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.

Don’t forget that giving up work to claim benefits is also frowned upon - especially DLA for your disabled child. (You know, the one that would have been absolutely grand if you had only enforced screen time limits and not been such a shitty parent…and is not “really” disabled anyway.) 🙄

Maybe just turn yourself into a wizard and make them disappear?

My children have been traumatised by school. Years and tens of thousands of pounds spent on legal battles later it continues. They have been utterly failed. No behavioural issues or violence so nobody cares. IQs in the top 1% and their school stating it cannot meet their academic needs or their needs due to their disabilities, and neither can any SEN school as they don’t provide the academic challenge they require and could not provide them with an appropriate peer group; they don’t differentiate by type of need so they are all packed with children with the unpredictable and violent behaviour that makes school impossible for my children to attend regularly as they need a calm and quiet environment. The state takes my tax money but provides NO SCHOOL WHATSOEVER that they can attend sustainably without severe mental health damage and becoming suicidal as primary school children.

I’d love to pull them out and educate them at home. Does the poster advocate the Government replacing my six figure salary so I can do so? And even if this would happen, what happens when they have finished school and my career is beyond repair? Will the state keep paying my salary uprated with inflation and allowances for missed promotions until retirement age? Presumably it will also educate me to become a teacher given that is not my profession.

If not, the Department for Education/ LA will need to fulfil its legal responsibility to use some of the large amount of tax I pay to provide an appropriate school that they can attend, per UK and international law.

Or I suppose it could just try to change the law and remove that internationally recognised human right and the legal right of appeal to enforce it and pretend that the problem will go away. And then instead of becoming productive members of society also likely paying very high taxes in future my extremely bright, kind, calm autistic children who simply cannot be in a class of 30 people all day will instead end up being a huge drain on mental health services, welfare, housing budgets etc in the future instead of being net contributors and having their huge potential as gifted and talented children wasted. Miserable for them and terrible for our society.

Perhaps I should create a cloning machine then one of me can work to provide for them while the other one (who has also had a “teacher chip” implanted) home schools them?

Silly me, I should have thought of this before and saved myself a lot of bother.

Yes. Add in the “why should you receive carer’s allowance for caring for your own DC” line.

To be fair, I think sadly some people literally wouldn't care about your children being in a mainstream class, no matter how distressing, because they don't have disruptive behaviour. The people who want disabled children to disappear from the classrooms only want the disruptive disabled children to be removed.

Edit to add: but fear not! Bridget has a fix for this too! She'll label your children "Social and emotional development focused on internalising behaviour" so that they* can be ignored and she'll put the equally anxious disruptive kids into the "Social and emotional development focused on externalising behaviour"* box so that they can be stigmatised. There, a solution for everything.

I also have 2 DSs for whom there is a suitable school. They have EOTAS/EOTIS because it is inappropriate for provision to be made in a school or college.

I posted earlier on in this thread and then stepped away but I just wanted to reiterate my earlier points and that made multiple times since by other posters- how important your response to the SEND white paper is.

Despite what the media would like you to believe there are far more mainstream children (who can access and manage mainstream) than there are specialist children and so your voices have more weight. It’s really important.

If you don’t respond, then my son (who is disabled, whether you want to believe it or not) will be back in your children’s classroom. Except this time, I won’t allow him to be in the playground for 15 minutes a day which consisted his entire education because I will have no legal rights to fight for a suitable school place for him. That will be his school place. His ‘trouble’ and therefore what will become the mainstream schools trouble is, he’s academically capable, certainly in line with mainstream variations.

Someone up thread mentioned that violent children don’t get an education anyway, it’s just containment and funnily enough I had his report ahead of his EHCp today, he learns, it’s education- maths/science/reading etc, but because he’s at a specialist it looks different- sometimes he does all his lessons in a corridor, one of his peers does his entire class learning on a gym ball. They have 3 play times a day (at year 3&4) plus playing time in the classroom. It works. It works because there are 4 children in his class with 3 adults. It’s highly specialised, he’s far far more regulated and (shock!) less violent. When he is violent due to dysregulation, it’s over sooner and they can hold him if needed.

The problem with his education, it’s expensive. He will be ripe for the LA to chuck back in mainstream.

Reading this back it is very long and rambly and sounds like a threat and it’s not at all. I don’t want him there any more than you, I felt deeply sorry for his teachers and any children he hurt though by the end he thankfully wasn’t near any other children long enough, but our current system is the child has to prove (multiple times) that they are failing in the school before anything will even start to move forward.

I haven’t seen one person on this thread saying children like mine should be in mainstreams- we all agree they shouldn’t- the LA on behalf of the government are the ones fighting the parents (and schools) to keep them in mainstream.

Prior to giving up work due to the school situation, I was a head of department in a secondary school with over 15 years teaching. I wouldn’t have had my son in my classroom, but he does deserve to be in somebody’s classroom- it just has to be the right one and not just “oh that school has a space, they’ll manage him”. They won’t, he won’t and this time, I’ll have no legal rights to fight for him.

The current system is weaponising disabled children and making women fight other women (because the vast majority of posters here are women, the vast majority of parent /carers I know are women, the vast majority of parents being physically harmed by their children are women) instead of recognising they agree and fighting the policy makers.

They do not care about it, no. Their needs are completely ignored by the school and LA precisely because they are not disruptive or violent. When a 5 year old was saying she wanted to jump out of her bedroom and didn’t want to live any more days nobody gave a damn and I’ve spent years being gaslit watching my children disintegrate in front of my eyes while having my own health, career and finances destroyed by this illegal behaviour.

Does that make it acceptable? Or an economically sensible thing to do to some of our most gifted and talented children? Or indeed their parent who is also a large net contributor but may become so unwell they can no longer work at all if this continues?

Re. Your edit: indeed. Shoving my children into some kind of “unit” with precisely the children who they need NOT to be around because they find violent and unpredictable behaviour distressing is going to mean they cannot attend school at all. They need a calm and quiet learning environment with small classes and a lot of academic challenge. I’d love to know how they are going to get this in a “unit” full of all of the disruptive and violent pupils that have been removed from standard classes and without specialist subject teachers. It’s an absolute joke.

What particular physical disability are you thinking about? My son is severely physically disabled and just keeping him at home was never an option.

My son has 2:1 support at mainstream and isn’t generally the type of child people talk about just keeping at home on threads like this. He doesn’t have any behavioural issues but he needs a lot of support due to his severe physical disability and incontinence. Does that disturb the class at times when he needs changing regularly? Probably.

Parents are always going to put their child first. If the LA followed the law in the first place, none of this would be necessary for some parents with disabled children who are violent.

My mum has left teaching after 22 years because it’s getting absolutely unbearable.

The teeth marks on her arms, the lunging towards her with scissors, numerous stabbing attempts, hitting and punching and nothing is done they are still allowed to remain in mainstream classrooms.

They are given iPads and told to calm down and regulate. Parents are called and then proceed to ask the staff ‘well what did you do to annoy them or antagonise them to do it, their not like this at home…’

It’s absolutely not on. The poor kids who are well behaved and there to learn are suffering big time.

If this post is about the well behaved children being taken out of the classroom for safety reasons, what is that teaching them? That good behaviour gets treated with removing them from their class?

Are you unhappy with what they said or the way in which they said it?
IMO:
If the first, YABU.
If the second, YANBU.

I removed my children from their old primary school for exactly this reason. They were getting a poorer education because of the behaviour of over two children per class, they couldn’t have scissors or craft materials in class, lessons and workshops were ruined, it was awful.

Their new school never has this issue, they are much stricter and it just doesn’t seem to be an issue.

Sadly I would be looking for a new school if possible.

Lots of interesting points being made on this thread from lots of different perspectives.
I’d like to address a few points made- I teach at a PRU where we deal with highly dysregulated children on a daily basis.
Firstly to all those saying the child should be in a SEND provision, yes that’s true but there simply aren’t enough places.
To those saying exclude the child- again, there aren’t enough places in alternative provisions. And schools are reluctant to exclude as their data doesn’t look good (sad but true.)
I don’t agree with evacuating a class. In my opinion staff should be trained in Physical Management and the disruptive child should be removed. This sends a positive message to all parties.
There is no easy fix to this but ultimately it’s a lack of suitable provision for children with a range of needs that mean they cannot currently manage in a mainstream classroom. But in the case of the OP’s situation I would want staff trained in physical management and not a whole class being regularly removed.

I agree with most of what you say @RugBunny but as a parent trained in physical management because of my DS’ SEND, it’s not a panacea that would avoid the OP’s scenario (and I have the bruises to prove it!) Maybe I’m just not very good, but I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect teachers to do this - and risk also getting hurt - on top of everything else that is expected of them.

I think a teacher or TA having the confidence to ‘get hold of’ (for want of a better phrase) of a child who is raising a chair above their head would be a whole lot less stressful for them than trying to dodge chairs while getting 29 other children out of the way. It takes less than a minute to move a child out of a room to a safer space. Unfortunately it’s simply not common practice in mainstream. I think it needs to be.

Also agree with this. Having seen and done physical management, I think it would be quite upsetting for the class to watch and could seriously compromise the child's dignity (I know, I know, who cares? They deserve it - blah blah. Except it becomes real when you see it, some even quite mild restraints have really upset me as an adult witnessing them).

Yes they were somewhere else. It's quite common knowledge that some children used to go to specialist schools and are now in mainstream. It is frustrating but what else do you suggest? Even if school places were available, getting the referrals/evidence to be entitled to a place takes a long time. And in the meantime they can't be sent home as they have a legal right to education. And there isn't the staff to keep them separated within school.

The teachers will dislike this as well. They don't want to disrupt the learning of their students. They've obviously had to make a tough decision on the safest way to handle a bad situation

I would argue that it’s far less dignified for the child to be seen in a highly dysregulated state for an extended period than for them to be quickly and calmly removed from the room.
Also, these children often feel terrible shame afterwards if they have hurt peers. Isn’t it better to prevent this?

i guess teachers are no longer allowed to physically pick a child up under their arm and carry them out the classroom like I remember frequently happening with a particular child in my primary in the 80s.

it’s a shame there’s not more funding for 1-1 TAs for kids who need extra support. They would do a great job of de escalating before things got so bad a lot of the time

sometimes these threads piss me off. We constantly tell people that if they've met one autistic person, they've met one autistic person.. yet parents of SEND kids are on this thread lumping all of them in together like a mass autism nightmare.

OF course some kids with SEND can't understand boundaries/rules/regs, some can.
OF course some will not respond to parental input, discipline, social/emotional coaching. Some will.

They ALL need the proper input to find out what they can/can't handle to make sure they're in the appropriate setting for them.

I wish I’d had a safe word system a few years in my classroom when a child collapsed and I had to evacuate 29 children by yelling and choosing the fastest to run to SLT. It takes that panic out the situation for the kids so the adults can deal with what’s happening.

You posted this twice in a Facebook group yesterday. Did you not get enough attention from that?

I used to do that with DS @JulietteHasAGun but he’s now taller than me (at age 9) and I can no longer lift him, let alone tuck him under my arm.

There’s probably no science behind this, but disregulated children seem to have preternaturally strong reflexes, like trapped animals. It’s better to de-escalate where possible.

Case by case basis surely, so definitely agree that mainstream teachers need physical handling training.

Some children are remarkably strong and slippery and will not come quietly. In some cases I think it would be easier to remove 29 compliant children than one sobbing 14 year old boy screaming "don't fucking touch me" and escalating the violence when they realise they're going to be physically handled.

I also think we have to keep the 'least restrictive' / 'last resort' principle as far as possible or it's a slippery slope. You can't possibly predict and prevent every scenario and if the SEND kids with challenging behaviour were whisked away every time someone thought they might get violent to try to 'prevent' an evacuation, it could get a bit sinister.

My son is autistic and has ADHD (undiagnosed not through lack of trying until he was 13) and went to mainstream school. Unfortunately the school could not cope with him which in turn resulted in him having extremely violent outbursts in class. Children were removed from the classroom for their safety as he would throw chairs and anything that came to hand. This only ever happened at school, never in the home. I won't go into the barbaric ideas the school came up with to curb his behaviour apart from him locking himself in a 2 cubicle toilet, 6 members of staff and 1 caretaker threatening to take the door off and drag him out! I turned up, told them to leave and he came out.. He was 6

Next step was threatening to remove him from my care, that really would have tipped him over the edge!

He had an horrendous time at school and they decided he could not attend unless I was with him so back to primary school I went for 3 years. Yes, I was used as an unpaid TA for the other children in his class.

Fast forward, I now have a young man who works nights on the underground, just been promoted, attends Jiu Jitsu and he is off to Benidorm with friends this weekend.

Any parents going through similar, stay strong.. Your child will come through it eventually 🩷🩵