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.

I don’t know that’s why I’m asking. Do they expel them? Isolate them? Explain why the behaviour isn’t acceptable? Run through coping mechanisms while taking away something they like as a clear boundary? Do they get a bollocking? Parents called? I don’t know, I’m told over and over that SEND kids don’t understand the consequences so how do they improve their behaviour or learn from it?

I think this is sad but true, I had to move my children to an independent school because of this disruptive, violent behaviour. They moved away from all their friends, we lost our lovely 15 min walk to school and now have the crippling cost. It's absolutely devastated us all but my son was regularly getting hit, his work torn up, kicked at, and there was screaming in the classroom.

Yup. Read my latest thread. We are moving our son to private school because of the normalisation of classroom violence and disruption. I very much believe the pendulum will swing back on this, but unfortunately it will be too late for our kids.

Im not sure what the issue is. Sounds like there is ND child and in the event they have a melt down the safest thing is to move the class. Says itself the children chose the word , so its not to cause panic, but to let the other children know they are moving to a different room 🤷🏼‍♀️ i think its the schools duty of care to let parents know and it looks like they are trying to make you.aware instead of the children coming home and saying xyz......prompting multiple emails from concerned parents

@TeutoburgForest I’m so sad to hear about your experience.

It might be worth responding to the White Paper on SEND to tell your story. If those changes go through sadly your story will become more and more common as even more dc who should be in special schools will be routed to ms.

Amd reading more comments, its normalised because someone has said the child can be in mainstream education.

I don’t understand people saying “what’s the issue?” If I had to leave my workplace several times a week because one of my colleagues was violently disruptive I would find it incredibly stressful over time. Not just the disruption but the unpredictability of it.

@Frazzledmomma123 the only thing that will help many dc is to be moved to a specialist setting where they are in a class of max 8-10 and can be properly supported.

‘Behaviour’ has been removed as a category from the SEND Code of practice so it doesn’t even exist when it comes to education. It’s now SEMH which is a special need and can’t be discriminated against. To all those people saying the child should just be excluded or made to stay at home-schools can’t do that.

I don’t think any government is going to fund SEND properly any time soon, so that children with additional needs are going to be supported properly.

My son is ND, he has attended two primary schools. Both have had violent, ND students in the class, requiring evacuation. My own son is a very sensitive and rule following, he finds these situations very distressing, particularly as the ‘safe spaces’ at school are for all ND students - thus making them not safe spaces for him. We’re going to do private school for secondary or home educate. We need to reintroduce special schools for high needs students, the current system doesn’t work for anyone.

@Daiseeee i agree.

Tell me your child has never been hit by a flying chair without telling me that your child has never been hit by a flying chair.

Wait until they have and you'll be singing a different tune.

Wait until your child is frightened to go into school because of one individual.

Wait until your child wets the bed because of the violence they are exposed to.

Just wait and then come out with this claptrap.

If you now have the lightbulb idea of saying that they have well there are only two things to say---

didn't happen or you care little for your child's safety.

This, exactly.

I totally agree with you OP, my DD is in secondary school and the horror stories she comes home with is astonishing. I wouldnt be a teacher if my life depended on it these days.

Agree. There is a child at my son’s school who regularly assaults other children and says extremely inappropriate, often sexual comments. I am fortunate my DS is sensible and talks / asks me about these comments, rather than internalising or googling these things. This is primary school BTW.

How? It's not reasonable to expect a teacher to wrestle with a violent child and remove them and not good for the child either. I have only had to do this once in 30 years but it was the best thing to do. It was quite some time ago (over 20 years). The Head got on the phone and a suitable alternative place was found for the child - that wouldn't happen now unfortunately as the places aren't available.

This is my class - sometimes 3x a day.
if it’s just me (as it often is) I cannot even accompany the class as we cannot leave the distressed child alone, so I send them to the class next door- meaning that class gets disrupted too.
Last week I had to (try) to teach the same Maths lesson 3 days running.
If we do resort to manual handling, it is now a 2 page form to fill in, detailing what happened, why it happened, what you did to try and avoid it and how you could do things differently next time.
I have enough work to do without that…..
I try so hard to ignore the ‘little ‘ things like tapping, humming, throwing paper, calling out etc but 56% of my class have SEND. I cannot follow the other children’s EHCPs. I spend hours adapting resources and lessons for this one child to completely derail it and for it to be abandoned anyway.
This child has trauma, possible FASD, PDA profile… he needs specialist support.
I really do care about him - but I do care that I am letting down the rest of my class too.
Then I have a pupil progress meeting and my head wants to know if I can push the Just below children to expected and what I am doing to support them (hollow laugh!)
The other children rarely get my attention in a lesson.
I can’t do trips, don’t want to invite visitors, don’t want to spend money on new resources that will get intentionally destroyed or time on displays to be ripped down.
There’s an 18month wait for CAMHS.
His mother switches off her phone in the day in case we call her to collect him / exclude him.
Some children are frightened daily.
No one wants to sit near him.
It’s a terribly sad situation, but more common than most people realise.

The example I gave above was in the 90s. There were fewer incidents then because there was more alternative provision.

This is not a valid comparison because each child has a legal right to an education but adults do not have a legal right to a job. Employees who are disruptive do not remain employed.

It’s not great but I would rather my child is allowed to leave the room than made to stay whilst someone is kicking off. It does back up the message at home that when a sibling or any other child is having a tantrum you move away rather than join in the fray.

The child does have a legal right to an education - but the current placement in mainstream school is not appropriate for high needs children or the other children. They need an alternative provision. My own ND child has had to be evacuated from the ‘safe space’ that has been set up because of a child throwing chairs and smashing the classroom - both children in this scenario are being disrupted.

I am not supporting the status quo. The current situation is not satisfactory for anyone.

All children are legally entitled to an education and schools can't just tell the parents to keep their child at home. They can eventually exclude a child but if we're talking about a child with SEND, then they must prove that they have tried everything first and it can take a long time to exclude them.