To think this is completely unacceptable - school exclusions?

[Spewathon]

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/jul/10/rise-in-school-exclusions-in-england-including-among-children-under-six

Sometimes exclusion gets you more support, as you might jump to the top of many waiting lists.

Schools have so little funding to deal with everything they are faced with

The reception teacher at my kids school has just given up after two very difficult years of ridiculous behaviour and high needs kids. Has had enough, can’t do it anymore. After 15-20 years of teaching that age group. The issue is the kids. They are more violent, needy and badly behaved than ever.

Kids aren’t allowed to watch violent films and yet they are expected to tolerate being in a class with classmates chucking chairs at them. Violent kids do not belong in mainstream schools and need to be removed elsewhere permanently. This is a massive reason behind my children’s anxiety.

Schools are incredibly tolerant, more so than many other places would be and rightly so as they try to support children to improve their behaviour. However, it is only right, fair and sensible that if they continue to be violent they must not be allowed to continue disrupting the learning of others. Parents need to start taking far more responsibility and they need to get their child off screens. The damage from them is horrendous and we are sleepwalking into a world where children just have no idea to behave when not sitting in front of one.

Most children being able to cope in mainstream is a money saving lie.

Ideally these kids would have alternative provision to go to but I suspect that schools have to create a paper trail with exclusions etc before the LEA consider alternative provision.

We have a sharp rise in school refusal, a plummet is behaviour and teachers are leaving in droves because of the lie that most kids cope in mainstream. The reality is that the other children in class and the staff have a very difficult time coping with needs that they aren’t trained to deal with.

Children are asked to tolerate behaviour that adults in the workplace generally aren’t expected to cope with. But everybody (including the violent child) are stuck in a situation that would be dealt with police or paramedics in a workplace.

This is what happens when wonderful things like SureStart and HomeStart are cut to the bone. This is what happens when two parents have to work full time and leave their children in nurseries that can barely make ends meet because of government cuts. This is what happens when children are left floundering with no help or support until they go to school and the patterns are entrenched. Schools bloody well do their best, but they can't work miracles.

What @Fearfulsaints said. Years of austerity, lack of early years provision and other supporting services have led us to this. It may have been a vote winner but it was incredibly short sighted. Investment in early years and tackling poverty for in childhood is essential for a functioning society. Unfortunately they do not vote so better to focus on pensions, bus passes and the fuel allowance.....

At my children's primary school I know of one boy suspended for 3 days in Reception. This was because he tried to stab my child with a dinner knife and was screaming I'll kill you I'll stab you in the heart. He was fighting TAs to get to her. The trigger was she didn't want to sit next to him and wanted to sit with her friends. He was a very damaged little boy who is adopted after witnessing terrible violence between his parents. His adoptive mother was desperate for help and so apologetic to us and didn't blame the school at all. This boy desperately needed a special school but SEMH places are in short supply and kids are just expected to manage in mainstream and staff just expected to manage them and keep teaching the other 29 kids. Several years on he is at a special school and thriving by all accounts. But it was a desperate and frightening time for everyone

My nephew was suspended for throwing chairs in the classroom This was about the third time he has done it, after starting with throwing books and pens. He has ADHD but this is more than that, he will say "if you don't do X I will throw this". All the methods tried didn't work to manage him and he probably also needs SEMH provision. Whether he will ever get it is another matter

Another here that thinks it's time schools had the power to start clamping down especially if bad/violent behaviour.

Teachers do so much more than just teach nowadays, taking on more and more, which isn't even in their job criteria.

Unless you choose to educate your DC at home it's law that they go to school, in doing so it's because a majority of parents want their DC to get some kind of education and don't have the means, or time to home educate their own DC.

School is no place for violence, of any kind....at any age.

School isn't a place where decent children go to be educated but instead get bullied by those DC that are incapable of keeping their hands to themselves.

School isn't a place where children get to set their sights on another DC and make their life hell.

School isn't a place where a person has trained for years at uni only to find themselves having to pacify some child that's incapable of controlling their anger and hurting others instead of doing a job they wanted.

For to long school staff have had to pussy foot around, having to be concerned as to whether they're going to upset parents who's DC are the cause of the upset.
It's time that they made a stand and got back to being there for the job they're employed to do, educate our DC.

These young children don't stay young all their lives, characters are set while young, they're all born knowing nothing...

As a starting point, it's not the system that is to blame.

My daughter has started her first teaching post in a secondary school, a few weeks ago. She has already been reduced to tears when she tried to stop a fight in her tutor group and was called the C word. I wonder if the parents are proud.

There should be more exclusions in primary.Maybe then they would get used to consequences before secondary

@hellotomrw so violent and aggressive to other children and staff?
Yes agree, stressful and awful for you, but having a child who was the recipient of these 'lash outs' I struggle with being expected to make the child who is assaulting mine the priority as was expected by school because of 'issues'.

I work in a mainstream school and I'm the parent of a child who has now gone to a specialist school after being a disruptive child at his mainstream school. He should have been placed elsewhere years ago but sadly governments are so focussed on "inclusion" into mainstream for all SEN kids that it results in a set up that's detrimental to both those SEN kids and the rest of the class around then trying to get on with learning. The situation as it stands is bonkers. What's needed is more specialist schools and units for SEN children whose needs are greatest. And more early years and family support to help parents and families to avoid behavioural issues forming in families without SEN due to medical needs or diagnoses but due to behavioural issues for other reasons.

Alternate provision in special schools is prohibitively expensive though. Given the sheer number of these children now, it just isn't feasible.
The taboo is this. Maybe there comes a point where a full time education for people who are not getting any educational benefit but costing the taxpayer £70000 + a year is just not sustainable?

Absolutely.

DS4 starts in Sept and there was a violent child in the stay and play session. Staff were even surprised. He nearly yanked a child off the climbing apparatus but parent caught him. He shouted at the teachers when they tried to stop him. I dread to think my son's first view of school will be with that kid in his class.

My son’s school have cracked down on behaviour and the result is Sen children being excluded. Disruption for them, leaving them more disregulated and still doesn’t lead to increased support or a more appropriate school.

A child in DD’s class was excluded from his previous school in reception. He’s incredibly volatile and violent, throws chairs, tries to stab teachers, steals, jumps on tables. We had the loveliest group of kids for a while, calm, funny, mutually caring and respectful, kids with various needs all being well managed. And then half way through the year he lands and they’re being evacuated on a regular basis, he’s unpredictable, no one wants to be friends with him as he’s attacked several of the girls and you never know when he’s going to kick off. It’s crap. I’m sure he’s very unhappy but his mum doesn’t seem to give a shit, the teachers are strung out and the parents aren’t happy. Especially the parents of two diagnosed autistic children who were thriving in a calm ordered environment and now hate the unpredictable atmosphere.

The majority of parents just want to be able to drop their children at school knowing they will be safe. But it’s become an increasing problem that other children with SEN will behave aggressively towards their peers and the staff. There’s also a danger that primary aged school children who are impressionable at that age might start to display misbehaviour too because they are witnessing something that starts to become a normal daily event. The problem is not enough special schools to facilitate SEN children, who need to be segregated from pupils who want to learn and be safe from physical and verbal attacks.

How are things for the other kids?

And the non-SEN violent kids? Do they not get excluded?

But a few decades ago there was little, if any, early years provision and supporting services, and schools hardly experienced any of the poor behaviour now displayed in our schools. I think it’s just lack of boundaries and discipline both in the school and at home. Maybe introduction of more parenting support services, where parents can be taught how to set boundaries and raise children to be respectful of rules and people around them?

I think there are far too few exclusions and that schools seemingly keep pupils in for far to long disturbing lessons, physically and mentally harming other pupils.

So much oh but but but while 29 other students learn nothing. While 29 other students have to evacuate the class room as once again Tommy is throwing chairs around.

Yes Daisy keeps hitting her peers and stabbing people with pencils. Yes she did strangle another pupil. Daisy is still in school and all the other children fear her. The whole playground tip toe around her.

Exclude expel. Stop letting shitty behaved children ruin learning for the rest of the class.

Our school newsletters mention pupils swearing every single week. I mean if a parent can’t even stop a child swearing when dropping them off at primary there is zero hope.

I work in an LA with school exclusions, I have been involved with an early years exclusion.

One thing I see is it’s certainly not schools generally being intolerant. They are producing amazing amounts of support, plans and adaptations like they never did before.

The younger ones have been send/ high needs/ highly vulnerable backgrounds in simply unsuitable placements. Needs manifesting in extreme Violence towards themselves, staff and peers that was containable two to one in mainstream. Basically very very sad and extreme circumstances that cut across things like DV alongside autism, neglect and homelessness all at once. The level of need for a significant few is so so high, yet whole boroughs have no SEMH special placements for primary, or even enough for autism.

I have only done one primary level exclusion where the school and parents weren’t in an agreement it was the only way to force a suitable placement being found in a desperate situation. It changes at secondary, but primary ones tend to just be a desperate act to make the LA adress unmet needs. Sad cases, not naught cases