Teacher carrying 9yo into school.

[ChitterChatter1987]

My eldest daughter (Year 5) is becoming really tricky to get into school some days, particularly Mondays.
She has a male teacher for the first time this year, who she seems to get on well with and speaks positively about.She had specifically asked to have him despite often generally being abit more fearful of males than females.He is popular with kids and parents and is fairly young and laid back, quite playful and enthusiastic in his approach.

A couple of times he has come out when we have had issues getting her in recently and has verbally managed to persuade DD to go in by giving an incentive etc which has worked well, but today despite him trying this and offering good solutions to her worries, she just would not go in, and went outside the office reception and sat down refusing to move.
He suggested out of earshot for me to go as maybe me being there was making her more reluctant, which i agree was probably true as maybe then she thinks she might be able to come home.

I walked off up the path and left him negotiating with her outside as he had advised, however then looked back and saw him fireman carrying her into the building.
Now I totally get it's a hard sitiation knowing how to get her in,and appreciate he has a class to teach, so can't stand outside negotiating with her for ages, and there is a possibility she was okay with him lifting her in and it was a fun game (although I would be surprised as she isn't really a tactile child with anyone other than me and sometimes her dad and sister) If someone had done that with my 5yo, unless she was kicking and screaming in upset, I probably wouldn't think much of it tbh, but with her being older on the cusp of puberty, him being male, and also her having ASD and not liking physical touch, it just feels like it might be quite humiliating for her and abit forceful and inappropriate, despite it being meant as a playful gesture to get her to go in.
We always try to teach her body autonomy, that nobody should touch her including hugs etc without her wanting them to, so i just worry that this is going against that, especially with him being an adult male.
She is quite a young 9.5, and fairly small for her age, so not sure he would have done it otherwise, but despite that she is still the age she is.

My plan is I will speak to her later and see if she was okay with it or not, and if not ask for a meeting with school, asking them to not do it again and discussing alternative methods to get her into school.

What are others thoughts on this practice? If anyone else has experienced something similar, or has any ideas of alternative ways to get her into school i would be grateful for your input!

@FriggadyDiggady

Exactly.
How bizarre, the whole situation.

I think when people hark back to the olden days they forget it was very easy for children to effectively disappear. There weren’t the same stringent standards of safeguarding for one, there weren’t the same pressures relating to results and to attendance targets and so a lot of children just went off grid. I know that still happens before anyone points that out!

50 years ago, OP's child would probably be in a specialist school to be fair.

I cannot get how she was sitting outside the office reception.
But then he lifted her into the building ?
It doesn’t make any sense.

In my opinion his unorthodox approach could have been easily misinterpreted and created all sorts of problems plus I'm surprised he had the time when, presumably, he had the rest of his class waiting for him.

If the child refused to go into class , despite his efforts, then his time , energy and focus was needed elsewhere and she was somebody else's problem.

There are times when you need to play things "by the book", no pun intended.

Being overly creative just makes it difficult for yourself - I suspect he'll think twice about doing that again.

The rights of the many outweigh the rights of the few.

Unfortunately this country can no longer fund all these children with attention issues. It has to fall back on the parents and families now.

Harsh but it is the future now. Time to wake up and see it.

I'd like to point out to all those harrumphing about how this sort of thing never happened back in the day - it absolutely did. Several times a week for most of my primary school career I used to go in for registration and out through a hole in the fence at break. I wasn't the only one either!
I'm on the fence with this - not because l think what he did was wrong, but because he could get into all sorts of trouble over it and it's not a sustainable method of getting the kid into class, especially if they enjoy the fuss and want to do it every time ...

Though to be fair, that doesn't seem to be the situation in OP's case

He has a right to an education and the education is available.

He is not getting an education harming himself in the school office, so come off that one right now.

What's more, other children are not getting an education while this fracas is going on.

I've told you as to how you, as a parent, can deal with this so I have no idea why you're asking again but-in a nutshell-it is your responsibility to look after your child when they are in this state-not the responsibility of untrained teachers, T.A. s and admin staff. I can't see why, for the life of me, you think it is their job, their responsibility and not yours..

If you think another school should be built or a place found elsewhere for your son, then you may be right but in the meantime-Down to You and Over to You.

No mainstream teacher or office staff should have to deal with a child, as you describe, banging their head for two hours and clawing their face until they bleed. NOT ON.

It is your responsibility. I don't know if it is legally but morally it certainly is and why you wouldn't want to take your distressed and self harming child home in these circumstances is beyond my ken.

You don't think it is. Enough said.

About 2% of the school population went to a special school. There were not many of them.
Others who were in a mainstream school had special classes usually the bottom set and did things a bit differently. But that was all.

Exactly the stance I would take. They would behave like this once. I won't say which professions my children are in but needless to say they are stable members of society who say they had a wonderful childhood. Unless the child is seriously neurodiverse then there has to be strict guidelines as to what is acceptable & unacceptable behaviour.

I've already described everything our school do.

Our school dedicate their TAs to getting children into the classroom, they provide soft starts taylored to any child who is struggling. They have an SEN lead who spends time getting to know the children and implements little ways to make them feel safe.

My son goes to school everyday because of the wonderful teachers at his school and the systems they have in place to make him feel safe.

There's another child in his class who went to a different school first and spent a year banging his head off a floor in an isolation room while a TA supervised and could do nothing.

Our school he has his mum accompany him part way in, he has a TA who meets him at an early drop off and takes him to the classroom where he has an activity he can do while the rest of the class filters in, the whole class has a soft start, a first bell when they can go in but don't have to and a second bell when they're expected to be in the classroom. Removing lining up to go I to class mad ea huge difference. If my son had had to line up before going on, making a bigger deal for he transition there's no way I'd ever have gotten him in n

Then you have the issue that the more negative experiences they have the more afraid they are and the harder it becomes to attend.

There are loads of accommodations that are very easy and not expensive to implement that lead to a school like ours that has all their SEN pupils managing to take part in class and a school like my friends son left where kids are non attending and leaving by P2 after constant trauma.

I don't know this child but for my son the accomodations look like a silent fidget he has access to in intensive listening parts of class to help him stay still, a wobble cushion to make his seat more comfortable, he arrives 5 mins early and a ta takes him to the classroom where he can build Lego until second bell, if he's struggling to go in that same TA is on hand to help him through the door the vast majority of the time, he has a timer for worksheets as he struggles to stay on task where he turns the timer over starts his sheet, works till it's empty, turns it over and rests until it's empty then turns it over again. Which has been the difference in him crying over worksheets and always completing his work.

If you aren't happy then you need to deal with it yourself. And either carry her into scool or take her home. Maybe you should concentratea bit more on teaching her good behaviour. Is home schooling an option.

Having a child with a fairly complex SEN range of diagnoses myself, despite being in mainstream education, I would say if she wasn't fighting and screaming, to accept his approach.

My DC has teetered on the edge of school refusal before and having had young relatives that have tipped over into this (which has then MASSIVELY damaged their life chances), I would say that you should accept anything that works.

I would very much big up Mr X to your child and say how great it was that he made going into school into a game. If you tip-toe around her too much, you're risking pandering to some degree of acceptance of her school avoidance.

I don't mean to diminish your concern, but the options available to children who refuse school are worse than dire. You'd likely have to home school because EOTAS is only awarded to the very very most extreme cases. Which would put the kibosh on your ability to work.

The lack of real friends is hard. But ASD does make friendships difficult and would possibly become even more so if she wasn't in a school environment.

I remember one girl coming to school in her nightie once. But that was because of her mother, not the child. Her mother was unable to manage really. Her mum was the issue.

Legally, it is the LA's responsibility to find alternate provision which can take years. Until that point, many parents have no choice but to continue to attempt mainstream because if they are deregistered, it then does become the parents responsibility but a parent can't get a child into alternate provision including specialist schools, only LA's can make that decision.

I went to school in the 80s, I was miles ahead of my class and as such would 'daydream' so I got to do the next year ups work and 2 years ups work, if I couldn't cope with the noise from other kids I could do that work in the older kids classroom, my teacher arranged for a mobile library to come to my house, would I have coped in a modern classroom? Maybe not, I was incredibly shy to the point of barely being able to speak in class and there is so much class participation now. I struggled to take in instructions but because I was consistently performing above the top of the class it was all overlooked. There have always been kids who have had accomodations just haphazardly and teacher depending.

He used his method to get her in as opposed to standing there cajoling while the rest of the class wait.
The alternatives are you take her in or you take her home I suppose.

SN children and their families routinely failed by schools, and this is your take away?

Mother of 3, all failed by their schools, 2 now adults, with qualifications and working full time - no thanks to the shocking state of the education system and those who are blind to its failings 🙄

and how many were completely out of school or went to their special class but slipped out early on in the day? Attendance records/strictness were nowhere near what they are today.

As the parent of a 9 year old, who did need to be thrown under a teachers arm and carried in protesting when 5/6, there is no way they can be carried in against their will at 9.

@ChitterChatter1987 That's your issue?

... And not the fact the child wouldn't move when asked...?

I'm amazed the teacher did that as it's a health and safety issue for the school - he could have put his back out doing that. I have a younger child with issues going into school and the staff were categorically told no picking him up. I was allowed to carry him in though if needed.

OP I think it sounds like the perfect time for a meeting with the teacher and possibly the SENCO to brainstorm some general strategies from all sides to help with dropoff. I don't think it needs to be accusatory, sounds like the teacher was just trying to solve the issue at the time as nothing else had worked.

Wait for that school to eventually run out of money. Guess where they will start cost cutting. All those specialist TA's and then all hell breaks loose.

Honestly, its been a gravy train for too long that genuine cases have now been mixed up with too many that are just plain old bad parenting & bad diets so the sympathy is gone. The money has run out.

In the circumstances I would expect you to take her home.