Repetitive physical abuse in the classroom in Y3 - is there no way out of this danger?

[DarthVader]

There is an autistic child in my dd's class. He attacks and injures other children regularly in class despite having 1 to 1 supervision. The classroom is unsafe - with an attack that causes serious and permanent injury waiting to happen. There is no suitable alternative provision for this child and his mother wants him to remain at the school.

Meantime he is endangering all the other kids. I am considering removing my child. I am all in favour of inclusive education for special needs children but not when they endanger the physical safety of my child. Where do I go with this, I am beside myself with the situation.

I have no criticism of the school, the child or the mother but the situation is untenable.

please help someone

Do you think posting this on special needs might be useful? The posters on there have specialist knowledge and may be able to make some suggestions.

I am sorry I don't have the answer myself.

Thanks F&Z
appreciate your post

my son has aspergers (high functioning autism so not sure how this compares with the boy in your school) and can lash out when angry. i expect the school to have strategies in place to stop him getting to this piont (they do) but if he does hurt someone i dont expect him to be given special treatment (he isnt), i would be livid if i was in your shoes. it sounds like the school is failing both of your children. if you have complained to the head and got nowhere i would complain to the lea. special needs isnt an excuse for harming other kids.

We had something similar in our school. Eventually one of the children (we've had several) was permanently excluded because he was a physical danger in the way you describe.

You need to talk to your head. Or parent governor(s). Or both.

Thanks for this peskipixie. The boy in question has completely unpredictable triggers. The head told me her hands are ties and that if she were me she would move her child to another school. I am reeling from this. I am thinking of a letter to the governors and then maybe the LEA?

Eliza the head says permanent exclusion is impossible unless the mother agrees as there is a lack of special schools witht eh appropriate provision. I have sympathy with this but cannot reconcile myself that my dd has to put up with regular attacks with a really serious one waiting to happen

so does my son. it doesnt make it ok. def go higher

This is just awful for everyone . I agree about posting in in SN though - there are lots of mums on there who have had experience of this from both sides of the equation.

my son isnt at a special school, he is at a school which understands aspergers. his last school was a nightmare because they didnt and werent willing to learn. if you complain it will do all the kids involved a favour, including the autistic child. my son constantly attacked kids in his last school because he was so stressed all the time. in his new school we have had no more incidents than any other child. the head sounds useless. unfortunately not all parents know other schools can be better. i only left because we were forced to. i had no idea another mainstream school could be as good as the one we are at. its a very sad situation, so many children are failed because of ignorance

Really though, I do feel the school should make sure that the other children are not put at risk, even if that means the headteacher intervening and working on a one to one basis with the child. Schools are put in impossible situations like this often thanks to the closure of sn schools. As a teacher I have been in this situation. We did everything possible to avoid other children being hurt, in our case that meant TA were put to help the child on a one to one basis. Unfortunately that also meant some classes missed out on support, but physical safety comes first.

Hope your situation gets resolved for all concerned.

Sounds to me like there is something lacking in his 1 to 1 supervision. He shouldn't be allowed to get to this point imo.

I agree with you that inclusion is a good thing but that is only fair to the other children in the class if the SN child doesn't dominate the entire day. It isn't good for anybody including the autistic child. They may have different triggers but SN children are like everybody else - they don't lash out unless they are under stress so this situation is not helping him too.

Is there another room he can use away from other children? ASD children often can't cope with crowds and so some, that a classroom full of children would constitute a crowd.

Have you spoken to the class teacher about your concerns? Has any other parent voiced their concerns? That has to be the first thing to do - talk to the teacher about what is happening. If you have done that then you need to go to the head, the governors or as peskipixie says the LEA.

Thanks - have just re-posted on the special needs board. Am concerned that even with 1 to 1 supervision this child hit 20 children in succession in an incident last week in the classroom.

There is general support for this child from parents and children but the sheer amount of physical injuries put this into another arena for me that the school do not seem able to cope with.

Well, it sounds as if the one to one staff member needs some training. I agree with Niecie about crowds of people being a possible trigger, it sounds as if the poor child might need some space.

I don't think he is happy but his mum is really keen on him staying in the classroom and having integrated education

I am wondering if the outbursts are really random or if the school (and TA) are missing out on what triggers outbursts in this child.

If the outbursts are really random, and cannot be predicted, then there is a real risk to this boy, the other children and also the teaching staff.

I worry that the school , having given the boy the 1 to 1 are not following through on behaviour managment techniques (best agreed with the parents and ed psych etc), and everyone is suffereing as a result (the little boy possibly most of all)

If the school are really doing everything that they can (and should) do, then mainstream school may not be the place for this little boy. And it may be very difficult for the mother to accept this. I'm sorry that I can't give you any specific help as such, jusr=t send my sympathy at a situation where no-one is getting what they need.

Darth, i don't think you could do better than to write to the Head, and copy to the Chair of Governors, including all the points MB has just made; that's the whole situation in a nutshell and powerfully shows why they need to look again at the situation.

It sounds like a terrible situation and I would be really worried if my child was in that class. A similar situation occured at ds's school last year where a boy with autism was hitting a lot but he had no support and his parents were Indian and didn't speak English properly so couldn't really fight their case and the boy had to leave the school.

I don't know exactly what happend but I know he broke a girl's glasses and the parent took it to the head who wasn't prepared to act so she went above her to the governers and then the LEA.

It probably wouldn't be as straightforward in your case though as the child has support and the parent seems adamant to keep the child in school. I remember actually all of the parent's in the class whose child had been hurt had to write letters detailing specific instances of things and it all went to a meeting.

Could you possibly speak to the child's parent? It is a terrible situation for everyone involved.

I had a lad in my class with aspergers last year. He had 1 on 1 TA support from the moment he walked in the school to the moment he walked out, but, if he was having a bad day then I am afraid the classroom was not a safe place to be . He had 2 pairs of eyes (mine and ta's) watching him and still there would be the odd occasion where he would lash out before we could stop him.

If there was a supply teacher in, then the lad was kept out of class because he could not cope with me not being there

The school was grateful for any and all correspondence from parents whose children were affected by this child. It went on his permanent record, which could then be passed on to the education dept. This gave everyone more power as far as this child's future was concerned. We managed to get him a place at a specialist unit (where places were like hens teeth) and he is loving it.

Write to the school, express your concerns.

I sympathise completely with your situation

I'm utterly discombobulated that the head said that if she were you she would move her child. She sounds utterly dire. It is her absolute basic responsibility to keep the kids in her school safe, so she should exclude this little boy if there is good support in place and nothing more can be offered but he still cannot access the curriculum and is harming himself and others. It's not her job to think of what alternative provision there is. It's her job to adequately meet the needs of the children in her school as far as she can and communicate very clearly when she cannot. She is failing everyone by struggling on in this fashion. Poor little boy and poor dd and the other kids. If there is no suitable provision the LEA will have to find somewhere out of borough. I would definitely consider complaining over her head to the governors.

Thanks everyone. I believe that only a few parents have actually complained even though this has been going on for over 3 years. I am going to write to the Governors and ask them how they are fulfilling their duty of care regarding physical safety of the children. I think it will be more powerful if I ask other parents to sign the letter too.

However, lots of parents don't know much about what is going on as there is no communication from the school except when your child is directly involved in a reported incident. I am nervous about asking parents to sign a letter with me in case it looks like ganging up. Is this something I should do on my own? I find it difficult to talk to other mums as everyone feels guilty for speaking about it and most have sympathy for the parents of the autistic child.

I definitely would not ask other parents to sign. That would look like ganging up and exclusion of the worst possible sort, I agree and would be extremely hurtful for the child and his family. You can only really document your own concerns and request that action is taken to protect your daughter if she is being attacked.

Tbh, I'm very surprised that there is not more general concern from parents, teachers and the boy's family if the little boy has such extensive needs that he is regularly attacking many other children though. Does he particularly target your daughter, do you think? Or is she less able to deal with boisterousness than some of the other children? It seems quite bizarre that many parents are not even aware of the situation if it is as serious as you've described.

I agree totally - you don't need other parents to sign. How would you feel if other parents did that about your child! Don't worry, it will carry enough weight; it's a concern from a parent and they only need one to have to investigate it.

Most attacks are unreported by the kids or not documented due to the frequency. Incident reports only go to parents if their own child has been hit and not always even then. It is "normal" for the kids to be assaulted.

All the kids are hit at random, so if each parent sees a picture that their own child brings home an incident report twice a term then they don't know that there have been 60 incident reports in total all concerning one violent boy, plus scores of other times that go unreported.

Hi, I echo what the others have said. There are some serious failings going on here on the part of the school.

Why is an ASD child with 1:1 getting to the point where he is attacking 20 of his class mates!!

I have a 9 YO with aspergers. He has 1:1 support and is on a reduced timetable (3 hours a day). He is escorted around the school, and doesn't go out in the playground. Before all this was put in place he was stuggling to cope, he assaulted other children (and even his teacher once) and was on the verge of a permanent exclusion. Since the support has been put in place (the beginnning of last summer term) we have not had a single incident, DS is doing really well, and is for the first time I can remember, happy going to school.

The school are seriously failing this autistic little boy. If all the support they can (and are obliged to) provide is in place for him, and still they cannot cope, then he shouldn't be at there. Its not fair on the other kids, and its not fair on him.