Autistic child attacking DD

[HollandAndCooper]

Hi all,

just looking for advice re the above. DD started reception at the beginning of September. She's a confident child and had no issues starting until recently.

3 times in the last 2 weeks an autistic boy has assaulted and attacked DD.
the first occasion was pinching her on her cheek leaving a mark and bruise. She was climbing on the adventure frame in the playground when this happened. Totally unprovoked.
the second occasion, he kicked her on her shin leaving a horrible bruise.
3rd occasion (today) the child in question has hit DD on her head so hard it's left a mark.

I picked her up and she was utterly hysterical.

I am so incredibly angry. I know this child has SEN but as a lot of you will relate, when someone attacks and hurts your child it rages you like nothing else. The first occasion I was angry but as understanding as can be. Now 2 and 3 more times have happened, I'm losing my patience.

it's a very small and Intimate village school, one class per year and is only reception - y2. There is no where else for the boy to go in the school because of this.

all incidents have been noted but I've now demanded a safeguarding investigation take place as he's gunning for my DD. I've been told they're doing their best to 'keep them apart.' My daughter doesn't need to be kept apart from anybody, he needs keeping away from her.

i know who the mum is. At drop off whilst waiting for the gates to be opened this child constantly presses on the intercom, bangs and punches the notice board. The mum just stands there and doesn't say anything. I know conventional discipline won't work with all SEN children, but do I speak to the mum about this? I am so angry that my 4 year old little girl cannot have her right to a safe learning environment due to this child. I have no idea if he's attacked other children.

please don't take this as a thread to hate on SEN. I am neurodiverse myself, and DD most probably is to and is on the correct pathways.

has anyone else been through this, does anyone have any advice? In reality I'd like the boy to be expelled as we're 4 weeks into her schooling life and my daughter has been assaulted 3 times. But who am I to demand that.

im at a loss on what to do. My confident, happy little girl who has loved going to school is now getting upset at drop off and is hysterical at pick up. I'm just heartbroken for her.

I know fights and scraps are normal for young kids, but this is not in the realms of normal.

any advice will be greatly received.

thank you

Because it can be hugely difficult to manage and sit still for some if you have it

They won’t exclude him. I know people have commented saying they know of reception children who have been excluded - I’m not denying that this can happen. But I’ve worked for schools and for the LA in the field of SEN for my entire career and it is extremely rare, extremely difficult and considered very, very poor of schools to exclude EYFS and KS1 children at all let alone EYFS and KS1 children with diagnosed SEN. If his mum seems at the end of her tether, there may well also be social services involvement and this adds yet another layer of ‘excluding this very vulnerable child is a big no-no.’ In my entire career, having worked with thousands of children with SEN, I can count the number of EYFS and KS1 children who were permanently excluded on both hands. Most of them had been involved in incidents of violence beyond what your DD has very sadly endured - repeated incidents of attempting to stab people with sharp implements like scissors, attempting to strangle people with implements like ropes etc, forcing objects into people’s mouths to choke them. I’ve worked with heads longing to permanently exclude children whose violence towards staff and peers has led to upwards of ten children moving school and six TAs leaving, but the heads still feel as though their hands are tied due to how poorly that decision is considered.
I’m not going to give my opinion or get into a back and forth of whether it is right or wrong to not permanently exclude these children, I’m just giving you this information to prep you. The school will almost definitely not exclude him at this stage so you need to shift focus. Do not press for that in the meeting because it’ll just muddy the waters, staff will probably go a bit prickly as they all do when exclusion gets mentioned and they won’t be able to discuss anything about the boy with you anyway. Continue to press for concrete, explicit examples of how they will safeguard your daughter and get these in writing. The school will likely be applying for emergency funding for him until they get some proper funding. The outcome will probably be him spending minimal time in the classroom and majority of time elsewhere with a TA - possibly your daughter’s class TA if they can’t afford an additional staff member.
Ultimately, be prepared to move school and try again. It is so difficult for everyone involved.

This was our experience. It took an incident of very extreme violence (not directed to DS) for the child to be excluded and sent to an alternative provision.

I genuinely believe he was psychologically disturbed.

His mum was a single parent, his sister was a lovely youngster, but the father was problematic. And not on the scene. I often wonder if he had inherited something from his father.

My daughter and her classmates had this trouble with a boy with suspected adhd/not sure really but I was always having words with the teachers about his violent outbursts. My daughter was always made to sit next to him as she was well behaved so wanted him next to someone he couldn’t mess on with. However he would be violent with her, stamping on her shoes, putting her bag on the floor and grabbing her foot to rub on the bag, spitting on her things. Also throwing chairs out the classroom, honestly I could go on forever. He was a nightmare. Kids like this shouldn’t be a classroom disrupting and upsetting the kids wanting to learn and behaving, it’s not fair on them. I sympathise with the parents I really do, but surely they should be somewhere else that can deal with behavior like that.

"But I’ve worked for schools and for the LA in the field of SEN for my entire career and it is extremely rare, extremely difficult and considered very, very poor of schools to exclude EYFS and KS1 children at all let alone EYFS and KS1 children with diagnosed SEN."

Schools get round this by putting pressure on the parents to remove the child themselves to "avoid an exclusion on the child's record".

Evidence for this and how exactly?

Stop telling on yourself.

"Evidence for this and how exactly?"

Have you never heard of off rolling?

It happened to the 6 year child of someone I know well. The child had a diagnosis of autism before they started school. The parents were told they should consider home educating to avoid a permanent exclusion and when they said they didn't want to home educate, the child was excluded.

When the parents requested all the school records on their child it was in those notes this had happened, school thinking this was an ok thing to do

Call me old fashioned but any grown adult who’s calling someone else’s 4 year old names, deserves a kick.

Are you telling me you’d be okay with grown ups calling your child names?

I’d argue that calling children arseholes is embarrassing, and any mother worth their salt would defend their child being called names by grown adults.

There isn’t a person on this thread wouldn’t be offended if someone called their kid some of the things that I’ve seen here.

It is not appropriate to call children shitty names. They’re children.

All good parents defend their children, even the ones with difficult kids.

😂😂

Okay.

Exactly. SEND parents want to protect their children too.

Children can be capable of criminal behaviour.

I don't call children names but it's factually that this human, who happens to be young, is a violent individual from whom society needs to be protected - in this instance his classmates. SEN should be utterly irrelevant to his removal of school environment but I know it's not. It sounds like this child has poor character issues in addition to health driven behaviour, but regardless of why he is behaving like this no educational rights of his should trump his classmates rights to be safe.

They can’t be criminals under the age of 10. There’s no point ringing the police for example, it won’t help.

I have absolutely no issue holding children to account for their actions, however that looks and however that works for them. For example, we have to physically restrain our son sometimes, and I take no issue with school doing the same thing to keep others safe.

Any parent having legitimate concerns about the safety and wellbeing of their child isn’t in the wrong.

I’d absolutely tolerate another parent expecting our son to not attack their child, and not wanting him near their child when he’s in crisis or behaving aggressively. In fact I’d recommend exactly that, give him the widest berth possible.

I absolutely wouldn’t tolerate any adult calling him names, because no reasonable parent would.

If SEND was irrelevant then SEND children would be vulnerable to discrimination within the education system due to their disability.

This child is also only 4 and shouldn't be immediately written off, especially since it doesn't seem like he has any support in place. Yes, he is violent but that doesn't mean he always will be with the correct support in place.

It's not about being written off. Being removed from an environment where the child harms others doesn't mean they will receive no further assistance in life, or not be given any further opportunities.

I do strongly believe though that the safety of others should trump all and if the child is a continuous risk, and the school has no resources to provide them with 1-on-1 support, then the rights of others trump theirs. Not all rights are equal, and a right yo education sits below a right to safety.

Pencil in the face is a bit extreme!

Assistance takes time, too much time. A SEND child can't be out of education until somewhere appropriate comes up because that would mean legally removing their right to an education, not to mention the fact that it can potentially take years.

Removing a child should be a last resort, especially a young disabled child with no support in place. It's also even harder for a SEND child to receive support or gain access to a special school if they aren't going to school in the first place and especially if a parent off roles them, the LA loves it if a SEND parent falls in to that trap because the LA can legally wash their hands of the child.

Agreed!!
We were along the lines of deterrent/empowering our child not to feel like she had to be a helpless victim and was very much allowed to fight back. They were along the lines of there needing to be a fairly extreme act or injury in order to force a change.

Parents of NT DC in early years education are feeling the consequences of policies that delay appropriate support for DC with additional needs.

DC with additional needs who cannot cope with mainstream at all and DC who can only cope with mainstream with 1:1 support are being badly failed with a knock on consequence to NT DC. Wait and see policy means that action is only taken in response to evidence of failure. Because an autistic DC with severe need with no support might just need the environment of school to cure them. Nice magical thinking but in reality it will be awful for them and awful for their classmates. And then take years to obtain appropriate provision.

Inclusion is the policy from the education department to the LA to the school. And is laudable as long as it is funded. ATM we have inclusion without funding in mainstream without access to alternative schooling without a long process.

This means that an autistic 4 year old with poor behavioural impulse will be in a class with your child. They have an equal right to education. Off rolling is illegal exclusion. It is required that a child with known or suspected additional needs has those needs met before exclusion is even considered.

My DC are now adults but I remember the posts not understanding that parents of NT DC not realising the impact that these policies would have - this doesn’t effect me ….

But instead of supporting those with SN DC to oppose policies they now project their anger toward 4 year old autistic DC and their parents.

Maybe a kick or a punch but a pencil near the eye or potentially in the eye is a bit OTT.

Some of the comments here are insane. Your daughter is being hurt at school so "protect her by removing her". This child is doing nothing wrong. Why should she taken out of school?

The other child however, SEN or no SEN, is attacking and hurting her. That child should be removed. Immediately. NO child should be hurt at school and have to either put up with it or leave. That is insane.

It happened in my daughter's school. A child with SEN was attacking kids on the daily. He was removed and rightly so. My concern is not where that child will go or what education he will get. My concern is my daughter, her wellbeing and her not getting her nose broken again. He is gone and I could not be happier. My child is now able to go to school without being viciously attacked. All the other kids he terrorised too can now have an education and not be terrified to go in.

28 kids V 1?

28 kids trumps it.

I am so sorry for all those people who have to send their kids in with a child like this in the class. It's bloody soul destroying when nothing is done and you are told you have to suck it up because of "illegal exclusion".

I couldn't care less where he goes. He should be removed. End of. NO child should have to endure injuries to ensure another kid who is violent goes to school. I have no idea how parents, knowing their child has severely injured another child willingly sends them into school every day to do the same.