Has your under 5 ever been excluded from school?

[AtheneNoctua]

How does a 5 year old get like this? Surely some parents aren't taking their jobs seriously.

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7713227.stm

AthenaNoctuna - your post implies that parents of children who are excluded from school are in some way not parenting properly.

I'm

I'm too to post anything rational right now.

Funnily enough I have a thread going today because dd is on the receiving end of bullying behaviour from another 4yo in her class.

The mother seems to be at a loss to know what to do - her child doesn't appear to be that bothered that she is being told off. I don't know the family at all so can't really comment on their parenting so I have no idea whether the school's warnings are being reinforced at home or whether the mother's rolling eyes and "What has she done now? She's uncontrollable" attitude is just for show and her dd's behaviour is not being pulled up on at home.

I wonder how much effect a suspension has on a child that doesn't seem to notice tellings off. A couple of days off school is a problem for the parents more than the child I'd have thought, particularly if the parent(s) work. Perhaps it's a shot across the bows for the parents - a reinforcement that their child's behaviour is unacceptable and that they need to work with the school to sort it out.

If I were told that my dd was causing trouble in the class I would be taking steps to sort it out... not all parents do though, do they?

It's nothing to do with the fact that some children just can't cope with full time school at this age, oh nooooooooooooo.

LynetteScavo - I'm sure that the parents of many excluded children are doing the best they possibly can - that's not just lip service, I do really believe that.

You have to agree though that some parents completely ignore or disagree with what the school is saying.

My Mum is a TA and the attitude of some of the parents at her school is shocking - the "Little Johnny is completely incapable of doing any wrong" attitude.

Other parents do all they can to no effect.

It's because the teachers aren't even allowed to raise their voices to the misbehaving children and the kids know they can get away with murder.
Our primary school has a scary headmistress and she always manages to get the little darlings to behave .
My friend lives in France at the moment and she is shocked at how much shouting goes on even in nursery (reception) classes and all misbehaving children are sent out into the corridor to be watched over by "prefects" who march them to the principal for a good telling off.
They should bring back "houses" in schools, like Harry Potter and if you misbehave you lose points for your "house" and if you do well you gain points and then each term they give out prizes to the best house members.
That way you are rewarding good behaviours instead of bad.
Can anyone tell me why they got rid of that system. In my school as soon as they got rid of the houses then the kids did not care anymore.

While I am sure that maybe 8% of the children exluded have parents trying to parent their children and teach them right from wrong I bet a high ammount of the children's behaviour does stem from upbringing.

I know someone who was. He had SN (AS). I fact he was suspended from 2 schools by the time he was 5.

He is now doing very well in a very good school and will probably come our with a ridiculous number of A* grades. He's also doing very well socially.

He was not remotely ready for school aged 5.

No suspended, excluded.

yes my ds has been. lots of times.

i guess im just a shite parent.

But do carry on waving those pitchforks!

oh Mamazon there we go another with SN.

Didn't the NAS do a survey and find out that the rate of exclusion for young children with AS/HFA was unacceptably high?

I'm quite shocked that it happens at all for under 5's. DS is only a toddler now, but I'd be mortified if his behaviour resulted in this type of action and a little confused that his teacher or headmaster couldn't give him a good talking to and keep him under control while in their care.

It doesn't seem like a sensible solution to kick these wee kiddies out of school.

Jimjams, Ive taught 2 boys with AS, both with the most impeccable behaviour. No chatting, loved the class rules etc
Just shows how much ASD varies.

On topic, of course it's not always the parents' fault. But there's no getting away from the fact that it very often is. Very often due to a kind of 'killing with kindness' approach to parenting. But hell, I'm not perfect either. DD1 will probably join those stats.

My sister was a SN TA and on playground duty intervened to stop a 4/5 year old NT Boy attacking another. The boy then punched her in the stomach and pushed her over and told her to F* OFF
My sister hurt her ankle which became infected. She hobbled into school with crutches. The parent was in reception at the time and turned around and said "my DS didn't do that" .and refused to believe her DS was capable of what he did and said.

In her own class YR5 there were 9 NT on report! and there were daily confrontions with parents refusing to believe what their child had got up to that day.

I'm not waving any pitchforks.

As a (blinkered? unthinking?) parent of an NT child I'm ashamed to say that I never even considered that any exclusions from school might be of children with SN's. I don't know what to say about that as I don't know enough about it but it seems obvious that children with SN's need support, not exclusion.

If we had earlier intervention/diagnosis of kids with SN I'd be very interested to see if this figure dropped dramatically.

Perhaps stopping cramming SN kids into mainstream with the pretence that it's in their best interests may help too.

See, my DS wasn't excluded.
They just told us that they could only support him in school for 10 hours a week.

I wonder how many families are in a similar situation?

Every child matters.
Apparently.

sadly there was a very similar article in our local rag a few months back.
it showed my Ds's school as having the highest rate of exclusions in the borough...it actually detailed one of his exclusions (thankfully without naming him).

There was no mention of the fact that althoguh mainstream, 60% of the enrolment is on the Sn register.

I had to stand n the school playground for the next week listening to the mothers sigh and tut and the sort of parents that these children must have.

Most kids with AS/HFA are utterly charming. If properly supported.

Which was why my son left mainstream (actually HC it was similar in ds1's case- in reception he had 2 hours a day in school for a long time - despite having full time 1:1 specified on his statement).

By myredcardigan on Thu 06-Nov-08 16:22:10

"If we had earlier intervention/diagnosis of kids with SN I'd be very interested to see if this figure dropped dramatically."

Very good point.

I do think though, that mainstream shool can be the best place for a lot of children with mild SN, but that staff need more training. How much knowledge does a newly qualified teacher have of Aspergers, for example?

There are loads of reasons why this happens, each one specific to a child.

Of course parenting can be a reason, but so can problems that are outside of a parents realm.

A large amount of children are just not ready for school and find the whole experience overwhelming, either acting out or withdrawing. Huge classes are also a problem too.

LS, I was qualified just 2yrs when I first taught a child with AS and TBH, I didn't have a clue and relied heavily on the knowledge and experience of his excellent support worker.

I was lucky that she happened to have many years experience in supporting children with AS. In 14yrs of teaching I have taught 2 children with AS.

The second time, I felt more experienced and better equiped to support the child which was just as well as his support worker didn't have a clue.

On neither occasion did these children have the opportunity to reach their potential.

They need to check there's no medical reason for the poor behaviour too. So many children have glue ear, for instance, which can cause a child to be disruptive.

Also it can be a huge change for a child to be in a large classroom for so many hours a day. I would imagine across similar countries to the UK that not many would expect a four year old to be in a classroom from 9 till at least 3 every day.

Teachers may need to be reeducated, or at least change their behaviour (not reward only slightly bad behaviour with attention (goes back to large classes), for instance - pick their battles, if you like).

Give the child some responsiblity, get the child to help out.

It's not always the parents' fault...

(we have had problems with DS1 at Reception, but since he's had his glue ear fixed with grommets and since the teacher has ignored the poor behaviour things have improved. We were worried too about him being exluded).

Among the half-dozen primary schools in my area, there are widely varying rates of exclusion. It is not primarily - IMO - because of widely varying parenting skills, but because the schools have different attitudes to and values about discipline. One believes in booting difficult kids out and leaving them for someone else to deal with so that they can maintain their utterly narrow focus on brilliant SATS results. Another works to include ALL the children in its school.

The op is terribly naive about what a political (with a small 'p') matter the use of exclusion is in schools.

I don't think that being an immature four year old boy is a form of SEN. I think that immature children should be allowed the option of being in the year below. Prehaps those who are exceptionally gifted and talented should be allowed to move up a year.

The rigid and frigid system of strict cut of dates, artifically creates SEN where none exists. The majority of children with SEN are boys and many of them have summer birthdays.