My child is being punished for something that he can not help

[Meganrose2000]

Hi everyone,
so I’m looking for advice really my child is being punished he is 5 years old and punishment is 15 minutes of his dinner time to be kept in his class, he is currently waiting to be assessed by CAMHS for ADHD/ADD I’ve raised my concerns in 6 week holidays about his behaviour and the way he is at home. This was picked up from nursery 2 years ago as he couldn’t keep eye contact for long period & often would fidget on the carpet and preferred 1-1, I have raised this issue with the school and have told them about this and they said they would look into it by putting him on SENCO and give him a school councillor until he was being seen by CAMHS yet nobody has actually made these steps and this was mentioned by the deputy head around 1-2 months ago now. They are giving him a detention for not listening to adults when being told to not do something or distracting himself and others in the classroom, don’t get me wrong I agree with discipline but this is a constant thing and nothing is being resolved by doing this. I don’t know what else to do or where to go to I am thinking about changing his schools.

Common** sense 🤦🏼‍♀️

You can't just demand things like TA support and expect them to be granted. The school is perfectly within their rights to refuse those sorts of accommodations because they are expensive and should be targeted by the senco at the children who actually need them the most. I dint know OP's son, but from her description, he isn't screaming out as extremely high need.

The only way to secure specific provision for any child is through an EHCP.

This is all kinds of wrong but sadly not uncommon.

Firstly removing time to run around for a small child will nearly always be counter productive

Contact your sendiass to see if you cna get some advice.

Keep going back to sendco/head of year and explain your child's needs aren't being met/taking away playtime obviously isn't working/ work with them but see it as a problem they need to meet to support your child.

Regulating can be hard for small children even without any additional needs.

Support is supposed to be needs based not diagnosis based (a phrase you can use with school) so whether or not you have a diagnosis support should eb there.

Movement breaks would be the obvious support to put in place. Actively putting in fidget breaks gets the fidgets out a bit.

Fidget toys/wobbly chairs/ etc are also accommodations that can be put in.

Working with school to say okay - let's see when the behaviours occur. What can we do to reduce these triggers/support the child in these situations.

Just keep punishing won't work at all and will just ruin a kids self esteem.

@Thisismynewusernamedoyoulikeit of course you can't demand things and expect them to be granted. Waiting for an EHCP is a ridiculously long process. Should OP do nothing in the meantime.

The suggestion I made absolutely can be granted. I had it granted. It wasn't perfect but it made a hell of a difference.

Why are you so bothered by my reply. A teacher?

Are you sure this 15 minutes isn't being used as 1-1 time for him? If he cannot learn in a busy environment, surely it helps to have a member of staff to himself in a quiet room when all the other children have left? If the school are not making the most of this opportunity for learning, I would ask them to consider it.

Removing break time is counter productive. It is likely to make the situation worse. The school needs to be providing more support. They can and should do this now without a diagnosis or EHCP. However, without an EHCP the support the school can offer will be more limited than with an EHCP. For example, many schools cannot provide much or even any TA support to DC without an EHCP.

It is worth considering requesting an EHCNA. On their websites, IPSEA and SOSSEN have lots of helpful information about the SEN system, including model letters for requesting an EHCNA.

No. A SENCO. Who understands the needs of a whole school and makes constant decisions on how to prioritise extremely limited resources. While I will take parental concerns into account, I will prioritise the needs as I and my staff team see fit. I'm glad your child is getting the support that they need. That's all any SENCO wants (well, most of them for sure; some just want a quiet life and a paycheque no doubt althoughi genuinely don't think I've spoken to one of those). After a long day of trying to provide and coordinate in-the-moment support, as well as secure EHCPs, other funding, appropriate placements and diagnoses, I was triggered by your post, I won't deny it.

OP absolutely shouldn't do nothing and I addressed that in my first post.

Say school are discriminating if they don't give reasonable adjustments. And also he needs to run around and regulate himself so their punishments will make things worse. As to speak with the schools Ed psychologist

@Thisismynewusernamedoyoulikeit i felt you were triggered and I understand why you all probably feel attacked and under appreciated at times. This isn't an attack on you because I don't know you.
There is a huge collective problem as you probably see daily in your work. The unbearable pain and stress of trying to get support in our situation is palpable on every group I'm part of. Gaslighting and parent blaming is off the scale. If the SENCO said to me, we are so under resourced, it's a nightmare but let's see what we can do. But they don't. They get shitty and defensive quite often.

We are left floundering. It's horrific for all of us. And the EHCP process is purposely designed to drive you away in despair until you're forced to appeal. This isn't the fault of SENCOs, but dear goodness so many of them shouldn't be in this job.

And of course my child is now not doing ok. Because they're now in secondary school! Im forever grateful for the amazing rarity that was his primary school teacher for the final year.

The systems a mess. That isn't the fault of SENCOs, that I completely see. But us parents, we're all triggered too. And I think we have quite a lot more to be getting triggered about in the situation that befalls us.

The system is so broken and sendcos so overstretched.

You'd really hope that as the specialist in the school understanding behaviour and kids difficulties that any sendcos would see that keeping a small child that needs to regulate in would be a bad idea.

So often small changes and small differences /adjustments in approach can make a difference early on but schools are swamped by just trying to get through, or the kids with higher pressing needs in the school.

But as a parent you can advocate for your child. And this type of thing when small can build resentment and really put you off school later on.

Sendcos should be aware of importance of regulation, of need for movement, of the face that much send is undiagnosed at this age but also that they are still small kids at this age...