Sounds like the school have got you believing that it doesn’t matter what distress he shows, you ‘must’ ignore it all and get him into school by the bell.
You need to snap out of this mode of thinking, as it’s horrendous in the context of a child trying to kill himself but the adults around him making it clear that no one cares and all that matters is that bell.
Not blaming you, schools can be very persuasive and are obviously treating you as a family who have a problem with punctuality.
Whereas you are a parent who’s little boy is so desperate, sad and anxious he’s looking for ways to kill himself rather than go back into a situation at school.
As a previous poster writes, you need to reframe the problem to the school, and get them focused on the reality of the situation. It’s urgent and important, and they need to respond to it with all their expertise ASAP.
Does the school have a children’s counsellor? Ds’s school do and he saw her for two terms, and it was really great.
By the way, at your ds’s age, he won’t really understand the permanence of death, and he may well have been experimenting with the idea of ‘not being there’ in a very childlike way, not as we understand it.
So please take some comfort from this, but also, don’t let others ‘explain it away’, and not take it seriously because he’s too young and probably ‘doing it for attention’.
It’s still a very extreme action and one that could have gone horribly, tragically wrong. It’s also indicative of his state of mind, regardless of whether he fully understands the concept of death, he is so worried about a situation at school that he’s looking for any way out, and feeling that death is preferable to being in that class room is NOT normal, and can not be explained away or minimised.
I’m writing this because you need to change mindsets yourself from ‘distress before school = punishment’, and you also need to shift the schools mindset with yours.
And I suspect that people will want to stay in their comfortable world of punctuality and ‘oh kids cry then forget all about it later it’s fine’. It’s much nicer to be in that world than in the more serious world where children’s feelings need taking very seriously and there is actually an urgent and important issue that needs resolving with actions, not just some nice words.
Your little boy needs you to sort this out for him. He’s showing you he cannot cope, and he cannot bear to have his distress ignored any longer. There’s something very important to him that needs resolving. And he needs some emotional support too, to help him.