Stop / reduce suspensions for disruptive and vulnerable children

[HooverIsAlwaysBroken]

https://amp.theguardian.com/education/article/2024/jul/20/english-schools-to-phase-out-cruel-behaviour-rules-as-labour-plans-major-education-changes

I would be interested in what people think about this. Being shy and bullied (and very academic) as a child, I would be inclined to feel sorry for the children who just are trying to learn. I would also assume that this will make it much harder for the teachers…

of course the vulnerable and disruptive children need support but is this the right way? My DS is very disruptive and has had numerous detentions but never a suspension. I would assume that the bar for that already is very high? But happy to be told otherwise.

Fahbeep
I am a teacher and a parent of two children with severe asd.
I disagree with you profoundly. The kind of support that many parents of children with high level special needs need and expect from mainstream schools is impossible to provide without increased staffing and funding. We should also consider the therapy, class size, peer group and curriculum needed. Many kids are inappropriately placed in a mainstream class. Sometimes because the LA won't fund specialist. Sometimes because the parents want mainstream at all costs. Sometimes because the child is undiagnosed and no one advocates for them effectively.

My own dd was in mainstream with a full time 1.1 up to Year 3. She moved to a specialist school eventually and it was the best thing that happened to her. She was too far behind her peers to engage in the lessons. Differentiated work meant reception and year 1 level work. What was the point in a TA providing Y1 level work when she was in Year 3? Her emotional and social development was similarly delayed. The head of the specialist school told me she was being educated alongside her peers at best. She was isolated and was lashing out as the whole place was inappropriate. People on here talk about kids with send lashing out because their needs are not being met. These needs sometimes need to be met by different types of school.

I've said before on these types of threads that education/schools need rebuilding from the ground up,

Teachers need to be able to teach without all of the accompanying stuff that is being forced on to them and they need people with the correct training to support the pupils.

On top of this we need a range of schools, unfortunately lots of parents would be against this.

And a range of subjects from purely academic to purely vocational.

And last but not least we need management that knows what the fuck it is doing and stops putting children in subjects that are not suitable for them and then blaming the teachers when the children fail.

A quick look online gives Eurostat figures - on average 25% of children in the EU being 'at risk of poverty or social exclusion' (their term) vs Scottish Gov figures of 24% of children in Scotland 'living in poverty'. I've no idea if the definitions are equivalent or not but rates look at least similar if not worse in major EU countries like France, Germany & Spain.

s://ec.europa.eu/eurostat

data.gov.scot/poverty/#Children

@cansu I'm glad your dd is in a setting that works. I'm not saying there should be no specialist schools. I'm saying that use of suspension and PEX isn't the way do it. My son has adhd, asd and the dreaded pda profile. He is however managing well at his second mainstream primary with a 1-2-1 and the turnaround has been remarkable.

His original HT never wanted him. Didn't really want any kids with SEND. Had form for constantly suggesting to parents that a different setting would be better. Set a poor leadership example and basically bullied parents (not just us).

She was convinced she was always right. And it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. The environment created an us and them culture between the children, anxiety and stress for my son and, frequent distressed behaviour from his treatment (like a criminal to be managed).

And then the HT sees that as evidence of her position. And she then had this power, having created that situation, to make it into a disciplinary issue, and to suspend and exclude rather than provide education.

Literally the worst experience of my adult life. I hadn't really understood discrimination until it happened. It was the powerlessness and the capriciousness of the decisions.

It has to end because the practice of using exclusion to manage SEND belongs in the dark ages.