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?

I have said YABU but mainly because the expectation should come from higher than the school.

Funding is a huge issue and the EHCP may not come with enough funding for a 1:1 so the teachers are expected to deal with this.
It is hugely distracting and a lot of time is taken away from the teacher. It is not fair on anyone. The school, the teachers or the children.

It was inevitable this thread was going to turn into a bad behaviour thread.
So many blaming the child when the issue is society. There are so many factors to take into consideration.
Some on these are

• Compulsory education. 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.
• Demographics- a poorer area will see a higher number of behaviourally challenged children.
• Two parents working and not having as much time in the home.
• CoL- this naturally creates more stress in the home.
• Screens and social media, including parents.
• Overworked teachers having less patience to deal with a disruptive class.
• School funding.
• Closure of youth clubs and affordable after school activities.
• More pressure from schools on younger children.
• No prospects- This is what young people have personally told me. I work in a deprived area and they are aware that that due to their circumstances they won’t be able to get a career earning a decent wage. So they have a lack of motivation in school.

We are all in agreement that this is never the individual child’s ‘fault’, that specialist provision is completely lacking. However I’m not sure many are aware that children are not receiving the education they deserve and this will have huge implications for them and the country as a whole. As a mental professional I know of one class that have not had consistent teaching since Reception, not one day without severe disruption. Despite a fabulous teacher stepping up to take them on and building great relationships with the children those years can’t be repeated. Someone mentioned trauma related behaviour, if being forced to spend the majority of your younger years like this isn’t trauma, I don’t know what is. It is heartbreaking.

Because the councils refuse to issue them to save costs. One of my kids has had his declined, despite 4 separate diagnoses, an OT report showing difficulties, 2 years behind academically and the school using high needs funding for him. We have asked for a tribunal and the date is in 2026! That's another year that the council don't have to pay anything and a higher chance that wrong give up and home educate because we don't want him out of school for a full year plus all the time already missed. The system is fucked.

I do wish other parents would be more vocal. I think a lot of the time they don’t want to be that parent but I think it could help the school to build a case and get the child to a better setting. Unfortunately there are not the resources to manage these type behaviours in schools. All children have a right to education and to feel safe. If that is being disrupted, you can say so.

in some area it might be hard to get an EHCP in some areas, in others it's not. My daughter's year 6 class had 7 EHCPs (which is representative of the school) in and I know two parents personally who paid £9.5k for a private diagnosis which they used to ensure they got one, despite going through the SENCO. EHCPs in our area are going up 2-300% year on year fuelled by parents who have means, largely so they can specify their secondary school. This doesn't negate those who are in true need. My own daughter has a debilitating physical disability but something does need to be done about this, it's dominating classrooms and it needs to be called out.

I am a TA in a secondary school. The school is very good and we all adhere to the behavioural policy, but each year we get more and more with behaviour issues. They aren’t learning and I end up taking them out of the lesson - it’s not fair on the other students.

The other issue is that a school can take the decision that they are not able to meet the needs of a child with SEN but the child is allocated to them anyway and there us nothing they can do about it.

I agree, I see kids in school who have SEMH behaviour issues, all sorts of things in place for them at school, mostly to the detriment of other children in the class.

I don't blame the parents for him having special needs, but I do blame them for having a 6 year old who uses sexist and racist language, swears constantly and threatens and uses violence against others. He didn't learn that at school so it's either or both parents doing the same at home and/or unrestricted access to unsuitable media.

The other mum should raise it as a safeguarding issue. Another child abusing hers.

That gets attention.

However the child won't get a place at a special school unless there is actual violence in the classroom as there are no spaces available in specialist schools.

I know of a child who has finally 'disappeared' recently due to this.

Sadly not the one in my son's class who has a similar record but not severe enough with current head it seems.

I live in hope and now wonder if he will make it til the end of primary. At least there is now precedence...

It's not in the best interests of these kids to be in mainstream. They are resented (understandably) by other children, parents and teachers. They don't get the help and support they need so just spiral.

It's awful.

It’s an absolutely mess and I think will be looked back as a national scandal. One of my children has significant issues in her year group to the extent that she is absolutely desperate to leave to go to an all girls school. She sees terrible behaviour being rewarded with computer game time for the most disruptive boys and it is basically crowd control rather than education. Two of them aren’t allowed in the classroom at the same time as each other now so one is always in the corridor. Despite high needs neither have an ECHP so there is no funding at all to get an extra TA. In addition, there are then a fair few kids with adhd and dyslexia whose needs aren’t being met at all because they’re not totally failing. There’s no resource for any extra intervention or support at all for them.

We already have 8 year olds telling teachers to fuck off and hurting the other kids. I’m dreading y5/6 as they get bigger and stronger.

It’s interesting that people have said secondary often gets better. Small primaries just don’t seem to have the levers or resources to deal with these challenges.

Hahaha. What a cloud cuckoo land you live in. Yes they should just apply for higher funding. That’ll be easy. And reduced timetable…she’s year 6!! This isn’t a 16 year old who can be trusted to go home/work in library. This is a 10 year old. Who is going to supervise her on this reduced timetable. For goodness sake.

Yes my relative did a lot of chasing. Child still had it by reception clas. So no idea why year 5 and 6 kids don't if they need it. If a child that's merely non verbal can get one in a year I'm unsure why a child with major behavioral issues hasn't in 7 years

You have inadvertently voted against what you appear to mean (this happens a lot on AIBU). You have voted "YABU to expect more from school". However, the funding and policy issues you identify would be channeled through the school. Expecting more from the school does not mean absolving its funders and policymakers from playing their part.

This is exactly why it's a disgrace that the government put on VAT on private school fees BEFORE sorting out state education. What the state sector doesn't need is a load of SEN kids entering when they can't cater for the ones they have already.

Without high band funding for a TA there's not much more to help. In my child's juniors there are no class TAs unless it's via a ehcp. Even then the ehcp has to say they need a TA AND the LA needs to fund that. My dd gets over £20,000 for her TA. I had to appeal for that and then the school also suspended her to get even more funding. Ie its pretty much impossible to get enough funding to help.

Also she didn't need any of this really in infants as they had a floating class TA and she had no ehcp. Not meeting her needs in year 3 meant by year 4 she was so used to wondering around the class unchecked that became her norm.

I think funding every class with a TA would be ultimately cheaper. 30 kids someone will have adhd or autism and possibly undiagnosed if young. It takes years to get a diagnosis and then you get no support.

My daughters TA actually supports two other disruptive boys in the morning, not dd so that's another issue. Schools don't follow the ehcp and misuse the funding ( some of her funding goes or did go into the general pot for maintenance- until she started to kick off so school wasn't doing her early intervention)

If every parent of NT kids cared about SEN cut backs and pushed back because this is the fallout

I wonder what the new white paper changing SEND provision being prepared by the Government will bring? Apparently it's being prepared in the context of the fact that some Local Authorities are bankrupt/nearly bankrupt due to the cost of SEND provision. I notice that in Gloucestershire they are actually creating a new school for children with special educational needs.

My grandchild has been affected by the issues discussed on this thread- to be fair the school are doing it's best, but it's a challenging and complex situation.

So many people are totally naive to this issue. The level of disruption it has to the rest of the children’s education is massive. We moved a child to private half way through secondary due to the distress they were feeling following contestants violence against them and others. They said in state at least 25% of every lesson was taken up with behavioural problems. This is zero in private. Teachers surveys in Scotland confirm this too. They have gone from being predicted As to Cs to straight As.

My advice to parents? Get your child into as middle class a school school as possible. This should minimise the likelihood of a child with behavioural difficulties which stem from a traumatic home life (sad but true) and then it’s just a gamble a to how many disruptive, violent children are in your child class.

A lot more needs to be done all round, but it has become a blame game.
Expecting more from the school does not absolve its funders but I don’t think people really realise how bad the funding is for schools.
My children’s school have asked for toilet paper donations. Schools now have Amazon wish lists.

I know my voting is slightly contradictory but it’s because I believe there is a larger blame on schools, schools are absolutely not free of blame, but we need to start placing more blame of the people who can make more of a change.

The new free breakfast initiative for example. What an absolute b***ks idea. Seen as making a change but actually applying more funding pressure on schools, then more blame is placed on schools again.

But voting "YABU to expect more from school" does absolve its funders (and everybody else).

££££££

@Gogogo12345 you can't see why the parents wouldn't apply for an EHCP? The EHCP is an extremely classist, ablest and racist system. It relies on a lot of factors.
It discriminates against

• those who speak English as a second language or are not fluent
• those who are illiterate or poorly educated
• some ND parents who might struggle to speak on the phone, or sequence the amount of tasks
• those who don't see their children's needs
• those who don't have the money for private reports. I was told over and over by FB groups to pay for a private ed psych or OT. I didn't and we still got one, but could be better.
• those who work in less flexible roles eg not desk jobs where they can't take calls or answer emails, or do the chasing. Try getting time off from Lidl at short notice for an ed psych assessment!
• parents with MH
• people who have had prior social services involvement either as parents or children who are terrified and traumatised by services involvement. There is a social worker present in the assessment don't you know.
• parents from cultures where SEN is seen as weakness or something defective
• parents who just can't cope

A child in my class who has recognised and diagnosed SEN is like this. He has been continually disruptive since reception, throwing tables and chairs, destroying children’s work, deliberately breaking school equipment (laptops), flicking light switches on and off, breaking the interactive white board. He has been offered a place in special provision twice but parents have turned it down wanting him to stay in mainstream. As a school we fund a 1-1 for him but parents have already been told he will not get that at their preferred secondary school and that they can’t meet need but the parents are still insisting on sending him there. My prediction is that he will be sent home a lot and eventually excluded permanently.

I am surprised the school / his parents have shared the wording of his EHCP with you, and presumably all the other parents in the class.

@Helpmetogetoverthis I think the difference is the things you are describing are happening in primary school now not secondary. That’s what gets me.

I will never not be shocked by hearing a sweet 6 year old in pigtails casually calling another child a “fucking arsehole”, or the vaping 8 year olds, or the 9 year olds quoting Andrew Tate. That’s aside from disruption and violence in class and tolerance of bullying.

It’s not particularly an issue of SEN or children experiencing trauma, although these children are being failed. In the 80s when I was at school we knew that some other children had slightly different rules applied to them. The problem now, as I see it, is the unacceptable behaviour is so widespread that it’s normalised and there is a massive breakdown in the social contract. So the child who might have been occasionally cheeky now also joins in mocking the teacher and calls the other little boy who enjoys the Vikings topic “autistic” or “gay” for his childlike enthusiasm. But there’s little consequence because the teacher and school will have had so much worse. Or the well behaved girl gets sat next to the worst behaved boy to regulate his behaviour and to level him up by explaining concepts he doesn’t understand but that affects her own learning and she feels intimidated.

It is extremely stressful if you are in the other half of that classroom. It is far more difficult to teach and learn, and god forbid if any of the better behaved children have learning needs of their own. I don’t think it cuts it to say all these children need to toughen up, become more tolerant or be moved to private school. They are also children. They are also being failed.

That is not what i meant by that vote.
I explained that.

I am very stuck in the middle with this as I believe the school should be supporting this child, but if you have 1 child per class in the school behaving like this and not enough funding for staff, what is the answer?

Behaviour that challenging needs a 1:1. That’s an extra 20k per year the school need to find.

Schools need more funding for this and this needs to come from the ‘decision makers.’