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

But actually, Zazette, the teaching staff are not there to teach a child how to behave. If my child was rude, I'd expect to be told. If he was rude continually,I'd expect to be called to come and collect him. If he was agressive I'd expect him to be excluded. If he was not, I'd wonder what sort of school I'd chosen.

I've spoken to many, many parents whose Reception age child is biting or hitting other children and they say things like, yes he does it at home but I don't know how to tackle it. But never do they come in at the start and say, he's a biter or a hitter and we obviously need to work together to sort it out. I've spoke to the HV and am doing all I can etc. No, instead they just hope that school and the teacher will sort it out.

agree with jimjams and others. easy to wave the pitchfork at parents when you don't realise how hard it is to get a diagnosis or any early intervention or how in some areas statements and 1-1 support are rare as rocking horse shit.
bet most of these cases involve some form of SN.

I agree about the likelihood of some form of SN being involved in a number of those cases. Getting a dx can be a nightmare in some areas. You only have to read some of the posts on here where parents have been told cr@p like "We can't dx a child with AS before the age of 7" or some other meaningless age.

Even when a child does have a dx there's no guarantee that the school will know what to do to support the child.

Agree strongly with zazette. This is primarily about a failure to include, in my opinion. What is more, I think it is ridiculous and wrong to talk of 3 and 4 year olds "assaulting" other people. It is a classic way of exaggerating the problem by using evaluative words as if they were straightforwardly descriptive and the effect, which I suspect is often intended when headteachers are trying to justify a decision to exclude, is sometimes to demonise perfectly developmentally normal, if undesirable, behaviour. At other times the behaviour may be genuinely worrying and need to be dealt with but it does not help if it has been incorrectly described. "X assaulted Y" is shocking to read. Assualt is a very loaded word and could mean anything. Did X throw a lego block at Y? Run into Y? Hit Y? Punch Y repeatedly resulting in a broken jaw? Attack Y with a pair of scissors? If the behaviour isn't described accurately there is no way of knowing what happened and whether exclusion is the best or only way to deal with the problem.

What a sensationalist thread title. And nasty op.

Scummy, schools do not exclude 4 and 5yr olds for throwing lego or for scrapping. That is expected though not desirable behaviour in the Foundation Stage. Nor for shouting or having a tantrum.

Trying to stab another child with scissors or hitting another child or the teacher with a chair or a cash register (as I once witnessed) because you are not allowed your own way is and always should be unacceptable. If it is not tackled firmly at 5, by the time they are 11 you've no chance.
Sadly this happens more frequently than anyone likes to admit.

What do you think of this poor three year old being excluded for his hair cut.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-557276/Mothers-disgust-nursery-bans-year-old-boy-tra mlines-haircut.html

It seems over the top to exclude a three year old for a stupid decision his mother made.

And why is it so un-PC to suggest that often it is the parents' fault. Actually fault is the wrong word, responsibility is more apt. It is absolutely true that many of the children included in these stats actually have an undiagnosed or poorly managed SN. However, this is not the whole picture.

It certainly isn't confined to deprived areas or less well off children. Many of these children will come to school never having been told no. School will be the first time they have had to share, to take turns to miss out etc. They are only little but such behaviour is unacceptable. Parents could help their children enormously by properly preparing them for school.

RT, that is a completely different area. It may be a silly rule (IMO) but it is a school rule and the mother should know that.

IMHO, parents should be fined in these cases rather than the child excluded.

I haven't read all the posts here but my immediate reaction to the report was to wonder if special needs were taken into account. I also can't help feeling that it's actually telling us that under 5's shouldn't even be in school.

Fine, myredcardigan. I don't doubt you or disagree with you that bad behaviour needs to be tackled and very assertively tackled if it is serious. Children and teachers need to be safe at school. However, that behaviour should be clearly and accurately described, not merely categorised as "assault" without a definition, for everyone's sake.

I worked in a (very poor) secondary school where decisions were made to get certain children out if at all possible by noting down every episode of bad behaviour. Teachers openly spoke about this in the staff room- e.g. X is a little shit- keep collecting those behaviour forms on him/her. The way certain supposed incidents were recorded stunned me. Honestly. A kid bumped into one teacher in a crowded hallway and it was described as a " deliberate attack from behind." Certain children got a reputation and could then do nothing right.

I can't speak for secondary but I've no doubt such practices go on. Not acceptable but a child's behaviour would surely need to be quite shocking before a school took such drastic action.

I just think that nobody ever publicly says that some parents are not parenting well enough and perhaps offering them help or strategies before their kids get to the stage of being thought so badly of as the childyou mention. We have to get off the fence on this as anti-social behaviour in this country is widespread.

Partnership and support is what's needed.

My siste was asked to leave a school at the age of 6 before they expelled her. Nothing to do with parenting more to do with my siste being a complete wild child then and now at the age of 25

children that young are lost in classes of 30 plus IMO. I think if the classes were smaller there would be far fewer problems.

I also agree that the use of the word 'assault' in this context is both insidious and stupid. It is a word one associates with a criminal offence.

Many many children were thought of badly in that school. Often by struggling teachers with few skills working in an environment where there was a terrible lack of support from a useless senior management team. The teachers frequently coped by becoming despairing and overly punitive. The school went into special measures and was apparently turned around by a headteacher who started by insisting that teachers stopped vilifying the young people and began treating them as human beings, alongside enforcing boundaries and raising expectations.

I just wonder how good these schools which need to exclude nursery age children more than once ina blue moon can be, tbh.

A DC has to be very bad to be excluded at that age. It doesn't suddenly happen without warning. If the school can't cope the DC needs special help-much better to sort it out at 5yrs than contain it and have major problems at a later stage.

Scummy, teachers don't often start out that way. That attitude often evolves after years of abuse and yes it is abuse when a teenager throws things at you, call you obsene names and pushes you around. I hope that new HT also offered her staff her absolute support in the face of violence.

How many other jobs do people go in every day knowing they are facing that?

Obscene

By myredcardigan on Thu 06-Nov-08 18:45:13

Trying to stab another child with scissors or hitting another child or the teacher with a chair or a cash register (as I once witnessed) because you are not allowed your own way is and always should be unacceptable. If it is not tackled firmly at 5, by the time they are 11 you've no chance.

I agree, but excluding a child the best way to deal with the behaviour?

As said before on this thread, an exclusion isn't really a punishment for the child, more of an inconvenience for the parents, if they work.

When there is an exclusion/exclusions on a child's record it can help to build up a picture of the extent to which a child is having difficulties in shcool. Presumably (hopfully)apropriate help can then be put in place for the child.

I wonder if it is a case of shools excluding pupils in order to access additional funding/ help for those children? Or is this purely wishful thinking on my part?

What other options are there though Lynette? We're not even suppose to keep them in at break time anymore because they have a right to a playtime!

I don't know myredcardigan!

I have asked the head of my sons school, if he ever needs to be excluded again, that he could have an in-school exclusion. The school now has the space for this to happen, but obviously it would require a member of staff to supervise him for a whole day, which would be a huge drain on the scohols limited resources. Much easier and cheeper for the school to ask that he's kept at home for a day.

My DS is 9, though so I'm getting some what off topic.

"120 three-year-olds were given fixed-term exclusions for attacking another pupil"

oh fgs, excluding a 3 yo for fighting?

and I agree it should be sorted out at an early stage. How does an exclusion do that, pray?

If an under 5 is violent and will not do as he/she is told the teacher simply can't do their job. Extra resources are needed either in the form of a full time TA for that DC or a special unit in the school to help the DC. The DC is being failed if they just have to cope in the normal classroom. I am not talking about a 'naughty' child, I mean an uncontrollable child who is a danger to themselves, other DCs and adults. They have special needs that have to be addressed. Pretending that they can be managed in a classroom with one teacher and one TA isn't helping anyone.

I am bemused, truly bemused

I don't blame the teachers but it seems absurd

I don't know what seems absurb. Sadly there are some very disturbed DCs around. Imagine a class of 4 yr old with one teacher and one TA. They sit down for a story, one boy won't sit down and he starts throwing toys at the other DCs, he is danger of doing serious harm. The teacher has to remove the rest of the class for their own safety, leaving the boy with the TA. The Head is called, the boy swears at her and kicks her, he runs riot and threatens to overturn computers. The only option is to call the parent and ask them to take the DC home.
The boy has SNs, he either needs a statement and his own TA or a school that caters for him and will try and include him in a normal class by working with him.
I went to a junior school yesterday to discuss a job in a special unit. The school manages DCs on the autistic spectrum or ADHD brilliantly. They have a total of 11 children with a team in a special unit, they do lots of exercises,have a chill out area with bean bags, learn social skills etc and are helped to integrate in a normal class. They have fantastic results with these DCs.
However it costs money. You cannot place a DC who may be violent and doesn't interact with others into a classroom and expect a teacher to cope.