Autistic child attacking DD part 2

[HollandAndCooper]

Original thread here:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5420774-autistic-child-attacking-dd?utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=app_share

Hi Everyone,

me back again looking for advice, perhaps some last minute advice as I have a meeting scheduled with the head teacher this morning.

DD aged 4 has been very unwell and spent a week off school. She is really going through it at the moment. She returned to school yesterday after her time off, and I'd hoped that the boy in question would've got bored and moved on. I did have a meeting booked last week but couldn't go due to DD being poorly.

well.. it turns out he hasn't got bored and moved on. It's a very small school with 20-25 per class, one class per year from reception to year 2.

the event that happened yesterday, by DDs account.
it was play time and DD was playing with a couple other girls in the play ground. Child in question was calling DD names like 'baby' and 'you need nappies' and announced he was going to the toilet.
he came back out and proceeded to have faeces on his finger to which he wiped on her cardigan.

a staff member took her to the quiet room, swapped her cardigan for one in lost property and the cardigan was handed to me in a bag on pick up. With still an evident stain on it.

i have a meeting this morning.

I have a copy of the safe guarding policy, anti bullying policy. I just need some wise words from MN now with what I need to say but I'm going down the route of failing to keep my child safe, and this is a huge safeguarding issue, not to mention a biohazard issue.
please be kind, I'm a single parent doing my best, and she won't be returning until she is safe.

so far the child has:
kicked, punched, pinched, clouted her on the head with a metal water bottle, name called and taunted. And now this.

she will not be going back to the school until this is sorted and there are proper sanctions in place. I am so angry and utterly heartbroken for her. She has been so poorly last week and in and out of hospital and I cannot see her broken like this anymore.

i appreciate the old thread is 1000 posts but there's more information on there if needed.
My AIBU is I guess to want this child excluded and put as far away from DD as possible. But I know it's not that simple. I'm at a total loss and they are failing to safe guard my child. She will not be returning until she can be safe, I'm also looking at other provisions for her now.
thanks in advance.

I'm not disputing what you say but that's not the case in my sons special school, it's a school for children with severe and profound learning disabilities some of the children are very verbal, some have limited speech and some like my son are completely non verbal.

We were actually told that teachers and not paediatricians are the experts of children with SEND.

The thing I hate is the buck passing. You can have a child with very early delays from the age of a few months but parents get fobbed off, told their child will be absolutely fine in mainstream with no support and of course they don't need an EHCP, who on earth mentioned that? Notification of SEN assessments can be very imaginative in their interpretation of scores - severe s&l delays and motor skills are suddenly average and average cognitive scores can get interpreted as a mild cognitive delay.

Then of course schools are fed up with this. And when the LA do eventually fund something they say it's the school's fault. It's such a mess.

It can take years to get any tutoring at all in some LAs.

All sadly true. 'Of course mum worries' they say, and I so hate being 'mum' rather than having a name, don't you? How much effort does it take to say 'what should I call you?' But that's a whole different hobby horse!

Oh God the whole mum thing ,every meeting I go to I'm mum, what goes mum think etc
Agree why can't they just ask what you would like to be addressed as?

That's good to hear.

The last campus where I worked did have a special school where there were some older children who could communicate verbally, but the one that I mentioned is definitely only taking non-verbal children. (It's the same LA.) Thinking about it, all the younger children in the last campus were non-verbal only - it took children from age 4 to 16.

The LA has definitely cut back on places in special schools. We used to have a larger than usual number of children on the spectrum in my last school. (Mainstream.)

This was because our secondary school was smaller than most in the region and parents would choose to send their children to us. Most did well, but resourcing was always a problem.

We had one pupil had separate accommodation for exam purposes but was expected to sit in ordinary classes otherwise. She was high-functioning and didn't have her own TA. She was given a time-out card to let her go the support base, but I'd often find myself getting a call to go look for her in the building.

Usually, she'd have become overwhelmed and would have sought refuge in one of the toilet blocks.

In the 18 yrs that I taught at the school, I can only think of one autistic pupil who had his own TA. He did cope in mainstream classes, though we adapted the work as best as we could. Sensory issues were a problem for him.

Our main difficulty was the region trying to force schools (and families) to do more and more with less money.

We had one pupil who was high-functioning and violent towards staff. (Male staff had to remove their ties when around him - he'd use them to throttle them.) In the end, it was agreed that he could move to another mainstream school which had sufficient staffing to allow him to work in the support base all day.

Yes, we absolutely need schools which meet a wide range of specialist needs.
Some children don't fit into the PMLD/SLD/ASD/PD/SEMH boxes, some have combinations of these, some don't fit the 'typical' presentation for their identified need. No idea where funding comes for this though.

Yes, absolutely agree with you, many of the families I work with are inspirational in their knowledge, skill, patience and perseverance within a clunky system.

May I just say that so are some of the staff who fight the odds? I've sat and sobbed when some of them moved on, retired, and sadly burnt out and had to change careers. I won't mention what I've done when others have left. It wouldn't be nice!

As one of those staff who fight every day to try to get the children on my caseload what they need, despite complaints being made to my manager by other services that I am 'too pushy' I agree. At the end of the day, I get to go home to my children who have it so much easier than most of the children I work with, so I count myself very privileged.

Yes, there are lots of professionals who go above and beyond for the children they work with, working hundreds of unpaid hours and trying to break down barriers for them and their families. Who keep going in the midst of an overwhelmed system at significant personal cost to their own families, lives and mental health.

Yes, so many parents are getting serious health conditions from the fighting and gaslighting that they face. Parents asking for social care support often find themselves subject to scrutiny and investigation instead and everything is interpreted through a safeguarding rather than disability lens. Appeal after appeal but provision is only partially delivered. Every part of the system is overwhelmed.

100% I have developed CFS since starting the battle to get my son what he needs and I'm now also being assessed for dysautonomic conditions when repeated cortisol tests show extremely elevated levels of cortisol, my joints are playing up, and I get heart palpitations randomly throughout the day that make me feel like I'm having a heart attack.

It's a cruel and punitive system.

But SEN schools work on economies of scale and expecting micro schools which cater for such an array of (tbh poorly understood) conditions to be within a 10 mile radius of every home is unrealistic. I know it sounds ‘mean’ but there has to be some acknowledgment of this surely?

Some children get EOTAS packages now, home tuition and other things, can that be a better option for children who need quite specialist provision?

In my experience, home tuition was a poor alternative to full time education. The LA deemed that 1 hour a day was appropriate until I fought against it along with my son's school.

It was temporary in my son's case as we were waiting for his EHCP but it was far from good enough.

1 hour a day is appalling! I know 1-1 tuition is more intensive, but I would think you'd need at least 3-4 hours a day for it to be equivalent to full time schooling.

It's also very isolating which may be necessary for some children or wanted due to their particular circumstances but my son was miserable and hated every minute of it.

I'm so sorry to hear that 💐 I hope things are better for him now?

Much better thanks. He has his EHCP and 2:1 TA support and is very happy at school.

That's great 😊

Honest to god, most of our primary classes fit this description. Except that our numbers of children with varying issues are actually higher. It's almost unbelievable except this is where we are. And the backgrounds and trauma some of them have experienced would make most people cry.

EOTAS often costs a fortune as do expensive placements. If LAs put provision in place in the first place they wouldn't be forking out £100k+ packages. Which means no money for early intervention and support. Which in turn leads to expensive packages.The wrong provision often leads to expensive placements in residential school
or worse residential care (£300k ish?). And many people aren't able to navigate legal processes by themselves unless they can afford solicitors.

As a parent you get told that your child can't get support because the greedy middle class parents with their solicitors are taking the money away from children who need support. And of course their children don't really need an EHCP. And if you do then fight for support you are put in the greedy neurotic mum bracket (as it's always the mum). It's all completely bonkers.

The inconvenient fact is no right-minded parent will EVER offer their child’s mental health, physical health, and education so that another vulnerable child can practice on them while they learn how to function in society. Those who have an extreme belief in inclusion might deeply wish parents would sacrifice their kids in the name of this ideal, but it won’t happen. Not even if you call us names and shriek about how cruel and unkind we are about disabilities. Pause for a moment, and just think about what you’re asking. And if you still think that’s a reasonable request, fuck off.

And as a parent, I also agree with this.

I had to move one of my children for similar reasons to the OP's over 10 years ago: a bullying child was targeting mine. An entitled bully with likely ADHD who the school couldn't/wouldn't support appropriately and deal with their behaviour and a set of parents who thought he could do no wrong. The bullying child who was allowed to carry on with his shitty behaviour ... and went on to be charged with a violent crime against a teenage girl when he hit his teenage years. No surprise in this house.

Sorry to hear that. It seems that loads of parents get fibromyalgia and CFS, C PTSD, heart issues because of institutional trauma. Nobody tells you when you go into this that you could get really ill.

I'm so sorry, it sounds like such a nightmare dealing with LEAs. 💐

@HopeMumsnet I would point out that (I) we have no no evidence that this child has a diagnosis, and at that stage he is quite unlikely to unless he has very profound disabilities, which is not in line with the story from the OP and (II) are you going to go through and delete all the misogynistic comments that suggest this little girl should just deal with it or excuse the bullying and physical assault? No, didn’t think so, massive, massive double standards!

It's not a way to talk about a 4 year old though. He's only a little boy.