Email from my child’s infant school uk? I’m sorry but this all seems wrong?

[Frazzledmomma123]

Dear Families,

I wanted to address a concern that has understandably been raised regarding the use of a ‘safe word’ to move children out of the classroom. On reflection, we recognise that terms such as safe word and evacuation can raise anxiety and concern.

We agree that children should not have to leave their own classroom in order to feel safe. However, there are times, though not daily, when moving the class is the safest option for all children. This has happened a few times, and only when absolutely necessary. We fully accept having to go to such measures is a worry, but it is a system that schools are having to turn to more and more. I appreciate this provides little comfort, but hopefully helps you hear that supporting emotional regulation has become a real focus and factor for schools nationally.

The children themselves were involved in choosing the word, and the purpose was to minimise panic and keep the situation calm if it needed to be used. Our aim is always for every child to feel safe, happy, and able to learn in their classroom, as is their right. We are putting a range of steps and strategies in place to work towards this, and we do not intend this approach to become the “go‑to.”

We also want to reassure you that we are supporting children to understand that behaviour is a communication of feelings, but the way those feelings are shown must still be safe and appropriate. We do not condone unsafe behaviour, and we share parents’ concerns about children seeing this as “normal.” I have spoken with the class to reiterate that message and reminded them that they should always talk to a trusted adult if they feel unsure or worried. In school, children choose five trusted adults; it may be helpful to have a similar conversation at home about who your child feels they can talk to at school.

We are very aware that things are challenging at the moment. We do not want this to continue, and we are actively putting support in place to help all children feel safe and settled in their learning environment.

Thank you for reading, please keep speaking to us about your concerns.

Without lacking compassion, can I ask what you would do in the workplace if, at your desk, you were having to write a report, or number crunch and someone was screaming or shouting and appeared to be very dysregulated. Would you carry on with your work as if everything was calm? Would you find it easy to get your work right?
Because the above scenario is daily for some children in class. We tell them to ‘try hard to ignore the noise.’ It’s not a healthy situation for anybody.
The government need to be putting £millions into the system.

I try so hard to ignore the ‘little ‘ things like tapping, humming

Please do ignore the tapping and humming. Put the child to one side of the classroom if it disturbs others, but please ignore those two aspects of his behaviour. They help him to regulate.

Yours faithfully,
one of the tappers and hummers

It's not 'spoiling little Timmy's enjoyment of lessons', it's ruining children's only chance at an education, and putting them at risk of physical injury and mental harm. My DC (age 8) has been punched to the ground and kicked in the head, has been bitten, and attacked in other ways. Other children in the class have been held up against the wall and choked. Chairs have been thrown, and children & teachers attacked with a cricket bat. My DC has come to understand that they and the other children have to tread on eggshells and submit to the demands of one particular child. My DC is dyslexic and can't get anywhere near the help they need. Everyone is being failed in this situation but please don't minimise the effect this type of behaviour is having with such patronising statements.

I take it that you don't work in an open plan office? The Teams meetings going on all around me are pretty disruptive.

NHS staff working in patient-facing roles have to put up with screaming too, including the reception and booking-in staff.

That doesn't mean that you are wrong about needing to invest in SEND places in special schools, far from it. What I am saying is that the difference between a "spirited" exchange of opinions over Teams at the next desk and someone screaming is a matter of degree, yet we expect adult workers to tolerate this disruption.

@Lizzypet you can take issue with my choice of sarcastic language if you like, and froth about how jolly unfair it all is (and I would agree). But the fact remains, there is simply no viable alternative for these children, and the limited options that are available to improve matters are going to be removed.

These children are not going to disappear just because we all seem to agree that they should not be in a mainstream school. Using hateful language about disabled children does not help, any more than my patronising comment about little Timmy.

What hateful language have I used?

They also pick their nose and fart on command: they’re children. Most of their behaviour would not be acceptable in a workplace, but we give them time to develop and grow. Which is also what SEND children need. They are not a different, feral species of human who deserve to be written off at primary age FGS.

Agree with your last sentence. 👍

@HoppingPavlova
Removed to where though? There is nowhere, that’s the problem. It would usually be their own parents dream that they were removed and put somewhere suitable, but that rarely exists anymore, with scores of children ‘competing’ for a spot. So where are they going

Sadly the child would have to be excluded from school and stay at home until suitable schooling is provided. I don't mean de registering and home schooling. They should absolutely stay on the Authorities register. A register that captures children who have no school place due to their disability/ violence. Not being pushed from pillar to post or school to school. Such a register in the public omain (FOI) would highlight the issue schools & children are facing.

@Kirbert2
Leaving disabled children without an education isn’t something schools can legally do
I do think we need to differianciate between a disabled child and a disabled child with regular violent outbursts and disruptive behaviour where the whole class has to be evacuated. Violence should not be tolerated not even in the name of education.

@Vinvertebrate I don't deny the existance of disability.

Read my post.

Thankfully it is against the law for schools to do that.

Place children in suitable provisions in the first place and you’ll find that they are much less likely to be violent.

Thankfully, the law entitles all children to an education.

Even if you don’t mean EHE, case law dictates even when the LA retains responsibility and is making provision otherwise than at/in school, parents cannot be forced to accept provision at home.

Also, such provision is costly. It can be very expensive. Every bit as expensive as SS or even more. Part of the reason LAs dislike such provision is how much it costs. As you can see from this thread, some object to spending these sums on SEN provision.

@selffellatingouroborosofhate ahh another system (the NHS) that is not fit for purpose and just needs to ‘grin and bear it’

I think it’s a broken system now, but I wonder what it will actually look like when the system fully breaks down.

I’m not sure I mentioned writing them off, or have used language such as feral.

Under the current system, we are writing off a lot of education. My class are currently failing because there aren’t enough of us. My teaching is robust and I have enough experience to pre-empt misconceptions. This is not happening as I spend one to one time with a dysregulated child.
It’s for the best though as it keeps the others safe.

Can you see how this is not conducive to everyone achieving their full potential.

I think its fair to say that a child who very regularly melting down isnt really receiving an education even if they are in school as meltdowns have a build up and a recovery stage where not much goes in. The stress hormones can stay high and make meltdowns even more likely and the child gets stuck in loop all for want if a proper rest from thier triggers and some appropriate support.

We have a situation where some children could be supported in mainstream to access it, but the money and skills aren't there. We also have many children who should be in special school but noone wants to fund it either.

@Maltesers22 of course I can see that, and I don’t think I have ever disputed it. But you don’t seem to have a solution - unless I’ve missed it? How do we avoid “writing off” so much education and does it involve withholding educational opportunities from SEND children?

My SEND child is a paradox: he is violent when disregulated and yet his IQ is 161, streets ahead of the rest of his MS class. For obvious reasons, I want him to remain in education and in order to secure that, because the system is dogshit, he was left in an unsuitable environment for years where he caused disruption.

We either have to throw billions at education or accept that the situation you describe will persist (even with Bridget’s laudable attempts to gaslight us into believing it’s not all a cost cutting measure). All you are doing is using different adjectives to describe a situation with which we are all familiar, and which is not disputed, but for which the solution is not in parents’ gift.

All these people who keep saying thankfully the law entitles all children to an education are missing the point that the violent children mean that no children are getting an education including the violent child! A violent child should be homeschooled and their parents financially supported to do so until such time as they are able to be offered education in a specialist setting. Otherwise we are at risk of having a whole generation of children who are uneducated and increasing the divide from the haves and have nots where those who can afford to do so send their children to private school so that they are able to receive an education and be free from fear and violence. I do have compassion for those children with SEN and their parents and do believe they should be supported but I also have concern for this generation of school children who are missing out on an education and what that will mean for society as a whole.

You stated that you had sympathy for disabled children but not for those who displayed violence. It’s not a binary choice and children with neurological differences like autism, who may present with involuntary violence when disregulated, are still “disabled” in an Equality Act sense.

To deny that those disabled children are actually disabled is (a) ableist and (b) nonsense. In a similar way to me suggesting that a lifelong wheelchair user could get up and walk if they tried a bit harder.

Your highest priority is teaching him to recognise when he is becoming dysregulated before he gets out of control, and getting him a seat by the classroom door and standing permission to just walk out.

When he can leave a situation and take time elsewhere to reregulate, he is empowered to avoid the meltdowns.

Then you, and all parents who do not want disrupted classrooms, need to respond to Bridget Phillipson’s white paper consultation before 8 May and tell her that doubling down on the failed “inclusive” model demanding that all children should go to mainstream schools and removing the minimal EHCP provision available now to enable some of them to do so safely is an idiotic idea and will make things ten times worse.

Based on Reeve’s departmental spending review last year there is a further 4% real-terms cut to school budgets baked in already by the next election, which will be more than that now due to the latest recent spike in inflation.

On top of this Phillipson has axed plans to build more SEN schools and is diverting that pathetic £4bn of funding into mainstream schools to force more children for whom they aren’t appropriate to attend them while expecting their needs to be assessed by school staff rather than medical specialists with no plans for how to facilitate this without any budget for buildings, hiring specialist staff, or more teachers, and she is simultaneously proposing to cut £14bn of funding for support for those children via EHCPs for support in mainstream schools/ existing placements outside of mainstream schools.

Altogether this will result in a cut to existing school budgets of 20-25% and there being far more disruptive pupils in mainstream schools, with no legal way for parents or schools to appeal for them to be moved elsewhere.

These policies have been designed in cahoots with LAs and the sole purpose is to cut funding. The proposals are unworkable and will compound the current problems rather than address them. Look forward to even more teachers leaving as well and your children being taught by supply, if at all. Then she is disingenuously claiming her aim is to improve things for children, as though we’re all that gullible and stupid. It’s insulting.

Any parent, with a child with SEND or not, should be responding to the consultation if they wish there to be anything resembling education in state schools and tell her in no uncertain terms that this is unacceptable. The current model of trying to pretend all children are clones and all should go to the same schools is not “inclusive”, it is damaging and wrecking education for all children.

The obvious solution required is a far wider range of schools for children with different needs, talents, abilities and learning styles - highly academic schools with smaller classes and calm environments suitable for highly academic children (including bright children with autism but no behaviour issues), schools focused on practical learning or sports or music plus core subjects, schools catering for those with LDs who cannot access the mainstream curriculum, schools with appropriately trained staff to manage violent/ disruptive pupils - so that children can learn in the right environment for that specific child and teachers can teach children with similar needs together so everyone can learn.

Respond to the consultation here and tell her not to make all of these problems ten times worse:

https://consult.education.gov.uk/send-strategy-division/send-reform-putting-children-and-young-people-firs/

The problem with this plan is that parents are not teachers. We need more special schools.

Who'd want to be a teacher today?

👏to all the educators out there doing their best in an untenable situation.

<slaps forehead> Why didn’t I think of that?! You must be some kind of child-whispering savant! 🙄

Actually, my top priority was getting him into a suitable specialist school environment, in a class of 4, with specially trained staff who know his triggers. Within a year, the meltdowns had almost stopped and he was fully engaged in learning. He now plays Chess competitively and takes his maths lessons with the secondary pupils. It costs more than Eton, but that is the LA’s problem, not mine.

The irony is that I would happily have accepted a SEN place within a mainstream unit, but every single one in the borough had a huge waiting list. And yet this is the solution proposed for all SEND by Labour. And no, it doesn’t make any sense.

A violent child should be homeschooled and their parents financially supported to do so until such time as they are able to be offered education in a specialist setting.

Absolutely not. A parent should never be forced to educate their DC at home whether their child has SEN or not.

Forcing parents to will lead to a significant rise in parent carer burnout, sometimes this has devastating consequences. This will cost the state significant amounts of money.

The ‘financially supported to’ will cost the state a lot of money. Something many will object to. It isn’t the cheap option. Just look at how some object to EOTAS/EOTIS packages.

I don't have any skin in the mainstream game - my children will almost certainly never go to a mainstream school. However, the parents of non-disabled / non-SEND children in mainstream schools who are upset about their children's school experiences need to be allies of SEND parents and respond to the consultation (as said a few times in the thread).

Tell Bridget you don't want 'inclusion' as they've set it out. Be honest. Tell them that pretended SEMH isn't a real SEND category and trying to shut all the independent SEMH special schools to funnel those types children with very risky behaviours back into mainstream schools is a terrible idea.

Don't go down the path of it's 'mostly' shit or poor parents - sometimes it is but it is overwhelmingly not. If we run with the (flawed) shit parents causing bad behaviour narrative, no one will give these kids the special schools they need. They'll slash the budgets, keep kids in cheap mainstreams with no TAs and offer parents 6 week parenting classes or children 6 talking therapies sessions and the situation will just get worse and worse.

Put your money where your mouth is and respond to the consultation.

Parents should not be forced to home educate due to LA failure. Not everyone is equipped to home educate and sometimes school is the only respite parents get as that is often non existent as well.