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?

Obviously there are some who cannot be accommodated in mainstream school, but there are loads who could, if schools changed somewhat to meet the needs of more children rather than everyone involved being stressed to hell.

100% this. In secondary, it is completely different. In primary, you are just told to deal with it. Children hitting adults, hurtling things including chairs across the class. Those disadvantaged are the 'other' children that have to constantly have learning disrupted.
The main reason these children persist in mainstream is the lack of special needs schools. They closed a lot of them under the umbrella of inclusion. It's disgusting.

Yes this is what inclusion was for so that students who in every other way were able to cope with school were able to access mainstream. So visually impaired people, deaf people and physically disabled people.
It was never meant to be children who have intellectual or behavioural needs that cannot be met in a mainstream environment.

In the Western world yes but the UK is the front runner.

I feel like ‘special education’ has gone from attending a special school, to expecting a tailor made education costing £££ which gives the child and parents everything they want, and not then they’re being ‘failed’. And as every child has their own complex set of wants, it’s basically unenforceable.

Children are entitled to an education but not the best education money can buy. I’ve known parents campaign for an expensive placement, have it agreed, then their child just stops attending after a few weeks leaving a huge bill behind them for frankly very tenuous reasons. Then it’s on to securing the next placement.

Of course many children attend special schools and thrive, and that’s probably not the case for most, but it’s common enough and it feels like nothing the authorities do will ever be quite right for this group.

Because lots of things were different in schools years ago, not all in a good way but lots of changes that are supposedly for the good have resulted in escalating Sen when previously these kids would have just taken a different path. When GCSEs came in the idea was that any child should be able to get a grade and a grade g was an achievement for some but it was still an achievement. Now kids have to redo maths post 16 unless they have the equivalent of an old gcse c grade. This goes on right the way through school where teachers are judged on how individual children are performing. Ok you wouldn’t want to go back to the days when kids left school without being able to read or write but not everyone is academic, lots are practical, now we have a shortage of trades people. Not everyone can be above average, that is why there is average as half are above half are below. It’s also a lack of early intervention, there is no support until needs have escalated to such a level where a child is throwing chairs.

The conflation of children choosing to behave poorly and SEN kids who are in crisis and cause incidental disturbances to their peers is concerning in this thread.

As is the notion that SEN parents are not doing enough. Honestly? I have 3 SEN kids and I'm a better parent than most. I know my kids so well, I have to, to be able to understand and anticipate their responses to stimuli when we're away from home. I've spent the last 3 years basically training myself in SEN and how to support my children. My days are spent juggling working part time alongside attending school meetings, preparing paperwork, advocating for my child all whilst one is on a part time timetable and another who is high masking suffers MH breakdowns each evening after school.

I've been to 3 special school open days in the last week. None will suit my child as whilst he has additional needs, in a couple of areas he can work to the same level as his age and the special schools require him to be behind by at least 3 years. But he cannot cope in a school environment because of his additional needs, and so has suffered greatly whilst we've been trying to find another school for him.

And of the special schools - the ones I've been to can accommodate up to 100 in the biggest and 50 in the smallest, with 100s of applications for places despite being at capacity. At every open day they start by telling us "we are full". So please, those of you who would like my child to be permanently excluded, where should he go?

This makes a lot of sense. So it could be seen, perhaps, that the rising increase in SN (not diagnoses, per se, but needs) corresponds to the rising increase in academic standards in schools - that because schools have become more ambitious in their expectations, the cohort of children who are unable to meet those expectations has also risen. That leads to unmet needs in a way which wouldn't have happened in previous times where a less ambitious environment would have meant more of the children now struggling could have succeeded (or coped).

I'm probably not explaining this well!

Completely agree @Morph22010

People ignore how much schools have changed in terms of rigidity and pressure, and lack of support staff.

Of course funding is a huge concern, but to continue to ignore this glaring issue which is letting everyone down, there is a much bigger problem being created - more young adults with higher support needs because they’ve never had the chance to develop resilience and anything other than intolerably high stress levels, pupils suffering because the teacher is having to put so much effort into crowd control, mental health services, already unfit for purpose, will be even more stretched, prisons even more full, more and more young adults unable to enter the workforce.

This rigid structure of what schools are is having a huge effect on the young population.
The advent of academies hasn’t helped, their authoritarian approach is spreading to other schools. It might work in certain narrow circumstances, but as a wider picture it’s not.

Schools could drop their inflexible approach, less testing, drop the pressure, reintroduce more practical subjects for pupils who would benefit from them, be more flexible and supportive around attendance.

If we keep doing the same thing we will carry on getting the same results. I’m amazed that more people aren’t demanding a better approach.

“The conflation of children choosing to behave poorly and SEN kids who are in crisis and cause incidental disturbances to their peers is concerning in this thread.”

Ignoring that neglect and poor home life is considered a SN is concerning.
Behavioyr is a barometer of how a child is doing.
Children do well if they can (quote from Ross Greene, child psychologist).

I think one issue is the degree of need that is now expected to be accommodated in a mainstream setting.

This is anecdotal, but my mum works in a primary school class that has quite a few children with additional needs including autism, mild LD and SEMH needs. She said that there was one child who was really not coping in mainstream and could be very angry and prone to violent outbursts - shouting, throwing things at other children etc. Several other SEN children were also regularly overwhelmed and dysregulated. And then, when the not coping at all child was away for several weeks, there was a noticeable improvement in the behaviour and engagement of some of the other SEN children.

I suspect that there are lots of children who would previously have coped in a calm, predictable mainstream environment with some differentiated work, small-group support from a TA and simple strategies for managing emotional overwhelm ("Amy, can you be my special helper and take this note to Miss Green's class please?"). But right now, so many of the children who would previously been in specialist provision are dumped into a mainstream environment where they really can't cope at all. Then limited school resources have to be focused on managing those children at all; and when that is inevitably not successful there is such a degree of chaos and stress in the classroom that other children get completely overwhelmed and are also unable to cope.

The behaviour you describe is based in disability. Every single part of it. The difference is it annoys people, it triggers people, it makes people want to repel instinctively. It is disabilities but the capacity for forgiveness for understanding and inclusion is limited because it impacts people so much. In the classroom especially.

My child is ND. Alot of behaviours are the same for all us parents. I can logically separate myself from the emotion as a mum and say the above knowing it's true. And I forgive humans for being human.

The truth is, there's nowhere for these kids. The situation is catastrophic out there. We are in our thousands screaming help us. We can't work function or be productive because of the fall out having kids with nowhere to go. That's everyone's problem.

Hard agree. The excellent primary school where I am a governor used to have, at most, one or two pupils at any one time with very complex needs - generally children who had come to them in Reception before their needs were fully identified. They also used to be able to rely on co-operating with the local authority to move such children into suitable schools able to meet their needs without too much delay.

No longer. They now routinely have 8-10 at any one time and, far from helping move them out, the LA is pressurising the school to keep them and take more because they don't have enough specialist places. They know perfectly well that, at best, the school is babysitting these children, and it is often at the expense of education of other pupils and indeed at the expense of their own physical safety and mental wellbeing, let alone that of other pupils and staff. It is particularly infuriating that, even when a specialist place is found, they drag their feet in moving the child in order to save LA budgets. I really feel that mainstream schools need to be tougher about saying no to pupils whose needs they can't possibly meet, and about being prepared to challenge LAs who seek to impose such pupils on them.

Absolutely this. It’s much easier to cry “bad parenting” and allocate blame than it is to challenge our instinctive repulsion towards a child who is disrupting a class, let alone accept that the numbers of these children indicate that society has a massive problem that it can’t really afford to solve.

Just imagine how different some attitudes on this thread would be if people were able to accept that sometimes, the child really can’t help it, the involuntary “behaviour” is the disability, and what we are doing to these children is broadly equivalent to asking a paraplegic to do athletics, for 6 hours every day. (Incidentally, rigid thinking like this can be a sign of ND!)

FWIW, my DSis ex partner had an autistic child with unmet needs, and to my shame childless me used to think (using my sergeant major voice in my head) “give me a week and I’ll fix his diet/attitude!” I realised that I was talking absolute, unmitigated bollocks the minute I had my own ND boy. If it was as simple as parenting, we’d have already done it!

Who the fuck is making that crazy link?!

Fuck me I've heard it all on here. Do people not engage their brains before they type.

Lazy parent decides it more preferable to go through the nightmare of getting an EHCP than install boundaries on their child's behaviour. OK then......

There are a great many wonderful parents out there and on this thread that are finding it extremely difficult to navigate through having DC with very really ND. I feel for every single one of you.

But it would be totally remiss of us to assume that in every single instance of disruptive behaviours in class that the parents are ALWAYS good parents and that the behaviours is ALWAYS down to ND. That is just not logical. Same as there will be very many ND children out there who aren’t disruptive seeing as it presents in such a wide variety of ways.
It then also follows, logically, that some cases of disruptive behaviour are down to bad parenting. How many, we can not know. But in those instances, if resources in class and at government level are being pulled away from true cases of ND then that should outrage parents of ND children in my opinion.
It’s also not a bad thing to want your NT children to be able to attend school without having lessons disrupted by other children nor be subject to any other problematic behaviours I have seen described on here.

If a child is in a classroom being disruptive for whatever reason, by definition that child has special needs. They need more attention on them, more support, no matter what the cause.

You also tend to find that NT children tend to not want to stand out so generally don’t behave in a way that makes them stand out as SN.

If a child is violent or disruptive in a way that’s beyond chatter or cheekiness there is likely a cause that goes beyond parenting, whether it’s trauma, ND, neglect, abuse, something else going on entirely.

What a voice of sense, rare to see here atm.

Studies have been conducted to show that children, with fantastic instincts, are repelled at a visceral level when they sense intuitively a difference they can't articulate yet. That difference is being ADHD and or Autistic. This is my ND child who I love but let's just talk truth. I forgive people for being people. I see it daily with my son. Pure agony is the feeling for me as a daily observer. I will put that aside to raise this....

So people want them gone, out, away from my little Sally. I understand this. But, we have the problem I am repeating over threads which is the ND population is way beyond numbers anyone can imagine.

You try ' buy' an Autism diagnosis if you are not such and let me know how you get on. I am also waiting eagerly for data and stats or anything of worth that demonstrates this happens. I'd actually say never. The process is so thorough and multi faceted. You can't buy this,but people must delude.

In typical behaviour of deflection and self delusion, people can't accept that we have this huge ND population so must go straight to
' everyone finks they are Autism mental helf these days'.

Yes I'm being patronising and judgemental but this mentality is just lack of awareness.

We can't euthanise them, sorry guys out there who I know probably would prefer that. It's great saying 'yeah get em out, poor government can't cope payin for em and look how ixpensiv thay are'.

This is reality - this gigantic population of ND kids ( and they are a huge population, many undiagnosed hiding under your nose) are at huge risk of causing crime, being manipulated and then the fall out of that, there's the risk of additional challenges, all sorts of problems that being out of education will impact you all. Financially, personally and on all levels.

These kids who are in every classroom I imagine, if provided with something that increases all chances of a better outcome ( appropriate education in appropriate settings, not mainstream where they are FORCED ), might have more chance at reduced likelihood of prison ( you're paying for that), hurting others, ( if environmental trauma from being ND is bad enough, yes that risk might be higher), being able to work, be productive and contribute ( which helps you feel better and see better outcomes hopefully for your taxes), meet their full potential as people,many of which are highly intelligent. I'm talking only above of benefits to other people here not about the needs or hideous suffering ND people ( including 'high' functioning) daily endure ( another thread).

I am missing out those who have needs that require high level care and am simplifying and generalising a whole population. I'm sorry for doing that.

The kids like this forced into mainstream end up refusing. You think, oh I'd never av that. Oh really? You try forcing someone who will not move, will self harm, have a meltdown that may result in violence if you try get them in and see how long you cope. These mums are god damn warriors. ( And it is ALWAYS the mums suffering). These women can't work often because of this. That impacts you entirely.

It's not going away. The answers are significant investment and a complete overhaul of education opportunities. Mainstream is horrible even for NT kids in my view. So for the ND ones, forget it).

( Mum to one of thousands of ND kids forced into mainstream because no other realistic option is given or accessible without fighting a system that will bring you to your knees).

I hear what you are saying but the system is designed to teach 30 odd kids pretty much the same thing at the same time. We are now in a situation where the right to an education has morphed into an expectation of a bespoke, tailor made experience for 30% of the class (and rising) in some cases. It's impossible to make that work.

I agree completely. But creating a more bespoke and expensive system isn’t what’s needed, I mean it would be nice, but it’s not going to happen anytime soon!

Of course more special school places are needed, that’s been obvious since they were closed down. It’s shortsighted of any government to not fix this problem as quickly as possible, because this has knock on effects on other pupils who can’t cope.

What’s needed is some sort of research into what’s happened. Why are so many more children on the SN register, why are so many more children school refusing, why are so many more children being removed from school entirely?

This sort of research needs to come via parents who are going through this, the utter superheroines who upend their lives to try to make things better for their children. I know so many who would gladly give their time to explain what went wrong. It would be a relief to have someone - anyone - take us seriously and listen to what’s going on, the regular patterns that show up over and over could give so many vital clues to go some way to fix this. At the moment we have no voice, even in meetings about our children we are just “mum”, no one important.

The problems within schools are currently mostly affecting SN children, yet government campaigns and opinion pieces show how off the mark they are, focusing on term time holidays, keeping an ill child at home, blaming WFH.

The problems within schools is that more and more children are not coping, schools are more inflexible in their approach to learning than they were just 20 years ago. Through HE one of my dc I got to know several teachers who left teaching altogether in order to keep their dc out of schools - that has to tell you something!
I know several teachers who became private tutors because they couldn’t bear how their profession was changing.

There are so many ways that schooling could change for the better for all pupils, but no one wants to hear it, they’d rather vilify the SN kids and the feckless parents.

The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members - Ghandi.

One day your perfect child might be the one who is vulnerable. How would you want them to be treated? How would you feel if, knowing there were other options available, you were told constantly that nothing could be done, when you know full well that changes could be made that would positively impact everyone involved.

As an example, SATs pressure starting at the end of year 5 is a biggie for lots of children. This is a common time for children to start to fear failure, to feel under pressure and stress.

They don’t benefit the child at all, they are a measure of the school.

Surely it would work better for SATs to be a genuine reflection of how a school is doing, without nearly a year of extra pushing, extra work, all that pressure on little children?

So what if marks are lower if it’s a true reflection on how the school is doing and doesn’t rely on impacting the mental health of 10/11 year olds?

Honestly, not my problem.

That might sound awful, but after years of DS having to deal with normalised violence in the classroom because a child can't 'regulate' (parents don't parent - yes he clearly has SEN needs but when he then grabs a child by his throat and pins him up against a wall, in front of his mother and other child's mother and the parent does nothing and worse still the kid then gloats to his victims mother that 'i can do anything I like, my mum never tells me off') I have lost all patience whatsoever.

My priority is simply to safeguard my child. That's not an unreasonable response. If my child was at risk in any other situation, I would be having social service or police intervention.

I do not appreciate the idea that it's my responsibility and that of my primary age child to put up with appalling behaviour that endangers him because 'theres no spaces anywhere'.

That's what's underpinning the normalisation of violence in the classroom and beyond.

If we don't stand up and say this needs to stop, then our children will continue to be harmed. That's our battle.

You have yours, but don't involve our children and weaponise this against us emotionally for somehow not understanding.

My own son has SEN needs (diagnosed). Having a child with unmet needs in the classroom has proved to be the very last thing he's needed.

Cases where SEN children are inappropriately places together can have a detrimental effect on both children.

A child who is violent - for any reason - needs to be removed immediately from that classroom. No if or buts. And THEN a solution found. Not the other way around.

And yes, I have seen too many children failed by the system because of a lack of provision. But that shouldn't be the problem of the other 29 kids in the class. It's not ok for 30 kids to be failed. It's not ok for 1 kid to be failed but hell it's better than 30 and the blight of an entire generation.

How do you think that 1 kid's peers are going to view SEN kids in the future if what they remember is the punches when they hit adulthood? It doesn't bode well for the future.

Strangely enough there were two kids like this in my son's year group of two classes. One has just finally been removed in year 5. The other is still there and I'm over joyed to find out his parents are not planning to send him to the same high school. This is a child who fixated on an individual, and terrorised him and his friend for over a year. He fantasised and threatened to kill him. He was enlisting other kids to be violent against this child and on several occasions was using sticks and bricks as weapons. How we got through that year with serious incident I do not know.

They were 7/8.

It's just so so wrong to be guilt tripping parents over this.

That’s the thing though IT IS YOUR PROBLEM. it is your child that is being effected by children with sen needs being placed in their mainstream class, there is a drive at the minute to try and place more children with severe Sen needs in mainstream which most in the sen community are against and people with out Sen children don’t get involved in arguing against government against it as they see Sen as not their problem as you have just stated, then moan about the outcome.

my child is actually now out of mainstream and in specialist which took a lot of fight and me going to tribunal so what goes on in mainstream school is genuinely now NOT MY PROBLEM. Lots of parents in a similar position to me with children in specialist fighg against the changes being made to mainstream as they see it will make things worse and will effect all children including yours even though it no longer effects their own children. Reading comments like yours I honestly wonder why I bother, like I said before it’s not my problem it’s yours

No it's not.

It's really not at this point.

Why?

Because I have ceased to care. I am over the guilt tripping.

Too many punches were thrown. The arse covering and denial we faced was off the scale.

My son had to literally stand there and take punches before anything was done.

And I'm fairly confident that in high school it won't be tolerated in any where near the same way too.

A refusal to put up with it by the masses will be what triggers change. Not a soft approach of politely asking for specialist services.

Sadly.

I'm also not convinced that putting children in situations with classmates that are dysregulated for whatever reason teaches them empathy or to be inclusive. I think it more often just makes these kids afraid because it's a situation they aren't equipped to deal with.

Exactly.

Long term there's going to be repercussions from kids being raised in this situation.

It's not going to be pretty.