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?

God, there are so many feral children at schools these days! We never had these issues when I was at large state schools, which was 1979 - 1993. Classrooms sound completely out of control. Children wouldn't have dared behave this badly. They'd be sent out of the room immediately and excluded from the lesson. I don't get why kids are allowed to get away with what the OP describes.

I am really not. The main problem is underfunding, not people who believe that those with disabilities have a right to an education.

But why can't the teacher send the child out of the room? I'm not understanding.

I couldn't agree more. They definitely shouldn't be in mainstream ed.

What a ridiculous response. Do you have any understanding of how much private schools cost? Only 7% of the population use them. It’s outrageous that a minority are disrupting the education of the majority.

What is a EHCP? Why are they hard to get?

I feel for all concerned. I'm a teacher and see this regularly in one of my classes. We are told to report things but the rest of the class and myself, are subjected to a barrage of abuse, whilst the pupil with poor mental health, which includes him being delusional, is in torture daily. Learning is determined by his interaction with myself and others. I have very little knowledge on how to deal with this. All pupils are being done a disservice and my well being is plummeting

There's a lot more to education than whatever's being covered in the lessons, particularly so in primary.

Being able to rub alongside people who you don't like, or who don't behave the way you'd like to, is a good skill to learn. Being able to adapt to different circumstances, focus in the face of disruption, understand that people are different and have different needs. Understanding how fortunate you are compared to some others.

These are all incredibly important life lessons that come from being in institutional learning for most of one's childhood. (As long as the kids are kept safe of course.) Likely far more useful to them than knowing the capital of X country or the name of that part of a plant that we all forgot years ago.

You're being unreasonable to expect that a classroom full of silent, polite kids all sitting cross legged and agog at the teacher is possible, or even desirable. Life isn't perfect, people aren't perfect and kids need to grow up being able to cope with that.

My ds is 5 (nearly 6). He's on the waiting list for assessment for autism. The LA have also agreed to assess for EHCP. When he was at nursery he had his hours reduced for violent behaviour and he has since had 2 suspensions from school. Most of the time now he is settled and regulated (using the individualised plan the school has devised with help of EP and us as parents - plus me changing my hours at work to support) and a loved member of his class. BUT when he 'crashes' he 'crashes'. I know when this happens it is his class mates and staff that suffer. The last time this happened I acknowledged it on the parents WhatsApp writing something along the lines of "For those who have been affected by my son's escalating behaviour I am sorry. We are addressing and working on it" I did not want parents thinking we were using his likely autism as an excuse. It explains his behaviour but shouldn't mean he can do what he wants with no consequences (just my opinion for my child). He has had a 1 to 1 but it is the TA for the whole class. I know this is at the detriment of the other kids and it breaks my heart. He isn't a candidate for a place at a SEN school.

You sound amazing @peekaboopumpkin and I can only imagine how tiring that is. You are doing everything as a parent that is possible. I think this is what the other poster means. You are interacting with your DC.
My DNephew was diagnosed with PDA but privately after one session… he was much older. He is now thriving on a course he loves in further education .. it’s a long story… not for here… but love and calm and consistent parenting really helped him calm down.
im sure what you’re doing will mean everything to your DC xx

Lol, no. My children are grown up, remarkably they managed to survive school and move successfully into adulthood despite all sorts of drama and disruption in the classroom over the years.

I didn't say that it was ideal, what I did say was that you need to be realistic, because society isn't going to suddenly rid itself of all the people who behave the way you don't like, so get some perspective and help your children cope with it instead of demonising other children and trying to make them go away.

You’re a very brave person @MrsLJH

It sounds like you have a good plan in place too with your school - I hope it continues to work and his crashes becoming less frequent and upsetting for him, you, and his classmates x

They don't do as they are told. That's the problem

i can ask them to leave but it's up to them whether they do.

Oh sorry, your username is very similar to the person who replied to me just before, and I was confusing you with her.

You are being disingenuous to equate "not wanting a classroom with disruptive kids shouting and screaming" with "wanting kids to sit in silence 100% of the time". There is a normal level of boisterous and naughtiness that children engage in -- we are talking about some kids that go far, far beyond that point to the level where they completely ruin the experience of others.

This does not happen in adult life. Tolerating this behavior is not a skill you need to learn, since it is unlikely to be something you ever encounter (unless you become a primary school teacher or social worker, etc). Universities and professional workplaces do not have people screaming in the lecture hall/office, throwing pads of paper around, preventing others from working. This would absolutely not be tolerated in an adult setting, and it is wrong we are forcing kids to tolerate it.

It also does not happen in many other countries. It didnt happen in the UK 20-30 years ago. This is not some unavoidable natural fact which needs to be tolerated, it could easily be fixed tomorrow by simply expelling the overly disruptive children.

I wish that was the case. I've been fighting for nearly a year to get DS in to a SEN school but council don't care. I think possibly because my son isn't violent they don't see it as an issue. Current school is crap won't take DS full time because of his high needs (despite having an EHCP so funding) because they don't have enough staff.
OP what else can the school do? They've tried talking to mum, they have suspended him, they presumably try to keep children safe not much else left.
If you mean they should expel him permanently then they probably should but I don't think it's easy. I remember a boy who used to throw scissors at me, hit me, kick me, try and leave me room (I was his key worker) . That was in nursery and they never seemed to exclude him so I assume it's even harder at school.

There are some insane responses on this thread. The “send your child to private school if you don’t like it” and the “it’s character building” are truly shocking. So wrong that a minority are able to ruin life for the majority whether they can help it or not is irrelevant the outcome is the same. At primary remember a long awaited school trip was ruined by one child.

It would be relatively easy for a private school to expel him, which is why private schools generally dont have these problems

It would be close to impossible for.a state school to expel him, due to terrible goverment policy that comes from misguided progressive ideas about "inclusion" and a general belief that the rights of one disruptive child outweighs the rights of the other 20-30 kids in his class (see many of the posts in this thread)

This is one of the many reasons why private school kids generally do better than state school kids -- private schools actually care about the welfare of all their students, not just the bottom 5%.

@BeDeepKoala please don't call these children 'the bottom 5%'. My child has SEN and likely some neurodivergence; these conditions are not her fault. She sometimes gets bored in lessons as she does not know what is going on. It's like everyone is speaking Greek. No she isn't disruptive like the kid in the OP but fidgets, needs movement breaks, chats, doodles, the same way I would act in a degree level physics lecture. Oh but wait, I wouldn't be in a degree level physics lecture because I wouldn't know what the hell was going on? Yet my daughter has to go in to school day in, day out, being three years behind, having no clue what she should be doing.
The system is broken. These children aren't broken. My daughter has an EHCP and she gets one lesson per day out of the classroom. Special schools would not accept her. It's these kids in particular who are failed. They are not achieving but not meeting threshold in mainstream.
In the old days it would be sorted by her going to a technical school after her eleven plus, and I do think there was some merit in this. She is practical and can't wait to work! Yet she is forced to study unnecessarily academic subjects for 14 years. Why?!!

For those saying it takes a lot to get an ehcp it really doesn’t in our area. I have two children with autism and adhd and what you are describing is a parenting problem. That child is acting out for attention, which clearly he isn’t getting at home. Too many mothers think that school is a break and they should not be called or have to deal with their children between 9-3pm Monday to Friday. The fact that she refuses to speak to the teacher at the end of the day means she knows what’s coming. I would push the school to look at options or maybe recommend an early help service in your area to help her. She can’t just ignore his behaviour, she needs to look at ways of helping him in school so that he can learn and so can the other children. Also for those asking why children aren’t in Sen schools when they should be please ask your local mp why they won’t invest in Sen schools or spend very very little of the government budget on Sen children. We don’t want them in mainstream when they are in a separate class to other children and playing all day rather then learning. At this point I’m debating about home educating both of my children

Thats unfortunate for your daughter and maybe it isnt her fault (whatever that means), but the key point is that it is not the fault of the other 20-30 kids in her class either, and her needs should not be prioritised above theirs. Saying "the system is broken" is mostly just a cop-out. Yes in an ideal world there would be infinite money and everything could be funded, but this will never be the case. In reality, budgets will always be finite, and we need to decide what to prioritise.

I partly think it’s because we have this forum in which to express what we witness and hear about and obvs wider transparency on social media in general.
in the seventies and eighties I was educated in the south (primary) north (secondary) and overseas (preschool) and I witnessed fights, desks being thrown, teachers frequently in tears, extreme bullying, sexual harassment, kids smoking in school even in classrooms in the lower sets (whilst teachers read the paper 😬) It was very sexualised - groping, innuendo, threats if I didn’t kiss someone.. etc etc. from year 5 til year 13.
at a recent school reunion a number of the most troubled kids in school had done really well and couldn’t believe in hindsight how they’d let down. My ex had gone to a top public boarding school and there was equally a different type of hideousness there.

im sure if parents had had a place to write what their kids had witnessed every day - we would have been equally appalled by the disruption.
Not excusing anything. I wonder if things get worse when society is more troubled and then improve when society is calmer?? Certainly in the 00s in an inner city primary my DCs education was much calmer and less disruptive than mine.

My son has an EHCP. It took 3 years for an ASD assessment and then it’s a 20 week for the EHCP process. My son had to be observed by two ed psych’s, two separate occasions, in the classroom who had to both agree that he needed a EHCP even though he was diagnosed autistic. EHCP’s aren’t just given for “mental health”.

Edit: contrary to what some posters said upthread. I do fucking parent and my child isn’t feral. Autism and bad parenting isn’t a correlation.

How should they be removed?
I ask them politely and calmly to go, they say no (or words or actions to that effect)so I respect their choice and remove the other 29 children.

That's the system.

@waitingforsainos

When I taught some time ago, I was in a school in what most would consider a ‘difficult area’. Yes we had disruptive pupils, but we also had a very visible senior management team who would support teachers and tackle disruptive behaviour. However, the school had an inclusive ethos and would take responsibility rather than using an EHCP to state ‘cannot meet needs’.

I can’t remember any child getting excluded. Exclusion rates are at an all time high currently.