Would your primary school treat these threats and assaults as violence?

[Lambaandlettuce]

in your primary school is this deemed violence?

we have a just turned 10 year old child in my child’s class whose behaviour is digusting.

We have taken our eldest child out of school this week for their own safety after this pupil threatened to kill them simply because they didn’t want to play tag. We were told by a member of staff this morning the pupil was in school today despite what happened on Thursday. Staff member also said to me I should start considering formal complaints as the head will never consider excluding this child regardless of the number and escalation of incidents. Head has said today that the behaviour is communication and is being managed in line with their policy.

putting arms around neck to strangle other child
punching
saying I hate you and I’ll get you dead
ripping up school art work
bullying every day saying you are weak, you are a pussy, your are just scared of me, I’ll knock yer face off
yanking off play equipment from height and causing huge egg lump bruise on head
using threatening language in school

to staff and in class
hitting TA and pushing her resulting in injury and weeks off work
so disruptive children can’t renewer classroom and have to be taught outside
putting hands around throat of class teacher
climbing on top of windows tables and throwing scissors

None of this is OK. Have you spoken with the head? Do they know why your child was not in?

I know it’s terrible. Yes we have emailed th head many times to record the situations, been in to see them. It’s not only our child affected. Yet this problem child remains in school. Apparently the head only has time to meet with us this week on Friday - so over a week later

Of course it’s not ok, your poor child @Lambaandlettuce, however be prepared for the sanctimonious posters who will come on to berate you for not being kind and thinking of your own child rather than the violent child.

What country are you in?

There may well be many things that make the head reticent to exclude the child even for a fixed term.

None of those are anything to do with you. What matters to you is how they are going to keep your child safe. Have they given you any indication of how they are trying to do this? Recording what happens is a terrible response.

You need to make clear that your child will be off until you can meet with the head or another appropriate person about your child's safety and that you would like to see the complaints procedure so that you know the next step (the procedure should be on the website but sometimes just asking for it will have an impact).

One thing that jumped out was that the most recent action could be interpreted as "not a big deal" if seen in isolation. "I'm gonna kill you!" is often said but rarely meant. In this case, though, your child was afraid due to the agressor's previous actions. Do make that clear in any complaint.

If this behaviour is an accepted means of communication in the school, tell your child to reciprocate in the same style.

Thank you for your insight. We read the complaints procedure which is speak to class teacher, which we have done, then head, which we have done, and if it still isn’t resolved then written to the governors which is the part we haven’t done yet. If at our meeting on Friday we get the same non committal answers we will write to the governors . I can’t understand how this unmanageable and violent child is let harm mentally and physically all the time. It seems so very wrong they are in school, throwing books around yesterday and stopping our year 6 Sat prep yet my child and others are either at home scared or in school in tears.

England

This is actually the part we feel is the saddest. Our child said they had been told by the head not to hit back, but has expressed to us that when they said to the head they want to hit to stop the hitting the head really told my child off. Other child got Lego therapy. It feels she is pandering to the awful behaviour

Wow this is crazy. People seem to leave my kids school at the drop of a hat, certainly no issues this extreme. I can imagine there’d be a mass exodus if something like this was happening. How long has it been going on for?

The kid, I assume, has additional needs and a bad home life. Not an excuse, but certainly makes it more difficult to suspend or exclude.

There will be a lot of work going on in the background with this child. The Head isn’t able to tell you about any of it, because it’s confidential.

You could send DC to a different school, but there will be another struggling kid lashing out all over the place, it’s very common to have at least one.

To be honest years. But the past 12 months since a new head started and adopted a new behaviour policy which seems to be about rewarding poor behaviour with play it’s just getting worse. I am assuming the fact they’ve had a growth spurt and intimidate the kids in year 6 with their size and hormones are kicking in that this is playing a part too. It’s a village school, so we have little other options as the other most locals school has closed, the other option is the next village whose school is being joined up with ours and run by the same head and the other two main ones are quite a drive away , one of them is currently at capacity. This child lives 11 miles away from the school. Doesn’t live in the village. I assume because no school local to them will have them either

I would personally go straight to governors now unless the head will rearrange until today. Your child has statutory tests from Monday and is missing four days of school due to the head's decision to not meet with you until Friday. If he is not safe next week, he may miss his tests. It sounds heartless but the governors may care about that as well as the genuine safety risk.

While I don't necessarily think excluding the child should be the outcome, something needs to change for the safety of your child and others. This includes the perpetrator, who is being taught that his actions do not have consequences.

You could by pass school and go to police re strangling. I told school I would do this if it ever happened again.

Some parents do bypass school for ongoing or serious incidents. This is pretty serious.

Read up on peer on peer abuse in keeping children safe in education ( KCSIE) and quote it. This is the safeguarding bible of schools. If that doesn't prick the HT ears up you have some serious problems as the duty applies to every child Inc yours. HT is failing in that duty. You could also approach LADO / MASH directly. Not sure what's the right name for them right now

I make no assumptions about the quality of their home life but I do know the parents are bored of being told about the child’s behaviour and don’t engage with the school and it’s now down to a grandparent to do all the school drop offs and pick up.

It happens a lot
We left UK schools because of it.

I can call the police? On a child actually didn’t know this. This is our biggest concern the head is failing all other children. We know the only way the school will be safer is without this pupil. I know there are plenty of other scenarios on going with other children but none of these are violent

Agreed, KCSIE is your friend.

Quite their own policies at them and make a formal complaint to Governors.

its appalling is it a UK thing I have family in Ireland and they have nothing like this going on in their schools

Thank you both I’ll read up on that

Of course you can. Just because it happens at school doesn't mean it's not a potential criminal matter.

We moved to Scandinavian and school system is much better. We are happy to have left UK schools. It won't be better I guess.

😂😂😂😂

Of you think there's no behaviour issues in any school in Ireland then you're naive.

I meant from speaking to family who have children in primary they wee appalled by what I explained and said their school doesn’t let it get this far, or if there is behaviour it’s not as extreme in their specific schools

Honestly didn’t know that. I thought they would say it’s a school issue