Bullying by a child with SEN

[Justwhy2]

My child is experiencing issues in primary school - hitting, kicking, name calling, spreading rumours. In my view it is bullying. The child involved has special educational needs, and a full time classroom assistant.

The school have taken measures to increase supervision of the other child, however they have not imposed any consequences for the incidents that have happened to date. They are also now saying that it is "more 2 sided than I realise," however they have not provided me with any evidence of this. I suspect they are going on what the other child's parents are saying, however the other child has been exposed telling lies on at least 2 occasions.

I understand the complexities of the situation, however surely hitting and kicking can't be ignored just because a child has special educational needs? My child is very aware that if they were to behave this way in school there would be consequences?

It is leaving my child feeling very unsupported. I suppose my question is am I being unreasonable to call this bullying? Has anyone been in this situation, or worked in a school where this has happened, and can advise me on what would be reasonable action from the school in the circumstances?

its a very difficult situation - as others have said and I agree with focus on the outcomes you want for your child. The school should brand hopefully is doing everything they can to support the child with SEND and educate that child to help them regulate their behaviour. It’s a massive consequence of SEND and schools support being consistently underfunded for decades that now environments are very pressured and over stretched. It really isn’t as simple as the SEN child can just move - the process is fraught with difficulty, more under fusing and chronic shortages which is why so many children are being educated at home. It’s a very complex and sad issue

And when has anyone ever said it’s ok for your child to be used as a punching bag? The point of teaching your child about autism is not so your child thinks being hurt is ok but to help your child understand that the behaviour is not targeted towards them. You are wilfully misunderstanding what I am saying. I am sure your child has plenty of empathy targeted at them. I have endless empathy for a child who is subjected to this behaviour. Still don’t believe that punishing and stigmatising a child who is not able to control the behaviour achieves anything but an arbitrary and misguided sense of revenge. Children need to understand that they are valued without being focused on the outcomes for the other child who you know nothing about.

I wish people could walk a mile in the shoes of an sen parent/child but beyond the sen boards on here it has ever been thus on Mumsnet sadly.

@anonymous0810 I don't want to derail the OPs thread but it is not enough for me to tell my child that they matter if their experience in the classroom does not support that.

There is a limit to the amount of empathy and understanding that a child should be expected to repeatedly show regardless of how hard another child's life is.

All children have a right to feel safe at school and part of that safety is feeling like things are actively dealt with when they go wrong. That they are secure with the adults around them. If the adults around them appear to tolerate or condone behaviour then this trust and feelings of safety ebbs away.

I am sympathetic to the hard life of parents with children with severe needs but when you have seen your child sob because they say that they aren't important anymore and come home with repeated bite marks but told you are the one that needs to help them understand and show empathy, it does become very waring.

The problem with educating my child, and developing empathy for the other who is assaulting her is that it tells her there are situations where she can’t expect to be protected. I’ve had way too many conversations with school about other kids bullying her to quite extreme levels, to where I’ve ended up involving the police. In every case I was told the bullying child had variations on a theme of complex needs. I get it, but all my DD saw was other kids giving her a hard time with minimal intervention from school both in terms of protection or discipline. Ultimately I explained I literally didn’t care what was going on for the other child, they had a duty to keep my child safe and she had a right to be safe in school. I didn’t care how they achieved that.

My DD also has complex needs, the other child’s needs don’t trump her right to be safe at school.

It’s fine to say the child will be shamed and/or not make the link to sanctions imposed for being violent, but where does that end? My DD is now in specialist provision, where there are very clear consequences to violent behaviour applied every time. Some of the children may not make the link from their behaviour to the consequence but they do understand that if they do X, Y will happen every time because that’s part of being a school community ie following the rules as much as is in your capacity to do so.

It models wider society, where there are consequences for our actions, even if you don’t understand the impact of your behaviour.

Absolute horseshit. Why should her child have to be a punch bag for another child because they have needs. That is not her childs fault. There should be consequences. If my child was hit by another child he would hit them back. That is a consequence. If the school wasn't doing anything about it I would never tell him off for defending himself. If send children are not taught it's not OK to hit and kick then how the hell can they enter the workplace. My brother had severe adhd many years ago at school and was punished for hurting others and eventually expelled. Why have things changed that other children now need to suffer due to other children's SEN needs. I see this all the time, I work in a school. Kids have to be evacuated while one kid is smashing up the classroom. It's a joke.

Understanding any SEN behaviours is the responsibility of the adults involved not the children. You don't give a child an adults job.

Christ almighty you’re hard of understanding. I’ve explicitly said nobody should be a punchbag for anybody but that doesn’t fit the frothing outrage narrative, does it 🙄🙄

There’s a point where it doesn’t matter whether the behaviour is targeted at them or not - being slapped or bitten hurts regardless of the intention behind it. And when it’s the same child repeatedly hurting you it’s asking a lot for a child not to feel targeted. And when you don’t see the behaviour being addressed, or any measure taken to keep you safe by adults in school you quickly learn your safety doesn’t matter.

It’s very scary for a child to think the adults around them have seemingly no way of keeping you safe, because the other child doesn’t have control.

@Jellycatspyjamas no way or no desire (which is how mine interpreted it)

Of course she should be protected! Who has said she shouldn’t? That is the responsibility of the school. I am specifically referring to the idea of the child (for child tbh I am reading other parent) needing to see some kind of “consequence” being enacted on the other child. There is no situation ever that a child should have to tolerate assault at school. I have no idea why people are choosing to misunderstand this 🤷

Because children see consequences as evidence of care for their safety

And that is a schools problem. A provision problem and ultimately a funding problem. It is far more systemic than punishing a child for a behaviour that is beyond their control.

That’s a social construct and not an actual display of care or safety. Care for their safety is about ensuring it will never happen again, validating the child who is hurt and ensuring the other child is supervised to an extent that it cannot happen again.

we are clearly not going to agree but I work and research in this field and do know a bit about which I’m talking. Mumsnet is notoriously hostile towards kids and parents of kids with SEN - I should have learned my lesson by now so will bow out.

I had this. The school did nothing. I knew the kids mum so I messaged her saying please kindly keep your child away from mine. Have a word with her and remind her that her behaviour is not acceptable. She said but she’s got special needs. And? I’d partially accept that if she was like that with all the other kids. But she was able to single mine out and bully her. It’s not an excuse to be a bully. So no you’re not being unreasonable to expect the school to protect your child.

One last thing - empathy is not being a doormat - it is not about erasure of your own justified anger. It is about understanding that our experiences and abilities are not the same and that some people have real, genuine barriers to behaving in a way that is ok. I have no idea why that is a bad thing to teach a child 🤷🏼‍♀️

I don't understand why you think I'm being obtuse. I am being real - there are countless examples of organisations, including schools, not following their own policies.

In fact, when the new Sen code of practice was introduced, one of the criticisms of the old sen system by parents was that school polices weren't worth the paper they were written on. This was why the ehc system was introduced. Now look at that - policies and even the law are completely ignored.

It only matters if you sue them at the end of the day. Otherwise governors simply support the head in most cases, policy or not.

Enrol your child into self defence classes. The school refuses to safeguard your DC so teach him to safeguard himself

Can you understand that part of children being safe is knowing the rules are upheld. We manage behaviour and teach children by linking their behaviour with consequences for better or worse. So when a child is repeatedly assaulted by another child seemingly without consequence it tells that child that they don’t matter. Because if they did, the adults around them would act.

The consequence might be moving the other child so they don’t have the opportunity to hurt, it may be restricting where they can play at playtime, it may mean changing class or increasing supervision - all of which are consequences. I don’t think anyone is talking about a public flogging, but some indication to both children that their grievance has been taken seriously and steps taken to prevent recurrence.

As a parent, I empathise with my DD when her behaviour becomes challenging - I know where it comes from for her and sometimes it’s beyond her control in the moment. I still need to address the behaviour because the world won’t bend for her and there will be much bigger, harsher consequences for her if I can’t or won’t work with her.

You have to focus on your own child’s safety - but you want to pin the school down in such a detailed way that you and your child are convinced that her safety is being taken care of.

One approach for the meeting would be to go through the school day, and ask for how your child is being kept safe at all times:

• In the classroom during teaching
• During transitions, both inside the classroom and eg toilet breaks, in from breaktime etc
• At break time
• During lunch break
• During less structured practical lessons such as PE

Then go through the week and contingency plans: what are the arrangements diring the 1:1’s breaks? Does the 1:1 have any other roles, responsibilities or children to ‘keep an eye on’, first aid etc, and what are the arrangements for supervision during those times? What about the teacher’s PPA? What are the backup arrangements if the 1:1 is absent? Is the 1:1 ever required to cover elsewhere?

Do not accept ‘class teacher will oversee’ - with 30 children, there is no way that can be sufficient. If the 1:1 is not employed for enough hours, be persistent- so how us my child being kept safe? (Am example might be lunchtime - if the 1:1 is not paid for at lunchtime, can the aggressive child have a separate lunchtime supervised by the head, SENCo, in a small group with other SEN children etc?)

Write down everything agreed, and e-mail it to them as a record of the agreement. Then if any further incidents occur, look at where and when they occurred, and follow up - ‘my child was unsafe at x point, how do we change arrangements for their safety?’

There are many, many, many understandable reasons why the school
is failing to keep your child safe from a child with a high level of SEN. They may be completely understandable, but they are not acceptable.

@cantkeepawayforeverIt is not the op's business where the child's 1:1 is or what other responsibilities they have. Who is back up if they're off etc.

safe guarding or not for her child it is confidential to the other child.

No, but it is her business how her child will be kept safe in those - entirely predictable-scenarios.

Yes but you can't ask what happens in the child's 1:1 breaks, when they're off etc? Which you've detailed above

So not ‘When Miss Jones is on her break, Miss Smith will take over’, but ‘staffing rotas will be arranged so that x is kept aafe by y having 1:1 supervision’, or ‘x will be kept safe by y having lunch at a separate time under supervision in z area of the school’

It's the SEN child's business and all the school need to say is things are in place.
they can't detail the in's and out's of their EHCP.