Not taking child to school

[rebl]

I've posted this in SN as well but thought someone here might know.

Where do I stand legally on this?

Background: My ds's needs are not being met at his ms school although the school think that they are meeting his needs. Things have been bad since he started (5 weeks ago), they refuse to communicate with us and just poo poo our concerns. He has got out of school once although this has been dealt with in a satisfactory manner so I don't think it would happen again. He has been hitting other children and I have only found out about it from my dd or other children. I have been in and spoken to the teacher on a number of occassions, the last one just over a week ago, saying that I knew he was hitting in school I was concerned by the reports I was hearing. The teacher categorically told me even then that there were no concerns even though she admitted that he hits on a regular basis but not everyday. I told her that I wanted to be informed of any hitting.

Fast forward to Thursday morning this week. I notice ds is only sitting next to someone on his left side. The girl next to him had been moved. I knew he'd been hitting her from my dd but thats it. Thursday 9:05 ds hit the girl on his left with a book. This was witnessed by the girls mother. She went in an complained after school.

Friday morning I have to leave my son sitting by himself with a table between himself and the rest of the group. The teacher did not make any attempt to talk to me. He was picked up by the after school club and he spent 3hrs telling the staff there how much he hated school and he's not allowed to sit next to anyone. I pick him up from there and he spent until he went to bed telling me and dh repeatedly how he hates school. Again this morning he's said he hates school, that he's the only one who isn't allowed to sit next to his friends, he can't hear his friends, he wants to sit next to dd so she can tell him what his friends are saying.

I don't want to have it out with the teacher in the classroom 1st thing monday morning, I don't trust her, I need witnesses to her conversation that aren't parents. We have a meeting set up for after half-term. We clearly can't wait that long.

I'm not prepared to take him back to an environment where he's excluded not included and where his needs are ignored and not met. I have promised ds that I won't let him be so unhappy and lonely at school as he was on Friday.

So I currently see that my only option in the immediate time is to remove him from school. Where do I stand legally on this? He's not 5 yet (5 at end of April). Can they have me hung drawn and quartered for refusing him an education? I am prepared to go and view other schools with a view to starting him after half term? I am also prepared to look seriously at HE for the next half term at least. I just don't know where I stand legally with it all. The last thing I need is a social worker on my doorstep over this.

Hi, You mention that his needs are not being met at ms school. Does your son have sen? I ask because I wondered if he had specific needs that were not being met.

It seems that the teaching staff have found excluding him to be their easiest way of managing his behaviour. Your poor DS, no wonder he says he hates school.

You are legally allowed to Home Ed your child, the law states that parents have a legal duty to ENSURE their child receives an efficient full-time education that is suited to the childs needs and abilities. Your duty is to either send your child to school or HE.

If you have a look at the Education Otherwise website you can find all the legal info you need.

What kind of school has desks and set places in reception?(don't know if this is relevant or not! Just seems odd)

No, you cannot be hung drawn and quartered!(He's not yet of statutary school age, and even if he were nothing would happen (been there, done that!)

You are abosolutely doing the right thing, and I suggest not sending him back to school untill you have met with the head and the class teacher.

Arrange a meeting but first contact your local Parenting Partnership they will accompany you to the meeting.

Checking the same post in SN, it seems the OPs son is deaf and that his needs are not being met.

OP, I think this is where you really need to become your son's advocate.

What the teacher is seeing at the moment is other children being hit, maybe upset and refusing to settle in the classroom because they are afraid of being hit.

(my own ds went through a period of school refusal because he was being hit by a classmate- also a boy who was partially deaf and clearly needed more help- but ds was terrified)

You need to show the teacher the other side: what it feels like to be your ds. You need to acknowledge the fears of the other children and her problems in managing the class, but you also need to make her see through the eyes of a small boy who is lost and frightened in a world he cannot make sense of. You need to do it calmly, but really spell it out. And then you need to discuss with her real measures for dealing with situation in a way that is helpful to everybody.

The situation needs to be resolved in such a way that your son does not need to lash out and the teacher does not need to force other children to sit next to him if there is any risk of lashing out.

Yes, my ds is deaf and his needs are not being met.

I understand fully that he can't be lashing out at other children. But I can't help and reinforce the school and discipline if the school don't tell me anything? He's only lashing out I'm sure because he's frustrated and hasn't got a clue whats going on.

I called Parent partnership on Friday and left a message asking for someone to call me back urgently. I'm worried about what I do on Monday with regards ds and school. I'm clearly not going to get any advice from PP or NDCS or any other organisation before Monday 9am.

Would add that you can legally take him out- but that won't resolve the issue in the long run.

Legally you are fine until your son reaches compulsory education age. In England/Wales that is the term after his fifth birthday (Sept 2011). In Scotland I think it's later, not sure. Until then, there is no requirement for you to provide any education whatsoever. There will be no social workers on your doorstep.

Schools can insist that a child must attend in order to remain on the register. In other words, you might eventually lose your son's place at that school if he persistently fails to attend. (That would take weeks, however.) Anyway, if the school has places then even if that happens, you can put him straight back in at any time upon request.

From the school's point of view, having your son off school because you say they aren't meeting his needs will make them look bad to the LA. So this course of action could help you shake things up with them.

I completely understand that you feel his needs are not being met and if this is the case then you have an argument for moving from this school or to a special school. However, I would also like to mention the flip side of the coin and that is that as a child/parent of one of those other children getting hit, I wouldn't want my child sat anywhere near your son. So therefore the teacher has done what she feels is correct.

We have a similiar situation im my school, where parents are actually complaining if we do sit a particular boy by their DC. It's a shame that your DS is so unhappy, but the fact is that if he is doing the wrong things all the time, he is going to get into trouble and needs to learn that in order to be happy he needs to do the right thing.

I think whatever happens, whether you move him or not, you are going to have to have this conversation sooner or later.

Have you seen the SENCO? What have you discussed with the school, what kind of measurements for meeting his needs? Could you be a little more precise in how you have asked the school to meet his needs and what they have failed to do. It is difficult to get a clear idea unless you really give us the details.

Can you now think of anything else you ought to ask for- and go in and do so?

What other professionals are involved? What have they suggested? Are their suggestions being implemented?

Talking of exclusion in the sense of noone wanting to sit next to him is not terribly helpful: would you really agree to work next to a colleague who hit you? Probably not, so it is not surprising if your son's mates react the same.

What you need to concentrate on is not the unfairness of the school in this disciplinary measure, but what can be done to stop the need for it. And there is no doubt that can be done: the school has a legal obligation (under the Disability Discrimination Act) to make Reasonable Adjustment to ensure that your ds can access his education in as far as possible on the same terms as the other children.

And obviously leaving him confused and unsupported in the classroom is not meeting their legal obligations. But they need to know what his needs are iyswim.

I had tremendous trouble persuading dd's school that they did actually have legal obligations. With hindsight, this is what I would have done:

Called for a meeting with SENCO and class teacher within the first few weeks of term.

Presented them with a bullet-point handout of dd's needs.

Asked them what the school could offer to support these needs in the classroom and through homework.

Asked what they would like us to do as parents to support them in their support of dd.

(if relevant): Asked them what they thought would be a suitable way of dealing with behaviour problems. (gently hinting that they have to steer a fine and difficult balance between maintaining discipline and not punishing a child for SN)

Asked them to suggest a useful means of communication between school and home- e.g. through home diary- so I could be kept informed immediately of any difficulties.

Asked them to make an appointment for a follow-up meeting towards the end/middle of the term to discuss how things were working out.

Assured them sweetly that I was on their side and realised (passive aggression) that they were clearly as eager as me to support dd as a school like them would not want to be seen failing to fulfill their legal obligations.

Oh, and I forget: taken in multiple copies of handout and asked school to post one in the staff room, so all members of staff could be aware of dd's needs.

teacher We can see the other side of this, that he can't keep doing this and he can't hit others. But he doesn't even know what he's done wrong. The teacher certainly didn't tell him off on Thursday, that was one of the complaints the mother had that witnessed the incident on Thursday. Also how can we talk to ds about his behaviour when the school continually tell us there is no problem? Yet there clearly is a problem as they can't sit him next to anyone.

He's deaf. He wears hearing aids and uses a radio aid in the classroom. He relies on lip reading as well. He struggles to hear above background noise. He struggles to communicate verbally when its noisy or he's stressed or frustrated (hence the lashing out I'm sure). New concepts and vocab are hard for him to understand and needs to hear new words at least 10 times more than other children. There has been a number of major confusions in the topics so far in the last 5 weeks because he's not understanding the new vocab. This I'm sure makes him frustrated and confused. He also has multiple food allergies and stomach ulcers. He has always been a challenge being a biter and hitter but its never ever been to the extreme its at now.

Well not surprising poor lad.

What do you reckon about my questions? What have they promised in the past, what have they actually delivered? Is it time to involve more professionals?

Sounds like its definitely time to get outside agency advice and even possibly a statement application processed. I'm surprised to be honest that this hasn't been suggested previously. It doesn't sound like the school aren't meeting his needs, more that they are not actually bothering to communicate with you what they are doing which is appauling.

You need to get in touch with the SENCo asap and if they refuse a meeting or it is a long time to wait. I'm a SENCO and try my best to only keep parents waiting for 24 hours, then you need to contact the local authority for advice. Does he have support from a teacher of the deaf or speech and language?

I have found you really need to be strict on insisting on meetings- and it helps enormously if you can cajole a professional into coming along with you, or even taking your partner/friend/mum (if relevant)

He has a teacher of the deaf who visits the school reguarly. The school have put him on school action but refuse to put him on school action plus stating that SA+ is only for pupils who are statemented. I know this is wrong. The SENCO said this though and I didn't have the confidence at the time to correct her.

He has an action plan for inclusion that clearly states that he should have a home school communication book. The teacher refuses to write in it saying that she doesn't have time. I requested a meeting with the teacher earlier this week and was told I could wait til parents evening. We then wrote to the HT on Thursday requesting a meeting with herself, the class teacher and ToD. In this letter we said we wanted to discuss ds's behaviour, the lack of communication and the reasons why DS isn't on SA+. They have given us a date after half term and will be inviting the SEN governor and we will now also be bringing NDCS to it.

The teacher is the SENCO.

Feel so sad for your little boy - he must be very confused at school. There is a child in dd's class who is deaf and she has a ta who is with her most of the time. When she was in reception it was I would say 100% one-to-one. I can't imagine how it would work without this level of support in terms of your Sons learning and also the class teacher teaching the whole class. Are you saying he has just been put in a class with no extra provision for his needs? That is not fair on anyone if that's the case. As others have said contact the SENCO at the school straight away for advice.

cross posts, just saw the teacher is the SENCO! It's not on that you are being fobbed off until after halfterm. I would be very worried sending him to school without the support in place that he needs. I would be inclined to keep him at home until something is sorted.

This is very wrong. You need to put pressure on them. Good on you to have arranged a meeting. Make sure you are very well read up on the Disability Discrimination Act- there is a handy supplement with a Code of Conduct to its application in education (google). If the teacher claims not to have time to implement the inclusion plan, the school needs to make arrangements to give her that time.

Cory
Called for a meeting with SENCO and class teacher within the first few weeks of term. - This was done in 1st week of term (teacher (who is the senco), HT and head of sensory service as well as myself and dh were present) and all agreed on action plan for inclusion.

Presented them with a bullet-point handout of dd's needs. - We did this at the above meeting. They thanked us for it saying it was very helpful.

Asked them what the school could offer to support these needs in the classroom and through homework. - We did this and they agreed to supply lesson objectives so that we could pre-tutor ds. They haven't provided these.

Asked what they would like us to do as parents to support them in their support of dd. - Done and agreed.

(if relevant): Asked them what they thought would be a suitable way of dealing with behaviour problems. (gently hinting that they have to steer a fine and difficult balance between maintaining discipline and not punishing a child for SN) - Wasn't discussed mainly because his behaviour wasn't so extreme at the time.

Asked them to suggest a useful means of communication between school and home- e.g. through home diary- so I could be kept informed immediately of any difficulties. - Discussed and the school suggested the home school diary. The teacher though now refuses to write in it even though she agreed to it at the meeting.

Asked them to make an appointment for a follow-up meeting towards the end/middle of the term to discuss how things were working out. - Done, was meant to be at half-term. A date wasn't forth coming, hence why after the refusal of meeting earlier in the week that we wrote to the HT.

Assured them sweetly that I was on their side and realised (passive aggression) that they were clearly as eager as me to support dd as a school like them would not want to be seen failing to fulfill their legal obligations. - Done at meeting and on numerous other occasions since.

Clearly, you have spread all the sweetness and light that can possibly be spread. Time to apply the thumbscrews! Hit them hard over the head with the Disability Discrimination Act!

They have agreed on a course of Reasonable Adjustment to comply with the law, and now they are going back on the deal. This needs to be pointed out loud and clear in the hearing of other professionals. I would definitely go through the DDA supplement prior to the meeting and be prepared to outline exactly where they are failing to comply with law. (have very satisfactory memory of seeing dd's headteacher go pale at this approach- it had never occur to him that somebody might try to apply the rules against him).

And yes, much as it goes against the grain, I probably would take your poor little lad out. Get the GP to write a letter that he cannot attend school until his needs are met.

Your ppor DS. Why does he not have a TA assigned to him?

Because a TA would have to be found from somewhere, they are not just sitting around with nothing to do! Without a statement ( and even WITH one in my county) there is no funding for any additional TA support and with budget cuts as they are, TAs have been the first to go. We couldn't afford to employ an additional TA and the ones we have are already working 1:1 with statemented children.

( Not being unsympathetic, he clearly needs support, just explaining the practicalities!)