run out of class and self harm at home by smashing her head against the wall screaming that she's stupid.

She started year 7 in a specialist school
BUT the amount of fighting it took to get her what she needs was insane.

It took me and the school 4 months to get the LA to agree to an EHCP assessment. They then dragged a 20 week process into a 9 month long process, we then had to have 2 emergency reviews because the EHCP they gave wasn't fit for purpose. School then said they couldn't meet need anymore, and I agreed. So we had another review 3 months later to request a change of provision. She had another SALT and Educational psychologist assessment funded by the LA. They said she would benefit from a bespoke curriculum in a specialist setting. The LA refused to name a specialist provision and said mainstream was appropriate.

So I had to take them to tribunal to change provision. The tribunal process took 8 months, we had hundreds of pages of evidence from school and from professionals to prove mainstream couldn't meet need. The LAs only evidence the school could meet need was the school prospectus and it's page about inclusivity. The tribunal process should have taken 10 months, but the LA broke the law so many times they got barred from proceedings and conceded. After conceding we had to find a placement and this in itself was a battle. The LA tried to put her in a mainstream secondary despite having specialist named on her EHCP and the school saying they can't meet her level of need.

Through all of this the school and I also had to contend with the LA refusing to put any interim measures into place. They refused to increase her funding so school could afford her 1:1 interventions in the morning AND a 1:1 in the main classroom in the afternoons. They refused to allow a reduced timetable, they refused to fund alternative provision for part of the week so DD could learn skills in a different way. Anything we asked for we were refused. We couldn't home educate because then the EHCP becomes defunct and we wouldn't have been able to go to tribunal and get specialist school for year 7

And this is what it's like for thousands of parents. We KNOW our kids are affecting the education of typical children. And to be honest we don't want our children in mainstream because they are absolutely traumatised from years of not having their needs met. But we're stuck. We are absolutely screwed over by constant cuts to funding.

For what it's worth, these behaviours weren't visible in mainstream 30 years ago because there was an appropriate number of specialist schools back then. They were all closed in the name of inclusivity cost cutting.

Sadly they do this as even expensive legal costs are cheaper than an extra 6 months of special school. It’s a delay tactic. Have you looked at the numbers? Many counties who were in credit on SEN 10 years ago are now tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions, in the red. We’re spending more and more on SEN and the outcomes for the children have not improved. I hear about many children who are shunted from placement to placement, and nothing fits because their behaviour is just too extreme but the costs are astronomical. There is no answer, the problem is now bigger than anything we can provide.

I can’t talk for primary teachers and tbf my children’s teacher’s have been ok but I do think this and poor teachers is a factor.
(linked to teacher recruitment crisis)

When I first started teaching 20 years ago there were one or two teachers out of a staff of 60 or so who weren’t good at their jobs. (whether that was lacking subject knowledge, behaviour management or laziness) now there are many who just arent up to the job. Schools hire pretty much anyone just to have a person in the classroom.

The worst class last year had only one decent teacher out of the 12 they saw so they had no routines. I teach some of those students this year and they are fine with a firm hand after being wild last year. (Obviously this does not apply to all children)
Good teachers may not have any impact on the outliers with severe behavioural issues but they can at least deal with the majority.

This is all rather ideological, don't you think? You've claimed that poorer areas contain the most problems, then directly contradicted this by saying that two parents who are working are a causal factor, too. Which is it? Surely in many (I know there'll be some) households where there are two salaries, we're not necessarily looking at depravation?

Teachers lacking patience and closure of youth clubs to blame for kids throwing chairs around? Really? Did the problematic kids ever attend youth clubs in the first place? I didn't grow up in the UK and we didn't have youth clubs, but if I did, I wouldn't expect to see any troublemakers there. They'd be too busy out on the streets causing mischief.

Your final point that "...due to their circumstances they won't be able to get a career earning a decent wage." Which circumstances are those? One thing is for sure - if you don't go to school and don't listen in class, your chances of landing a career are significantly reduced.

I'm always struck by kids in horrible circumstances you read about in third world countries - all they seem to want is to be able to go to school (just ask any girl in Afghanistan at the moment). The problem in the west is that everybody wants something for nothing and it's always somebody else's fault.

You tagged me, not sure if it was a mistake but I agree with you.

What are the well thought out reasons?

In China they don't admit to SEN most of the time. And yet children in schools there (I have worked in 2 Chinese schools) clearly have SEN and are labelled, the way we used to label (bad, naughty, stupid etc).

I did mean to but I've forgotten why! 😆

I was talking about children being institutionalized for what we now recognize as autism, not suggesting it was still happening. Here’s an example:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/09/disabled-children-institutionalization-history/674763/

The 'more' that I would expect from the school is for them to try to make sure that children at the very top of the primary school age group understand about SEN and need to show tolerance and empathy. You can also help your child to understand and see this as an important moment to build good attitudes to disability that will be excellent building blocks for life skills.

Exactly.

I wasn’t contradicting myself. I meant two parents working means less time to parent. Also two parents working full time on 20k a year in this crisis can still be seen as deprived.

I work in the Youth sector in a safeguarding role and these are EXACTLY the type of young people we see. It used to be an outlet for them, a place they could access resources they wouldn’t have a home, a place to socialise safely.

Teachers lacking patience (I worked in education for 15 years before moving on) is due to extra workload demands. A teachers day isn’t 9-3. Teachers work harder and harder each year and yes it does trickle down to the students.

Years ago when young people did not attend school they picked up a trade or a low level job. They could work their way up to a decent wage, these jobs are so rare now.

I agree SEN is more clearly identified nowadays, unfortunately following this up with appropriate action is only reached after a long, exhausting struggle.
I remember a TV drama written by Victoria Wood, in which Thora Hird portrayed the MIL of the heroine's DP: "We didn't have special needs in my day; you sat at the back and did raffia work." There was a tacit acceptance of low expectations in some circumstances, especially if the pupil concerned was not disruptive.
When I first began teaching, one of my college friends gained a deputy headship extremely early, by working in a school for children with learning difficulties, which, until a change in legislation, had not even been regarded as a school. The children were well cared for and occupied by staff who were not trained teachers; her job was to encourage them to engage in more "educational" activities.
The ideal of integration into mainstream schooling is a worthwhile aim, but it fails if it is simply attempted "on the cheap", and this is where we find ourselves today.

My father, born in the 1930s is exactly like my son.

If he was a child/teen today he would have been diagnosed ASD/PDA/ADHD, just like my son is now.

The thing that has changed in the last 90 years is society, not the people.

He went to a small village school where he learnt the three Rs (read, write, arithmetic). He wasn’t academic so left school at 14 and worked until he was nearly 80.
He had no tests in that time. He lived a fairly feral life as a child, like other children - out after breakfast, take a sandwich then home for tea.

If he went to school today it would be a different story. There used to be flexibility - schools not as hot on attendance, not all children were expected to meet high academic standards, barely anyone went to university.

Now children are funnelled through a one size fits none system with huge pressure on the children. Whilst there’s an option to move towards an apprenticeship after year 11, those can be very difficult to get as the places are often taken up by uni leavers who find they’ve got a degree but can only get poorly paid employment at Starbucks or similar.
Special school places are scarce (when we were looking for ds we learnt that at that time in the whole of Norfolk there were only 7 spaces available and well over 100 children needing them.

There are few options available for SN children. There used to be schools with a different ethos and more flexibility, but over the last 20 years they have nearly all adopted a more rigid format that suits no one. Attendance has got far more strict. For a healthy child it’s not unreasonable to set high attendance targets. For SN it’s discriminatory.

Society has changed at a pace that humans cannot match up to, late stage capitalism does not work for the majority of people. More and more people are seeking a diagnosis of something (anxiety, depression, ND conditions), more and more have chronic conditions like ME, because life is shit with few rewards.

Years ago we didn’t need the diagnoses. I mean some people did, but mental illness and neurodivergence is now fast becoming the norm where it was once rare. Before the 90s the only autism diagnosed was severe, not the high functioning/masking autism that’s so prevalent now and is causing so many issues in schools and playing havoc on so many families. That’s not just because the manuals have been updated, but demand has gone up and up.
Society has created a need for these diagnoses because it’s so shit we can’t cope, but at the same time we can’t seek support without a diagnosis. So what happens? We get more and more of them being necessary.

If you have a child that’s NT, well lucky you, but don’t assume that the direction life is going will keep them safe. At some point they may not cope with the expectations on them.
It’s all very well to attempt to deny autism and autistic people’s needs, or to dismiss it as poor parenting, and being ok with large numbers of children being out of education because of lack of support, but one day maybe you’ll be dealing with your own children’s mental health issues, I hope not, but things are not looking good and are getting worse.

To some extent it was hidden - severely disabled people were in institutions, children deemed stupid or unruly left school early. Violent children/teens(?) went to borstal.

We’re seeing the inevitable affects of bottle necking people into more and more rigid social expectations. It wasn’t hidden, children just weren’t pushed like they are now.

Totally agree with this. The positive side is that SEN doesn't necessarily mean unable to succeed. I know of teenagers who barely scraped through school due to unsupported SEN (family paid for private tutoring to support them when the school didn't provide) and who are flying now they're into apprenticeships or qualified. Earning more than some professionals at the age of 23/24.

I'm afraid I have to completely disagree. A joint household income of 40k per annum may mean that certain choices have to be made in terms of family finances, but I really cannot understand how that equates to deprivation. Anecdotally, many of my friends and I grew up without lots of spare money. I would never have described myself as deprived. That statement should really be reserved for people growing up in real poverty, in my opinion.

Maybe it's different in other parts of the country. I'm in the north of England and we've recently been renovating our house. Our builder drives a better car than me and certainly is in a position to afford more holidays abroad. The plasterer we've had at our house told us that he's tried multiple times to find an apprentice and has been let down on a number of occasions by kids not showing up for work or having a bad attitude. Okay, that's only one example, but there are certainly jobs in manual roles out there where I am.

We probably have to agree to disagree on this, but I really do believe that excuses are made far too readily now. Nothing is worse than it was before - the challenges are just different.

The plasterer we've had at our house told us that he's tried multiple times to find an apprentice and has been let down on a number of occasions by kids not showing up for work or having a bad attitude

This is a problem throughout the whole construction industry. It's incredibly difficult to find reliable apprentices.

Also I don't think I've ever seen a uni leaver either apply for or get an apprenticeship in 10 years. It's almost all under 20s who weren't suited to the academic side of school.