bullying by SN children

[catkinq]

Has anyone else experienced problems where their children have been physically attacked by children with SNs and behavioural issues? We are unsure as to what to do about it bt both of our children have now been physically attacked on more than ne occasion by children with SNs. One child who appears to have some kind of autisum is causing particular concern. our childen are both at primary school so the incidents have so far only been hitting or scratchin gbut the school has swimming lessons and today I heard of 2 separate cases where a SNs child held others under the water. I now do not want to allow mycildren to go swimming but do nto know if I can stop them.

i don;t think any child should have to put up with being hit or hurt by any child, SN or NT

the use of the word bullying implies a pointed, directed and thought out number of attacks on one particular child, who is being singled out and victimised

if you feel the school are not addressing it, can you write to the Head, maybe to the board of governers?

however, saying you have heard that an SN child held other children under water does not sound like something any school would ignore.

I agree the school's response is simply not good enough. It is their job to manage the behaviour of SN children and ensure that other children are protected from things the SN child cannot help doing. Don't give the children a hard time or have a go at their parents, take it up with the school.

If the school needs more support with those children, it's their job to apply for it, not your child's to put up with it.

Have you wrote a letter to the school? You must put your concerns in writing so that they take it seriously. They can apply for extra support and funding if the childrens behaviour is not being managed properly. Absolutely ridiculous to say 'these children are like this, please be understanding Its a complete cop out. They need behaviour programs in place and 1-2-1 helpers wherever necessary. This is NOt your problem, its the schools. If after writing your letter to the head it isnt taken seriously, then go to the school governers

Sorry if I gave you the wrong impression Catking. It must be distressing for you. But you gave me the wrong impression by putting 'bullying by SN children' in your title. I guess I was just sticking up for those kids.I never meant that autistic children can't do inappropriate things or that your child should be at the receiving end of them. Just that they don't generally have a concept of bullying. Good luck with your letters.

Agree with the others, the school must sort it out otherwise everyone will suffer, including the SN child who is clearly not having his needs met. Yes, there does need to be understanding and tolerance, but not to the point where a child is being hurt or their education suffers - that does not require understanding, it requires action.

My child was hurt at school by another child whose behaviour is so constantly aggressive and disruptive that I suspect there may be some underlying issues or needs (whether he does have identified SN or not I don't know and nor do I expect the school to tell me).

The incident was serious enough (I thought) to discuss it with the class teacher. I asked her for an assurance that the boy who had hurt my child was receiving appropriate support in understanding how to behave appropriately in class and she gave me that assurance. At one level, you might say that that was pretty meaningless - what else could the teacher say? - but I felt it had been helpful in that I had registered that I was concerned that my child had been injured and that, although I did not necessarily expect the boy to be punished (especially if he did have SN), I did want to know that his dangerous behaviour was not being accepted and that the school were supporting him in learning better and safer ways to behave.

I'm not suggesting that the children are at fault. I am not interested in "fault" I am interested in my children's safety.
The school has 1-1 help for the swimming child but not for the other children. In response to my queries about the physical attacks on my children the school just say that the childten concerned have SNs and that they do not have funding for constant supervision, just for so many hours a week. Therefore teh children cannot be prevented from hurting otehrs as they cannot understand that they should not. Therefore mine are just (it seems) supposed to put up with it. The schools attitude is simplar to that of some people here - ie that it is not acceptable to complain about the behaviour of SNs children because the children cannot help it. I am happy to accept that this is that case but what are my children supposed to do - just put up with being hit, punched, pinched and kicked during lessons?

It does sound like the school is inadequately prepared to deal with integration- so they need to sort themselves out. It is definitely not good enough for you to be told "this happens, try and understand it".

as many other posters have said, speak to the teacher. If no joy with the teacher, write to headteacher and/or governors, and if still no joy, write to the LEA. As possibly having something written on file might persuade the LEA that more money/support is needed at that school for kids with SEN. Sounds like this school is not supporting pupils with violent behaviour at all well.

Can you get together with as many parents as possible and complain to the school and the Govenors? If a child cannot understand that they should not hurt other children and the school cannot support the child to stop that happening then there is something wrong and the school MUST address it.

Before this posting becomes devisive can i just point out that the SN has absoloutely nothing to do with anything.
That is not a defensive statement or an idealistic one.
the OPs problem is not the two children 'bullying'.
The ops problem is that her school is crap because they are not implementing appropriate enviroment for the safety and education of their pupils.
Their response of 'well it is just these children - they have problems ' is frankly fucking irresponsible. It is INCREDIBLY damaging to all the children involved.
If the children cannot be considered safe around other kids then they should be adequately supervised.
If your child is being hurt then you should speak to the school and complain at whatever level is necessary.
The fact that these children may have sn is neither here nor there.

Oh dear! It does sound like the school are not doing enough / the right thing for the children with behavioural difficulties, and it must be worrying to mum's who have not had any direct experience of working with / bringing up children with these kinds of difficulties.
Unfortunately, the governments policy of inclusion has been badly thought through and very few of the children with these types of difficulties get the support they need. Hence the "sitting them next to a "good" child" because there is no funding for trained support. Many teachers (as well as other parents) see them as naughty, don't want them in their class, etc.

You must make the school aware of your concerns - the swimming is a health and safety issue, and they need to do something about the behaviour issues for ALL the children concerned.

We had a similar situation where my dd was being hit and scratched by a child with SN. The teacher was hopeless but we went to see the headteacher who sorted everything out. It was easier in our situation I think as my dd was the only one being hurt so the school put in a blanket ban that they were not allowed to play together - this has worked well so far. My dd is 7 so was able to understand (to some extent) that the other child did not mean to hurt her but if she couldn't understand the rules of the game sometimes she would behave in that way.

Go and speak to the school again - a solution needs to be reached that is right for both sets of children.

We had a similar situation at our school, last year. A child, who had recognised behavioural difficulties was hurting, on 3 occasions seriously, other children. He was a large, strong boy and could inflict alot of damage if he lost his temper. Neither of my DDs were in his class, which I am glad about. He hurled chairs, attacked a TA and there were numerous occasions when other children were hurt.

The school, had little support from the LEA or the child's parents. The parents of the other children in his class were upset, angry and fed up with him hurting their children. The problem became so bad that a group of parents, after getting nowhere with the school, decided to pull their children from the school. The police were involved by a parent whose son had been seriously hurt, The whole thing was a mess and badly managed by all involved. The boy concerned ended up having one to one tuition paid for out of the schools SEN budget. This meant help for other children with SEN was withdrawn. He also carried on hurting other children during playtimes when he had no support.

My point is , the situation was not handled properly by the school from the beginning. It ended up a big mess and was only resolved when the child moved to secondary school. Your child has a right to be safe at school and the school must deal with all violent pupils in an appropriate way. I wish that the situation at our school had been more effectively managed from the beginning. Imo you should voice your concerns now, to the class teacher, to the head and to the governing body.

exactly pagwatch

Ok, stupid question of the day --
Why are autistic children incapable of bullying?

lljkk - I think what shells was getting at was that as kids with ASD would have trouble with social skills, they wouldn't have the social skills required for manipulative bullying type behaviour. Though of course it's probably not as simple as that, and I personally wouldn't say a kid with ASD automatically couldn't be a bully.

agree pagwatch.

btw if you have a kid with SN it isn't always easy to have much influence on what they do at school! DS has mild SN (not behavioural, but involving language problems) so I find it hard to get the barest details out of him about what goes on at school.

totally agree with pagwatch

But pagwatch, it is about SN, because premusably the school has tools/rules to deal children with behavioural issues who are NT.

Not all SN children respond well (if at all) to tactics used for NT children. Some SN children, particularly those that display aggressive tendencies need completely different type of help to change their behaviour.

This is my honest opinion, so please don't flame me.

I think the school obviously doesn't have the first clue how to help these children. But also, what can they do if they don't get the government support they need? Surely something needs to be done at a higher level to sort out these sort of issues.

Me too coming to apologise . I did not find the wording in your first post entirely clear (and we have had previous posters who have complained of the presence of even well behaved SN children in their child's class because they are thought somehow to drag a school down). It sounded as if your problem was with SN children, rather than with a feeble school management who are making SN their excuse.

I couldn't agree more with Pagwatch. If SN is made such an issue, it's because the school aren't handling it right. Dc's school have several children with behavioural problems - they deal with it! It does take extra resources and an intelligent approach, but it can be done. And resources are available; but the school has to push actively to get them. Some schools are just too lazy.

I would definitely complain to the school, Catking. It is their responsibility to keep your child safe- don't let them weasel out of it!

Just be sure you complain about the cases that you actually know to have happened, preferably to your own child, rather than what you have heard at second or third hand. I have known reports about odd behaviour at school to snowball out of all recognition.

The main issue is that a statemented SEN child can not be excluded from a mainstream school. They can be excluded during the statementing process, but not once they have received the statement.

However, the Head may be able to exclude on Health and Safety grounds. Aggression/ violence that could have resulted in death (holding another child under water for a period of time etc) would certainly be a Health and Safety issue.

It does not sound as if this child is in an appropriate school for his needs. It sounds as if the Head needs to be a little more proactive in explaining to the parent/s that the school is not the right environment for his needs (if they haven't already done so) and for the parents to take this on board and act. Until they choose to do so, or the Head addresses the behaviour on H&S grounds, I don't think things will change that significantly.

the trouble is critterjitter is that the lea's have closed alot of the special school because of the blanket inclusion guidelines. These children who would have once gone to MLD schools, for example, have to now go to mainstream with a statement. The statement needs are usually not set high enough and the child with sn and everyone around them suffers as a result.

My child attends a sld/pmld school and there are children being placed in that school who would have once gone to an mld school with outreach facilities aswell. They are put in my childs school because various schools cannot cope but our school is suppossed to cope with growing numbers of children who shouldnt be there either.

The whol inclusion thing stinks imo. Dreamt up by some fluffy git who didnt think of the implications or someone who thought it would be a great money saving exercise. Either way it has meant headaches for many many parents and upset for hundreds(if not thousands) of children

they closed down most if not all of the MLD schools btw in this area (and others)

Agree with ryobi (have a son who went from mainstream with full time (crap) 1:1 support - to SLD/PMLD where he is thriving).

On the issue of telling the parents- it can be very hard to know. We were not given an option of special school for out son who started school aged 4 non-verbal (he's still non-verbal aged 9). So off to mainstream he went. It's obvious now that it never worked. I don't think it was much of a problem for the other kids - he has never been agrressive towards otehrs- but it was a total waste of his time and a nightmare for staff who didn't have a clue. BUT we were NOT told. I have since found out that this was probably because we were seen as 'exercising our choice' for mainstream and that cannot be refused - except for reasons of H&S. After our first annual review it was obvious that they didn't have the faintest clue what they were doing and a spy (private SALT) had told me some more things and he was able to transfer easily to SLD/PMLD. But he was only able to tranfer easily because he was going to SLD.

This children I know who have transferred to MLD have had to wait years for a space (if they get it).

Agree with pagwatch- that the issue of SN is irrelevant. Children shouldn't be getting physically hit by anyone- and if a child with SN is being hit then they need to be taught not to if they have any chance of functioning in society. Yes this can take a long time, but it's not some sort of rocket science - it just needs some approrpiate interventions and behavioural plans out in place and staff training.

Don't be all growly about the individual children- they are pretty innocent in all this. It's the school's job to provide appropriate support and to protect all children, so take it up with them. 'They just do that' is not an acceptable excuse.