SEN child repeatedly hurting my child - how to get school to act

[MonChoufleur123]

My child has been repeatedly attacked and harassed by another child in their class who has SEN.
Since year one (now year 4) there have been incidents of violence including punching my child in the face, scratching them down the side of the face drawing blood, pushing them over, pulling hair. They regularly harass them in the playground saying hurtful things.
My understanding is this child is generally disruptive in class and has also been violent/ aggressive to other children but seems to particularly target my son.
Yesterday this child pinned my son to a wall, grabbed his hair and twice banged his head into the wall. My son has been anxious about going to school for a long time and mornings are regularly a battle to get them into uniform and out the house. We're at a loss about what to say to him and how to reassure him.
We have been into school multiple times to discuss this and I feel like we have the same conversation every time. They say they can't give details about how the SEN child's behaviour is being managed or what support they have in class due to confidentiality but always say they use a restorative justice approach so yesterday this included my son having to apologise to the child who attacked him. The child's punishment for attacking my son yesterday was staying in at break time to tidy up. This seems unbelievably lenient.
What can we do to get school to take this more seriously? A formal complaint to the governors or local authority? My son is not safe around this child but I feel like the SEN child's welfare is being put before his. Any advice very welcome, thank you.

Are you joking? He has "school based anxiety" because he's being repeatedly physically assaulted by another child!

I think I would do this to be honest. It is a safeguarding issue and it may force the schools hand to take some action.

It is possible - indeed probable, given the explosion of need but starvation of funding - that the school is not incompetent, but is overwhelmed.

Making your points firmly, professionally and in writing may in fact be supporting a school in getting the support they know the child needs but have been unable to access for them.

@MonChoufleur123 , when my son was being bullied at school I felt similar frustration and desperation to that which you describe, I too had repeatedly begged the school to take action. In the end what caused the school to take my concerns seriously was that I took my son to our GP and told them how the bullying was effecting my son’s mental health and I asked the GP to write to the head teacher and raise a concern about this, which they did. You wouldn’t believe the rapidity of the response after that although I do warn you they weren’t best pleased with me. I also instructed my son to make sure he hit back but harder, that helped too.

Thank you all again I wasn't expecting so many responses this is all so useful.
We can't keep our son off we both work and I don't want to further disrupt his education.
I will also not be speaking to the other child's parents, this needs to be kept within school under their responsibility. They don't live nearby so never see each other ourlt of school.
Getting a GP letter re anxiety is a good idea I will also do that.
The person who made the point about the school being extremely stretched is right - classes are very full, few TA's, SLT trying to cover multiple roles etc. But I still feel they are putting the SEN child's needs above my son's (and wider class who are regularly disrupted by him).

The child is also significantly bigger and heavier than my son who is small for his age so even if he did retaliate he would certainly come off worse.

But I still feel they are putting the SEN child's needs above my son's (and wider class who are regularly disrupted by him).

Unfortunately, this is very much the reality of inclusion within reducing budgets - and further inclusion in mainstream is the political direction. If you have any additional energy, making this clear to your local MP would equally be useful in a wider sense.

Omg, if that happened outside school it would be assault and police involved surely. I would be tempted to tell the school that if anything like that happened again then police will be involved but I'd also be phoning around local schools to find another place for him ASAP. I have done that myself many years ago when one of mine was being bullied at a similar age, his anxiety disappeared overnight, he came out of the new school on the first day chatty and happy.

Like PP, I have experienced this as a parent - a child bruised from head to toe in one side because their neighbour pinched and hit them and my child did not speak up because ‘good children are quiet in class’, quickly becoming a selective mute.

I home educated my child then moved house and moved them back into school… a set of extreme life disruptions I would not recommend but were very successful in repairing my child.

So I would recommend finding if any accessible schools (near your work; on your commute etc) have spaces, bearing in mind that catchments and over-subscription criteria are no longer relevant- if there is a space, they must give it to your child if you apply, wherever you live, if you can start at the school within a few days.

Speak to head teacher to raise concerns but also look at the official complaints procedure (should be on school website but if not email office and request it) follow the official complaints procedure (you need to do this before taking it higher otherwise there is a risk they will bounce you back to the official procedures).

Have you documented all your child's injuries if not draw up a time line now as best you can do you can refer to it in a complaint or your meeting with the headteacher. It will be useful to highlight how many times you child has suffered injury and show any pattern that is occurring.

As others have said they can't discuss the other child with you so you need to frame it as concerns around your child. What safeguarding is in place to stop your child being injured. What plans are in place to ensure minimal disruption to their education.
High light the increasing anexiety your child is feeling around attending school.

Regarding this (as a parent whose child could be volatile), hitting back will very likely escalate the situation putting everyone in an unsafe predicament and could unfortunately result in worse injury to your son.

I completely respect your stance regards not talking directly to the other parent and wanting the school to handle it, that is usually the best way so it’s all documented and mediated appropriately.

Sorry I don’t have any suggestions but just wanted to offer some support.

OFOD. He has anxiety because he is being attacked everyday in school. That’s no special needs. That’s entirely normal.

Victim blaming.

He's anxious because he keeps getting his head smashed off the wall and no bugger is doing anything about it FFS.
If that happened to you at work, you'd possibly be a tad anxious about going in?

I think being regularly targeted , hurt and injured for three years is enough to give any one anxiety.

If it was a workplace colleague rather than a child in school this issue would have been sorted after the first physical attack. Why are adults so willing to allow child on child physical abuse when they would intervene immediately if it was adult on adult?

My DC was also bullied by a SEND child for a while in primary and yes they can also be bullies. Turned out it was because my DC is academic and well behaved and was always sat next to the SEND children to help the teacher out. Teachers cannot cope with the current state of affairs and are throwing some children under the bus. In our school, it was typically the middle class kids from privileged backgrounds offered as sacrificial lambs to the system. Often because they know the parents are unlikely to complain and be too tolerant. However, there comes a point when a child is damaged by it and the OP is there it seems. For some children if temporary it can teach them resilience and tolerance, but if their own mental health is properly struggling it has clearly gone way too far.

Agreed. Does any adult go into their work and accept that they would have their hair pulled, punched, scratched and kicked? No!! We should not accept it happening to our dc either.

OP I could have written this post myself, this is exactly what happened to my son. I did everything I could, documented everything, spoke to teachers, headmistress, formal complaint to governors, reported to Ofsted. Absolutely nothing improved.
Couldn't move my son for various reasons.
In the end my son ended up retaliating and hitting the other child to the ground. Not the ideal solution, I'm aware, but the bullying stopped.
I still have nightmares about it, it was a completely hopeless situation and I lost all faith in the school and the staff involved.
The teachers repeatedly lied, failed to report incidents on CPOMS (they actually said there was 'no evidence of bullying'!!) and closed ranks to protect each other.

My child has autism and can be prone to pinching etc. Not violence on this scale but I am sorry your child is experiencing this. Every child deserves an education - the problem is there is so little space at specialist schools. I have already been told that my son is unlikely to get a SEN space and will be going to mainstream as he 'isn't as bad as some others on the list'. Which I understand - however, it means situations like this come about.

It's not fair on the children with SEN or the other children who are on the receiving end. That's without thinking about how hard it is on the teachers who (this isn't my words, this is the SENco at the mainstream school my son is likely going to) do not have the training or experience to properly deal with it.

If this other child has an EHCP, the school is currently not meeting this, which isn't legal for a start. They are also responsible for your child's reasonable safety whilst in their care.

As others have said, headteacher first. If unsatisfactory response, then it is the board of governors. I would also make it clear, I would be informing police if my child is physically attacked again. It's not pleasant - but you need to go at it. Often he/she who shouts loudest.

On the ‘no evidence in CPOMS’ I was going to advise the OP to check that this and other incidents had been properly logged in whatever safeguarding / incident reporting system they use (CPOMS is the most common). If incidents in previous years have not been logged, then send a chronology by e-mail and request that it be entered into the CPOMS record.

Any future incidents, however minor, report by e-mail and request confirmation that they have also been logged. Send photos if injuries or diagrams of where your child indicates pain. Be polite, factual
and insistent that of course they will want to keep a full record of incidents because you know that for safeguarding reasons they will want to be able to identify any patterns in order to put appropriate measures in place.

I’d be refusing to allow my child to participate in any restorative based process, if the other child can’t control their behaviour then telling them it hurt isn’t going to help and leaves your child repeatedly talking about the impact on them with no change. And hell would freeze before my child apologised to a child who was hurting them.

Id document everything, with an email explaining they need a safety plan for my child that doesn’t disadvantage them (eg being kept in at break). The other child and their needs are none of your business, your priority is the school meeting their duty to safely educate your child and that’s where my focus would be.

Agree the restorative justice approach in this case baffles me. My son said he apologised but didn't know what he was apologising for and just said so he didn't get in trouble. I also wonder if it can be appropriate/ useful for a ND child if they struggle with impulse control and understanding others' perspectives? I will be asking about this when I see the headteacher. We have said to our son if he is asked to apologise in future and isn't clear what it's for then to say no and ask the teachers to contact us.

I’m going to get heat for this but my son was in a similar situation in and the school didn’t deal with it until I told him to wack him back. My son is very mild mannered and shy, so he kind of was an easy target. We couldn’t move schools and they’re only one class per year, but once he started hitting him back they got him better supervision and he also moved on to terrorising another child.

Same with my DC. He still bothers him (and the rest of the class) but the outright targeting stopped almost immediately.