Bullying - DS in reception been hit frequently by a SN child

[Eve]

Can anyone give me advice as to what to do and how to talk to DS about this.

He comes home frequently talking about how another cild has been hitting & hurting him. This other boy has SN - not sure what, and is considerably bigger and heavier than my DS. Not sure how well he can be reasoned with.

I have talked to the head and teacher about it, and they are observing the situation and talking to DS about it, but he doesn't like his teacher knowing...don't know if he is embarassed by it.

I can't tell DS to ignore it or hit back...what can I do as I find it very distressing that he should encounter this so frequently, especially in his 1st term at school. I want him to settle and enjoy it and not be put of by the experience.

If the child has special needs then the school must have a policy to make sure that this sort of thing is stopped (or at any rate reduced to the lowest level that is physically possible). And this needs to be done both for the wellbeing of your ds and also the child with SN. As the school what they are doing, in line with the child's IEP to make sure that this sort of thing doesn't happen (ie support and supervision during play/lunch time). It is in everyone's best interest for this to be sorted out asap. I hope that things get better for you and ds.

The school ought to be doing more than just 'observing'. Perhaps they need to increase their supervision of the other child if he is hurting others. It's not fair on your ds. I would speak to the school and ask them to look at the boy's IEP again to check that it is being met. If it is, perhaps it may need to be updated.

This is something that happens to my child to and although I am intellegent to understand that this child is having trouble's at home (he is not S.N but has a poor home life which school are aware of)It is not fair on my child or our family now.My ds1 now thinks that it is o.k to lash out all the time because he see's this as normal,because this child gets away with it and gets special treatment.Makes you angry dosen't it Eve.Good that you went to the head though.Sometimes you feel afraid to say anything incase you are accussed of discrimunation (soory can't spell)when it is not the case at all you want what is fair for both children.

It's a tricky one... because political correctnes dictates tolerance towards these children however, I very much agree that if these children are a 'danger' to their classmates somebody has to do something about it. The other day in the news I heard of a SN boy who won a legal battle against his school for discrimination, because he was not taken in day trips or allowed to do other activities with other children... the problem he had was that he couldn't recognise dangerous situations. I'm sure that many people would be condemning the school about it but if you ever have been near to a child with that problem you won't want to take any chance...

I have a friend whose child has the same problem and you just need to blink your eyes to find him hanging from the second floor window... it's so stressful that they can hardly keep any friend, he's a lovely boy, always laughing, but if you just look the other way for a second he won't have a minor accident... he would just kill himself...I'm ashamed to confess that when they were visiting I was always afraid that he would kill my dog while I was not looking, and when my baby was born... I just couldn't allow him into the house, I thought it was too dangerous for my baby, so we just started making excuses and never invited them back...

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Agree with robinw here (which will probably surprise your robin - but you have summed up the situation very well imo). Whilst the child is in the care of the school they have a duty of care to both your child and the SN child. if he needs constant supervision to protect himself or others then they have a suty to provide it. If they do not have enough resources then it is up to the school to go to the LEA and get it.

Very saddened by chandra's message but I'd better not go there!

I'm sorry JimJamBells, it was not my intention to make you sad , as I said, he's a lovely boy (nothing against him) but...my concentration levels are dramatically reduced lately and I was afraid that a simple distraction could have fatal consequences, his mother just assumes that he would be fine but if you find your dog vomiting bilis and limping because the child has hug him so hard so many times...and still, his mother insists that he had to learn and places him inside the dog kennel (This is not a metaphore, she DID put him inside the kennel after the incidents claiming the boy needed to learn) I just thought that we couldn't afford to pay for his learning experiences... sorry.... , yet I understand is not the boy's fault...

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chandra- it wasn' so much the family side of things really - it's the misconceptions. I do understand what its like to have a child who is a danger to others round the house (not my own)- I have had to remove ds2 from one particular person I will not leave him alone in a room with her (although her mother is very aware of the situation- which the mother in your case doesn't seem to be).

It was more the story about the school to be honest. Children who are a dnager to themselves are going into mainstream now. My son is one of them (he doesn't attack other children- although he has been smacked around himself a few times before I have intervened (not at school) ). He is a danger on school trips as he cannot stay with the group. However this is only a danger with inadequate supervision. If my son has a helper assigned to him then he is perfectly safe as the helper is there soley for him. If children like my osn are going to go into mainstream (and normally there is no choice- my son is non-verbal and we were not even allowed to look at special schools) then they have to be adequately supported. If that means full time one to one then the LEA has to pay for it. We are lucky that we have been granted full time one to one and mealtime support (actually we are not lucky we fought for it and rejected two draft statements).

BTW the DDA doesn't apply if there is "good reason" for someone to be excluded for their disability. Safety issues are obviously good reasons so if there really was no way round the problems in the case you mentioned then the school would not have lost the discrimination case. it doesn't take much effort to include children with quite severe problems (my son is an example) and so far he has been included on school trips and his school play without issue- this has been done by adjusting these situations to suit him to what he can cope with, not by expecting him to just miraculously be able to cope by treating him the same as all the other children. Unfortunately a lot of schools can't be bothered to provide a suitable environment.

My ds is one of those children who was lashing out towards other kids,he had no support at the time,fortunately or unfortunately depending on jow you look at it,after he hit out at the teacher with a chair he was given the support which the school previously 'couldnt afford'.Now as a result of his almost adequate support he is no longer demonstrates this violence but has now been found to be a victim of it himself from other kids and i have on more than on eoccasion been approached in the playground by parents to be told ds1 was trying to strangle their child etc,when i pressed ds1 he was able to tell me and be backed up by his support assistant that it was in fact the other way round.The kids have watched him without support and now are picking on him as they realise he will still be blamed because of his history.
sorry a bit jumbled but just to prove that this is such a difficult area to control and be fully informed of what is happening as many of these sn kids are unable to communicate what is really happening so are easily taken advantage of.Begining of a touchy area we are entering for me so bit of a rant sorry.

Loobie - How awful. It's amazing how schools suddenly find the money for proper supervision when there's a teacher involved. Ds1 will be starting school in September. Until recently he was so passive that I really worried about bullying. Now that he's beginning to stand up to other children I worry that things will go the other way without proper supervision. It's so sad that our children are being thrown in at the deep end of the education system and just being expected to get on with it.

loobie- exactly- and the reason the message from chandra saddened me.

I used to be told that ds1 was going to struggle becuase he's so passive and therefore wouldn't be given any support. In fact we're lucky as he's non-verbal and even our LEA wouldn't try and put a non-verbal child into mainstream without support. They did try and get away with 0.8 though, but backed up by the SENCO he will get 1.0 (If they had insisted on 0.8 then he would have been going to school 0.8- over my dead body is he going anywhere with less than 1.0).

I hear the story you have told again and again. Children with HFA are wound up until they explode and then they get lumped with the blame. If the school's don't recognise that it is the school environment itself that is winding them up the you are stuffed. We're lucky in that the shcool has an "orange room" and when everything becomes too much ds1 is taken there. They have also been very flexible about petty rules like queuing or having to have bare feet in the gym for PE, and adapt them to suit him. We are very lucky with the school - they do seem to have some ASD understanding. We also have a very good autism outreach team, and the school are very willing to listen to their advice and take everything on board. This is how it should be, but I know our situation is very rare. My friend's little boy started school the same time as ds1. he lasted half a term and is now being home edded. He got in trouble for biting his LSA (they took him into assembly for f sake)

BTW I do know a little boy with AS who ended up kicking his teacher. He didn;t get extra help he got expelled! Also came acorss another boy of 9 who got the dx head said "I don;t believe it" and promptly expelled him.

Coppertop - it is easier if they are passive (awful isn't it, but I prefer the fact that my son gets hit around than is doing the hitting himself- he does have enough supervision for that to be rare, and he is also unaware of verbal teasing etc). I used to want my son to be able to stand up to others more, but I'm happier that he is as gentle as he is. Having said that- he did smack his teacher round the face within 2 seconds of meeting her Whoops!

We have had a similar problem when DD 5 started reception , the sn child kept pulling her hair. One day i saw him do it as we were walking into the class room, he pulled my dds hair so hard she fell to the ground. I shouted "No" as i would have done to any child, sn or not. The teacher turned her back on me and would not comment. I complained to the head mistress as it was upsetting my daughter on a DAILY BASIS and would come home upset and would not settle in her class. I work with children and i love children but i really think that this particular SN would benefit at a SN school. It makes me sad though.

Yep. Special schools are being shut left right and centre. If we were not even given the choice of special school (and I did ask- and was told a firm no- we weren't even allowed to go and see it)- and my son is non-verbal remember- then to say that a child should be in special school isn't very practical.

Mainstream can be an excellent place ofr SN children, but only with the right support. It also requires understanding. For example another mum I know ended up home edding because her HFA son could not cope with school at all. One thing they used to do was make him sit next to a girl who had toilet problems and used to smell. A quick browse of Luke Jackson's book will highlight the problems with that (alternatively they could have tried sitting my friend's dd next to her- she would have thrown up).

It depends on the circumstances, but if a child has genuine special needs and they are beating up other child it suggests they are being put under unbearable pressure which needs to be dealt with. It shouldn't be getting to that stage. Children with something like EBD have slightly different problems, but they still need to be dealt with in a particular constructive way, and the school may have to apply rules differently.

The most dnagerous school is one that thinks they know what they are doing with SN but doesn't have a clue.

It can work- and it can work well, we have been pleasantly surprised- but it is working becuase both the school, the LEA, and us are working veyr hard.

Can I just point out again- as I think this often gets lost in these threads. In many cases the SN child is not the agressor, and in many cases they are the ones being bullied. Not all special needs children are violent. My son has never attacked another child, although he has been pushed around a reasonable amount. He has been verbally teased even more often, but he doesn't understand that.

Well Kittenheels... it looks as if we ended up being misunderstood as playing the devil's advocate in this thread. I believe that we both just condemned special cases not SN children in general. Are we clear on that? appologies to the rest if you felt offended.

I attended a very personalised school where 20% children had SN, bullying on terms of SN was practicaly unexistent and yet there were a couple of children who used to throw bricks (yep, those red ones used to build houses) to the rest of the class without the slightest provocation.

Teachers and carers are not parents of their pupils, they don't know them as well as their families do and I very much doubt that they are qualified in every single SN, I believe that many of these persons are doing a great effort to do their job and yet people expect them to be perfect and condemn them highly if they fail...

This subject can not be evaluated on black and white terms but in a huge variety of greys...

But back to Eve's original question, can anybody suggest something to help Eve's son with that problem???

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Surely the thing that's wrong with saying that children with special needs should be in special schools is that, er, there aren't any. Or at least so few (and those few being reduced all the time) that it simply isn't an option for the vast majority of children with special needs, no matter how much they might benefit from specialist teaching from people who understand their individual needs. I'm sure Jimjams is right and that children with SN are FAR more likely to be the victims of other kids than the aggressors, if I remember school rightly.

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There is an autism unit locally attached to mainstream primary. Like many units its in a dodgy part of town (middle class parents aren't that keen on having units attached) and whilst the person who runs the unit is very caring, it is basically crap. It's main problem is understaffing. The LEA will not provide more than 1 teacher to 3 children in the unit. They say that is the highest ratio locally. Fine but one to three does not work with non - verbal children. They need one to one. SALT is also provided on site- but group sessions to children ranging from highly verbal AS to non-verbal ASD. So that's next to useless. The children are not integrated with the mainstream children at all (to be honest I think the mainstream kids have enough problems of their own). Nice idea, and it can work, but it needs to be done properly- and like everything that costs money.

robinw- I have nothing particularly against special schools (except for the low academic expectations that many of them have- which when applied to autism does the children a disservic- many are very academically able). There is a very good one locally which has changed from MLD to specialising in communication disorders. The very excellent autism outreach team are based there, and it has a very good reputation. HOwever when it changed from MLD to communication disorders it reduced its numbers!!!!! How stupid is that- at a time when autism numbers are skyrocketing.

My friend wanted her son to go there. She battled for 9 months to be allowed to go and look at it. She then battled for 6 months to allow her son's name to be put forward. Finally he is there. By the time he was accepted he was 8 years old, had let himself out of school several times and walked homke alone (no-one noticed he had gone), was kept in a seperate room from the maintream children most of the day, had not been taught to read or write- and still the head was abusive to the parents becuase they wanted him to go to special school. This is a far more common story than good ones like mine.

A little example. My son recently had his first indoor pe lesson. The school have a rule that for indoor PE the children have bare feet. They took my son into the hall and he refused to walk from the carpet into the hall. Now had they pushed it and stuck to the rules he would either have refused point blank to do PE, or he would have ended uppunching a teacher. Instead they did the sensible thing and allowed him to wear plimsolls. Youw ould be amazed at the number of schools who are unable to accomodate this sort of rule bending "oh no if we allow him to do that then all the children will want to wear plimsolls". is the ususal line. what bollards. Children aren't stupid they can see that if a child can't speak and has strange behaviour he will need to be treated differently.

The situations that lead to agression and chairs being thrown in "these children" (I really don't like that term but not sure why) are usually of that sort.

Chandra- chucking bricks etc becuase of a behavioural problem is different that aggression resulting from stresses due to particular developmental special needs. I think it is important to seperate out behavioural problems (label them SN if you must but bear in mind the problem is behavioural) from developmental problems. The factors leading up to the aggressive incident will be different.

Hasn't Nick Hornby done something like set up a specialist school for children with autism?

I think a lot of parents would be grateful for a say in what kind of school their child attends. I personally wouldn't know which to choose for ds1. At 3.6yrs he has only been speaking for about 4 months or so (now in 3 or 4-word sentences) and is still in nappies. On the other hand he is extremely intelligent and, as Jimjams says, special schools don't always stretch children academically.

This has been a very interesting thread. To my mind it seems that inclusion would be the best policy if it were properly implemented. I would like to see all mainstream schools with a well funded SEN department. Children could be withdrawn from lessons as they need, and be given the support that they need to help them integrate back into other lessons. The teachers that work with them could be trained properly, not given a photocopied sheet of how to 'deal' with ADHD or AS or whatever. Teachers trained in the fied would both onderstand the childs condition, and also expect more from them, as tey would be less likley to 'write the child off' as 'just' SEN. When it becomes helpful to the child to mix, they could mix. The whole thing should be tailored to the child's needs. Not the one size fits all system that fails almost everyone.

It seems insane to me that children with profound learning difficulties are allowed to flounder in lessons where that gain almost nothing. For example I have taught GCSE classes where children have an estimated reading age of 6. They have a TA to help them, but they don't need this, they need extensive 1 on 1 specialist help to deal with their literacy problems. Is it any wonder that children with SN can become frustrated and switched off from lessons. If you put me in a class of German speakers I wouldn't feel like taking part.

Children with SEN are the most vulnerable members of the school and the system that we are presently running fails them badly. Inclusion as it is being run at present pays lip service to political correctness and saves money. Dame Mary Warnock wrote a very interesting artice where she said that the policy that she helped to frame is failing, and special schools should be introduced.