Our son had been strangled at school

[VeryFrustratedMum]

Our son is 7y old, he is a very calm, kind and respectful boy, but have been targeted by another child since reception. My first concerning emails with the head started in January but my first concern with our son's class teacher was raised in October last year. All the school is doing is removing the child from class for a couple of days and from the playground, and then there is a quiet period sometimes a month sometimes a week and we are back to emails and calls. The other child is very impulsive and unpredictable and accidents happen during lessons, carpet time, playground etc. Just to give a few examples of what is happening - squeezing hands, cheeks, slapping across the face, punching our son in the stomach, throwing things at our son…it's relentless. The child is not SEN, they have no boundaries, very clever but very manipulative. Last week I had enough when they tried to strangle our son and requested The child be put into another class as we don't feel safe sending our son to school. The reply was it was not possible. It's a two-form school and we know there a spaces to fill in in both classes. I have again requested a face-to-face meeting and finally, I have one tomorrow. What should I be focusing on during the meeting, I want to be well prepared - I have printed out all
Our emails, behaviour school policy, also I Am taking a family friend for support. Please help.

Well whatever is bee; fine is clearly not working and not enough.
On the OP’s pov, the fact they are trying to get funding etc… doesn’t help ensure her son is safe at school.
And the school has a duty to ensure they are keeping g ALL children safe.

Having SEN can make it harder (not impossible) to permanently exclude a child.

I'd just change schools , strangling is so dangerous and if the school aren't going to protect your son then there's no way I could send him in there to be someone's punching bag

I don’t understand why the school just don’t suspend kids like this for 2 weeks. Parents rapidly start taking an interest when they have to feel consequences as well.

OP stick to talking about your child, get a copy of their safeguarding and bullying policy. Keep detailed notes and pictures of i juries and just keep escalating. Would agree with not mentioning the other child. Be very clear in your language as well, don’t play anything down.

@User37482 there are very strict guidelines for suspension/permanent exclusion

Looking up keeping childten safe in education, peer on peer abuse. Talk about that in the meeting.

Asking to move class is a reasonable adjustment surely?

We had this but at a older age. I asked the school to keep them separate but if it happened again I would by pass school and go to the police.

Strangling is worrying. In my sons bully's case it was a real red flag and the bully only hot worse. I told my son to be polite and but avoid the boy at all costs. Be totally off his radar. The worse outcome is when school try to force friendships

State very plainly:

• what is happening
• what needs to stop happening
• what needs to start happening
• Give them a time frame
• State what you will do next

For example

• My son is experiencing the other child doing X &Y to him most days
• This is unacceptable. I understand that occasionally things can go wrong in a busy classroom, but I expect the school to be taking measures to stop X & Y happening to my son.
• I am expecting to seeing the number of incidents of X &Y drop to maybe one offs every few months
• If I see more than one or two incidents of X in the next 3 months, I will be reporting this to the governors and the local authority.

Don't comment on the other child. Unless you are a good friend of bully child's family, or the school have illegally let you read his school record's you have ZERO clue whether he is SEN or not. Also it doesn't really matter to what is happening. While you might have sympathy towards a child who didn't understand what hurt they were causing, your child (and potentially other children) should not go through their school days bullied. That applies as much if that are being bullied by the most disabled child you can imagine, or a child with no disabilities. Even if he was really disabled, he has to be somewhere where the negative affects of his behaviour on others is limited.

If strangulation isn't enough for exclusion then what is?!

@BriannasBananaBread there are 2 conditions that have to be met for PEX. The second one can be quite hard to show

I'd refuse to send mine in until it's been sorted but that's not the answer, your poor boy how awful, do you know the parents? Have you thought about police ? Strangling is serious, and at 7 he won't know when to stop !

How is your little one at home ?
My daughter got bullied and was a nervous wreck luckily the child bullying got moved to a different school I hope it gets sorted for your little one xx

I don't see anything difficult about that. He's clearly breached section 11, both parts one and two on the bullet points. He's systematically bullying a child, OP makes it sound like it's been going on years, that's got to be against behaviour policy. He strangled another child! It's not hard to show. Others probably saw it. There'll probably be bruising. In addition to the child's information of what happened. Strangulation definitely harms other child's welfare. Especially when it comes as part of a pattern of behaviour that's clearly escalating, so whatever happens in future can reasonably be expected to be even worse. I really don't see what's hard to prove about it. It's even more reason OP needs to report to police each time and get a crime reference number though, as further evidence. It's ridiculous this has been allowed to continue so long.

Thanks for the information but I have to say I'm pretty disgusted at you constantly defending the school TBH. If schools bothered to properly record incidents of bullying it would be far easier for them to see the patterns of behaviour, but it's just easier for them to brush it under the carpet isn't it, so they don't have to try to tackle it. It's condoning the bullying TBH, being implicit in peer abuse of the victims by turning a blind eye. Sickening.

Please look at moving your DC to another school. His education will be wrecked with fear.

We had something similar with a child in DC.s class who was having outbursts that were dangerous (other children and a teacher injured). There was constant disruption to learning, primarily from this child. The relief of DC in moving school is like night and day. I feel quite sorry for the other kid, as he obviously has serious issues and in a large class his needs were not being met.

DC is sociable, sporty and a popular kid (lots of playdate and party invites, lots of kids turning up at the house), but it was utterly pointless to try to keep him in a class where there was so much disruption.

Document any injuries, and reluctance from DC to attend school. Look at what the current school has to do legally and to meet its policies. Ask for a meeting with the head teacher. Drawer a line and advocate for your child. The school may be struggling with the other child and be grateful for more material that helps push for adequate support.

Move your child. There is a lot of pressure on schools not to exclude. There is doubtless lots going on with this child behind the scenes. Ultimately the school cannot guarantee that this child will not hurt yours again. You can and should ask what they will put in place to try and prevent any other incidents but it won't guarantee it.

The same thing they do when any child commits a crime, I expect. It’s criminal behaviour.

The boy may have Sen but actually that's irrelevant. The school has a duty of care to protect all pupils.

Down load anti bullying policy and safeguarding policy. Make notes of areas they are not applying them.

Be concise, explain your concerns and that you feel the child moving class is the best solution . If they say it's not possible ask how they intend to manage the situation going forward. Challenge them if it's basically continue on the same vein as it's clearly not working. Quote policy at them. List your child's injuries and the impact on his mh/ability to thrive.

If you are going round in circles you need to put in a formal complaint. They will have a complaints policy but typically it's-
Speak to teacher
Meet with SLT
Meet with head (if not met previously)
Complain to exec head (if there is one) and school governors.
Take it to ofsted and LA
Ensure every step of complaint is complete and documented. And there's documentation of every injury plus photos if relevant

You could involve police or your local MP if not getting anywhere

Other than that you could request your child moves class or move schools. If there's a number of parents you could tackle this on mass.

Seven is very young, to be honest in my experience schools are utterly useless until the police get involved- and even then they aren’t great, aalmost always taking the side of the violent child.

You would be better off getting your son into a martial arts class so that he can handle this by himself. It is very sad to say but people like that only learn to respect boundaries the hard way.

My son is autistic and had an ehcp with full time 1-1 in mainstream (whether he always had the full time 1-1 in place is another matter) and he had loads of exclusions for far less before and after he had the ehcp. It actually helps as it’s evidence for tribunal that school can’t meet needs

How do you know all this? Only someone who actually works in this child’s class would know this level of detail.

I am not excusing the child's behaviour but you don't know if the child has SEN needs so I would advise not to focus on that.

SEN or not, he is a threat to your son so quite rightly needs highlighting with school.

Or literally any child in the class!

This happened to a boy at DS’s school. Police were called as it left marks. Boys involved were about the same age as your DS - 7. Agree you need to place the emphasis on what is being done to keep your child safe. The aggressor in this instance was moved into the Year 6 class as they were too big for him to attack. Not sure how that worked on teaching but I wasn’t that close to it to know details.

Not sure every child in a class will know all the names of the pupils on the SEN register.

They know who gets punished differently to everyone else. They know who has more attention from TAs or the teacher. They know who is sent out of class for behaviour. It’s quite possible that they wouldn’t notice a child daydreaming quietly at their desk but most DC could sort a class into groups by ability and tell you who gets extra help.

My son is quite severely autistic, he’s in a special school now but when he was in mainstream primary he was coming top of both English and maths tests so sorting by ability means nothing,

You didn't read her post properly. She talked about sorting by behaviour amongst other things. Your severely autistic and clever child isn't in a special school because he was coping just fine in mainstream. It's likely his classmates could have picked up on him having a problem of some sort, before he moved to the special school, by his general behaviour. Which isn't to say he was necessarily naughty or problematic, just that children can often tell who is different when they spend all day every day with someone, whereas an adult meeting the child for a brief period may not notice anything amiss, so even if you think your child hid it well in general in public, it's likely his classmates would have known something was up.