Formal School Complaint - AIBU

[Schoolproblemsagain]

NC

Yesterday, I finally submitted a formal
complaint to my DS secondary school.

It has been a long time coming, but I’m having a major panic that I’ve done the wrong thing and they will treat my younger DS differently.

AIBU to have complained?

I won’t go into all the background details as it’s too long, but the catalyst for finally raising a formal is as follows:

DS Year 11, in the midst of his GCSE’s, has an EHCP and a Pupil Profile. ASD Diagnosis.

School phoned me and said:

At lunchtime, two boys were throwing food at him, he told them to fuck off, he was asked to leave the lunch hall, he refused. He explained to the teacher that he would not leave as he hadn’t done anything wrong and food was being thrown at him. This then escalated to three teachers within his space, who were asking him to leave. He was still refusing. He has been suspended for disruption and is not allowed to return to school unless to sit an exam.

The two boys, who were throwing food and their entourage, who were laughing, have received no punishment.

His EHCP and Pupil Profile states that he will not manage public confrontation with strategies on how to manage such events.

AIBU to have raised a complaint on the grounds that his EHCP and Pupil Profile were not followed, that he has been punished when the other students have not and that he is now missing vital support sessions during his GCSE’s?

Sorry but it's bollocks that "throwing anything at another person is assault and punishable by law".

The legal definition of assault is "any act which recklessly or intentionally causes another to apprehend immediate unlawful violence"

It's highly context-dependent.

For example, kids mucking about in a school cafeteria and flicking chips at other pupils in an annoying, but not overtly threatening, way is unlikely to meet that bar.

Another example - telling someone to "fuck off" (or any other verbal abuse) could in itself contribute towards an assault charge. Dependent on the context. I'm not suggesting that this incident of bad language would constitute assault - quite the opposite - but I say it to illustrate how context is all.

If kids are being pricks throwing food at lunchtime, the way to deal with them is probably not to go nuclear and start talking about criminal assault.

For all we know, it might have been an attempt to remove him from a stressful situation so that he could calm down without an audience and be asked what had happened, and the food-throwers could be dealt with in his absence. We don’t know.

I see your point, but I just don't think schools have the staff, time and resources to be meticulously individual in their responses to every situation, especially given the sheer number of pupils with SEN or other issues. I'm not a teacher, but I've seen a lot of school life in various ways & I think we as a society ask an amazing amount

It’s not a lot to ask schools to follow the Equalities Act though

Good luck OP. FWIW I think you’re doing the right thing. Some of the utter bullshit being spouted on this thread proves it.

The key questions that I would be asking in your shoes:

1. What do they think the cause of your son’s behaviour leading to the exclusion was?
2. Upon reflection, do they feel they handled the situation well? Would they do anything differently if it happened again?
3. Why did they feel asking him not to return to school was the right punishment?
4. Are other Year 11 students allowed in school during Study Leave. If yes, how have they satisfied themselves that the decision to ask your son not to return is not considered a breach of the Equalities Act given you believe his behaviour was caused by unmet SEN needs.

Hope your son is doing ok and not too upset.

Please check back and tell us the outcome of your complaint.

Yes, I am assuming it probably was - but imo this shouldn’t be an instruction in this situation as OP hasn’t said he was continuing to be disruptive/volatile, and I’m going off what she said.

Totally makes sense to offer leaving to calm down, but if the child in this situation doesn’t want to, I don’t understand why it essentially was a direct instruction he was not allowed to disobey.

Equality Act

Oh so you do know what it is?! Couldn’t tell 😂

Maybe the food throwers have a get out of jail free card too. This is what I mean. Schools can't function with different rules for different pupils.

Was this meant for me? All I've chipped in about recently is the law on assault.

But it’s the law. They have to make reasonable adjustments for disabled children

And chaos ensues

My classroom functions pretty well with different rules for different pupils because my Year 6s understand that people have different needs.

So physical bullying of an autistic student is less of a problem then the victim arguing with an authority figure after being blamed for the situation. Fascinating thought process for an alleged teacher.

Yes, by all means continue punishing neurodivergent victims of bullying because it’s easier to come down hard on one disabled child than on multiple bullies.

I’m sure you do believe you’re a good teacher, but am curious if others see you that way.

Jeez... all he said was 'fuck off'.

I'd have shouted it and upended their table so their food went all over their laps - I know this is what I'd do because it is exactly what I did in a very similar situation... just 30ish years ago.

(Wasn't excluded, but was dragged physically out of the room by a large male teacher and shut in the sick bay for the rest of the day. Later got a detention for 'temper tantrums'. The food throwing bullies got nothing.)

The sensible way would have been to kick out the food throwers and deal with them seperately.

Let your kid eat his lunch and speak to him later on about language and how to deal with such a situation differently in future.

Give them both barrels @Schoolproblemsagain

That you teach primary explains many of your views.

Who’d be a teacher? They are expected to be absolute saints. In a secondary school with goodness knows how many pupils with SEN, they are required to have an in-depth knowledge of the “wealth of strategies” in place to support each and every one of those children (and of course the strategies for each child will be different and often conflicting), such that they can instantly recall and use them correctly in a difficult situation (busy canteen, kids throwing food, kid swearing at others and refusing to walk away), and even where they have zero day to day contact with the child in question (they just happen to be on lunch duty, say). It sounds as though in this situation the teachers in the moment were trying to deal with things as best they could. I can understand why OP is upset on behalf of her DS but I do think the teachers “at the scene” should be cut some slack here.

Where I think the reasonable adjustment should be made in this case is around the punishment, and OP is right to complain that this seems too harsh in the circumstances and that a reasonable adjustment would be to replace it with a lesser sanction due her her son’s SEN and the impact of his disability on how he reacted in that situation. I also agree the food throwers should be punished but unfortunately OP gets no say on that.

No one expects a teacher to be a saint, but they should be professional! In this case,they actually escalated the situation rather than defusing it. That’s not professional.

But there is a difference between not being able to comply with an instruction to stand, and not complying with any instructions at all (no matter how reasonable and necessary) in certain environments. If a DC is unable to follow a teacher’s instructions in what the DC perceives to be a difficult / loud / stressful etc. situation then what would happen in a fire drill, if they need to evacuate the classroom because another child is playing up, on a school trip where safety is important? I don’t think the DC should be punished for being unable to follow instructions due to a disability but I can’t see how they can function in a large school unless they can somehow find a way to manage around situations like this.

@metellaestinatrio

Thank you for your appreciation of how challenging it is for teachers.

Parents of children with SEN are rightfully always going to want to fight for their kids and their access to an equal education.

But the reality is, we are in a position now where increasing numbers of children are being diagnosed with SEN, and where you might ten or fifteen years ago have had only two or three children in an entire year group diagnosed with SEN, and maybe only two or three in a whole school with an EHCP, many of us in large secondaries now work in environments where we might have six or seven children in a class with diagnosed SEN, along with a couple of others with SEMH issues, and upwards of 20 in the whole school with EHCPs.

We've just had end of year exams - in one year group of 100 students, we had more children in the extra time and accommodations rooms than we did in the main hall.

It is becoming HUGELY challenging in schools with the numbers of children being diagnosed with SEN. So while parents will always rightfully advocate, they do also need to be realistic about what schools can reasonably offer, and how much information about their child individual teachers can reasonably retain - and be able to put into practice.

If I'm on lunch duty and I'm involved in a situation as in the OP's post, where a child is swearing and being obstructive, and I don't teach that child, I'm never going to have seen their learning support plan, I'm not going to know they have SEN - I have 100+ students of my own in my head - I haven't got space to have the needs of the other 500 I don't teach in my head too. Parents need to understand this.

I absolutely agree, by the way, that the situation was not well handled by the school in this case.

But I do think it's important that parents understand that schools face huge challenges when it comes to managing the increasingly complex needs of cohorts where more and more children are being diagnosed with SEN, with no increase in funds or training to support them. We do our best, but sometimes we do get it wrong, because in an average school, only the SENCO is an expert on SEN and the rest of us are just muddling our way through as best we can.

Another example of how many schools would rather deal with the easy problems rather than solving real issues.

Your DS has been punished for saying a bad word to a group behaving like animals towards him and they get off scot free.

You are absolutely right to complain and I would be taking it all the way.

An alternative approach for OP’s DS, and your daughter, would be to loudly tell the offenders to stop without swearing. That way there is no fault whatsoever on their side and only the throwers should be punished. I appreciate in the situation OP’s DS found himself in he reacted instinctively and it is easy to understand why, but if you are role modelling situations with your daughter surely that would be a better suggestion than recommending she tell people to fuck off when you know that will get her into trouble too?

The teachers’ profession is to teach i.e. impart knowledge to pupils. That seems to be largely forgotten nowadays when they are expected to act as social workers, psychotherapists, health visitors, nurses and goodness knows what else for a not very good salary. They dealt with the situation as best they could in the moment. They were trying to de-escalate but it didn’t work. This is not OP’s DS’s fault and he should not be punished for it, but let’s stop having a go at the overworked and underpaid teachers who have a whole
school of children to manage and somehow try to educate.

Sure. That wouldn't lead to getting the piss taken out of them even more. People throwing food at them and they reply "stop it" in their best "I'm being assertive" voice. Maybe round where you live, but certainly not in my world. "Get to fuck you wee scabby wanker" or similar, on the other hand, usually works a treat. Im thinking the fact that the teachers didn't feel the need to deal harshly with a group of kids publically humiliating another child by repeatedly throwing food at them, when the victim was doing nothing but sitting minding their own business, suggests the OP lives in a world closer to mine than yours.