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.

As the mother of a frequently dysregulated chair flinger, we can all look forward to lots more of this sort of thing once the SEN reforms are made law. There is no meaningful extra money, but there is an expectation that all but the most serious SEND will be "managed" (arf!) within mainstream.

Presumably because they can't be removed without force, which risks hurting both the child and staff, and the other children can be.

@ThreeGirl sometimes easier to evacuate the class than removing the dysregulated child. None of this is great for the class as a whole, the upset child or the school staff. But there are very few alternatives

Well, parents could start by taking it seriously,@WhatNextImScared . Not you, but just look at this thread “sounds like got a chair thrower”, “a child was throwing scissors and got a bit fisty.” Imagine that response if it happened in an average office!

School staff have been gaslit into being (pretend) psychologists and all the ELSA in the world is not going to solve this.

I haven’t a clue what they’re going on about to be honest.

Roughy once a week my friends childs class has to "evacuate" the classroom due to the same 9yr old girl. Sometimes up to an hour before they can return to learning. Thats a lot of learning time lost, in a year for about 23 children.

Sorry to derail the thread, but seriously when did this become the norm? Struggling to self regulate? what about just taking them out of the classroom! I’m sure I’ll get bombarded by a load of posters piling on but I can’t believe the utter nonsense that seems to go in classrooms these days and then we wonder why behaviour is so bad in schools.

Goverments stopped investing the appropriate money in special needs schools, thinking that they could use inclusion as cover for cost cutting. However inclusion, done properly, would mean classrooms that work for everyone - fewer children, more staff, more staff training, better building design. Obviously this is at least as expensive as funding special needs schools and all governments actually wanted to do was spend far less money.

So we have underfund set ups which don't work properly for anyone. Which is a shame because done properly (which almost nowhere does) all children would benefit from very small class sizes and high staff to child ratios, better trained and less burnt out staff etc.
Edited for typo

The email is way too long and way too vague and generalised.

I would not know what to make of it, at all. But I would question the communication skills of the school's SLT.

I know it’s not the child or even the school’ fault but it is disgusting.
Children who are so unable to cope with mainstream that it’s putting everyone in the classroom’s safety at risk shouldn’t be getting forced into mainstream classes. This isn’t inclusion, it’s trying to force children into a mould at the expense of everyone involved.

Absolutely, I think that is Ops point. I would not be pleased if this was happening in dds class, thankfully it isn't

If you have a child throwing furniture around what would be the quickest, safest solution? For the other children to quickly follow the drill they know, to file out of the classroom.

Is it ideal for there to be a chair thrower in the classroom, no! But what is the alternative? There’s very little funding in school to give help to this child. There’s very little help outside of school (although under SEND reform paper there are suddenly going to be many more experts!). Does the family of the child thrower want their child to be in a place that upsets them, as too noisy, too many other children, whatever their trigger is, no. But no alternative, either in the form of more support or alternative provision. Do the staff or other pupils want this, no. All in all it is a shitshow

My DDs class in primary had 2 boys with additional needs who would fairly regularly throw desks, chairs and anything else they could get their hands on. The only safe option was to get every other child out of the room. It was far from ideal but with no or limited provision outside of mainstream schooling I’m not sure what else the school can be expected to do.

@popcornandpotatoes it could happen in your DD’s class. It may even have happened and it hasn’t been mentioned. All staff will have been trained on what is in the best interests of the class when such an incident happens (and shock, horror it can happen in private schools too)

This is not an unusual occurrence around the country because there’s no special school places to educate kids who can’t cope in the classroom. If politicians were serious about improving schools then they’d improve the lives of the kids who can’t cope and the kids in mainstream but children don’t vote so a very low priority.

Sorry can’t see any issue with this - my daughter had something similar in place for when an autistic child in her class had a meltdown. Much safer to have a plan and everyone know what to do

My translation is “We keep having to evacuate one of our classes as a child (or children) within it are creating a physical risk to the other children, due to circumstances outside their control. We even came up with a code word to use so we can avoid agitating the violent child any more by shouting “BEANS” instead of “EVERYBODY OUT”. Some adults and children might find this situation scary and it is. We are trying to sort it meanwhile please try to cheer your kids up about this horrible situation.”

Is that about right? If I were a parent getting this I’d be contacting the teacher and asking how I could help them push for extra support for the child in question as clearly for everyone else having to get out of the classroom to be safe on a regular basis is bloody awful.

My nephew is autistic and used to have meltdowns in school where he would throw chairs, knock everything off the shelves etc. I say used to because he hasn’t attended school in a few years.

Makes total sense that in those circumstances the school would get the other kids to a safe place while they waited for him to calm down, I’m not sure what else they could have done.

Until there is meaningful provision for kids with these needs they will be in mainstream classes and these kinds of evacuations will have to happen.

Yep, got a disruptive child just like this in my child’s class. Whole class of nearly 30 evacuated every few days, teacher continually pulled away to deal with her, children being physically assaulted, the class missing out on learning time. Clearly, she’s unable to cope in mainstream school but what can you do? Apparently, there’s no space at the local SEN school. So, the whole class suffers (including the child herself).

When it was decided to shove children who clearly need specialist provision into mainstream and call it 'inclusion'.

and it's only going to get worse.

When I first started teaching the recommendation was to either remove the child yourself and then call for the on-call senior leadership team or just call of the senior leadership team.

budgets have now been cut considerably, and in addition this sort of behaviour is much more common plus someone noticed that removing the rest of the class involves less physical damage to people (although often more damage to property).

it’s probably been ten years or more since the recommendations were changed, at my school we did usually call the on call pastoral people first before evacuating the class but it’s been three years since I left teaching and I imagine these days there isn’t the money to have an on call rota of support so the teacher has to manage on their own which in practice means moving them plus the class somewhere else and leaving the kid to it.

as others have said, a bit like corridor care it is not ideal but it’s where we are.

Yes that is correct.

Point taken!

Think how much learning time is being lost in these situations. The anxiety levels of some of the children will be sky high as well, because they don't feel safe in their classroom. The child causing the disruption is clearly also not thriving in that school environment.

If this happened regularly in my child's class I would move them.

So what is the safe word then? Wouldn't it be useful to know as a parent?

What if it is 'beans' as a PP suggested? What if your child dives out the door every time you're serving a fry up?