Parents, what do you think about this?

[confusedandconcerned]

I have a 6 year old boy in my class who sometimes disturbs the other children by getting in their space and not leaving them alone. He will make noises right in their face, or follow them around calling them silly names, or sit right next to them, leaning on them, etc.

He obviously does have behaviour difficulties and these are being addressed. When he behaves like this, the teacher or myself (TA) will ask him to stop. If he doesn't we usually ask the other child to move. If he follows the child and continues to annoy them, we give him the opportunity to do something else (a pre-agreed activity). If he still doesn't stop, and as a last resort, I will physically remove him from the room using approved techniques which I have been trained to use. This makes him very angry and he then needs some time to cool down.

Now the headteacher has told me that, instead of removing him from the room, I should ask the other child, the one that he was annoying, to go out of the room for a few minutes. Even if it is during lesson time. I will do this as it's what the head has told me to do, but it doesn't 'sit right' with me.

As a parent, how would you feel if your child was removed during lesson time because another child was disrupting the lesson?

Furious and let down. It would totally erode any confidence in the teacher and school.

I would be extremely unimpressed, why should my child be punished for someone else's bad behaviour? I appreciate the other child has already disrupted the learning by then, but to leave the class and miss more of the lesson - no way.

I would probably make an appt to speak to the teacher about it and take it to the HT if not happy.

I wouldn't be happy about this to be honest.

It sounds like this little boy needs professional help.

why did she say to do this

It sounds like he gets a lot of chances to change his behaviour before anything happens, has the SENCO or someone suitable been involved in the plan of how to manage these episodes?

I'd be really cross and my DS would probably be confused and upset too.

It might be because actually the reason the child is misbehaving is so that he gets removed. Although I can see why other parents would not be happy.

I would not be happy with this at all.

I wouldn't be happy and I would complain.

Won't he just move onto another child? Sounds impractical to me.

It's really difficult to judge from a thread on mumsnet. Could you not discuss the reasons with the head, senco and child's parents rather than a bunch of strangers who are not privy tithe facts or qualified to deal with the situation.

I wouldn't be impressed either, and I'm pretty certain this wouldn't happen at my dcs' school.

I have seen disruptive children removed from the classroom, often moved into another year group for a lesson, which seems to work.

lulurose - the head is hoping that it will 'break the cycle' of him annoying children and being removed from the room. The idea is that when the other child returns, he will not resume the behaviour. Also, he has very low self esteem and does not handle segregation very well.

Removing the other child is depriving the boy of his game and if you keep removing the other child, the boy will give up and realise its not fun... It's basic psychology and it will probably show results quick quickly. Please stick with it and see.

You're the whole-class TA? Does he have a one to one LSA? I assume not, as you're the one doing the removal.
I can see why the Head wants to avoid any situation that's going to cause the boy to get angry, but this really doesn't seem like a good response to me. What does the teacher think? Is the SENCo involved - does he/she have an opinion?

The head, SENCO and parents have all been involved. We have lots of strategies to use but nothing seems to be working very well so far. I realise that teaching professionals will see this from the point of view of helping this boy and quite rightly so. But I just wanted some opinions from parents because it doesn't seem fair to me that children who have done nothing wrong should miss out on lesson time.

If this happened to your child, would you expect to be told that your child was removed from a lesson because it helped another child with their behaviour?

If my dd was removed from the class because another child was being 'naughty' I would be and very as well!!!

Can (almost) see the logic BUT

• you'd have to make sure the child being removed was treated very carefully
• you'd have to make sure it didn't become a game with the other children - they are very canny at that age and I could see them goading him so that he'd get in their face and they'd be " rewarded" for it

This child needs to be seen by the community paediatrician. I don't think the head, SENCO or the parents have the knowledge to help this little boy. It's very unfair on the other child to miss out on lesson time and it's probable that this won't make any difference as the child in question could latch on to someone else.

You might find that his behaviour improved and the problem is resolved, got to be as detrimental to the other kids, being harassed as leaving the room momentarily. I really don't think it's appropriate to be discussing professional matters on an Internet forum, especially as the people suggesting it are more qualified or involved with the child than you are. Don't mean to be harsh, it just doesn't 'sit right' with me.

It doesn't sound like the boy is being naughty though, it sounds like he has undiagnosed SN.

If you forceably restrained my kid who has ASD like you are suggesting you're doing to this boy I'd be furious.

For this poor boy's sake you better work out how to handle him.

I don't understand why the other boy has to leave the room, rather than just going to a different part of the room.

You post makes me very concerned :(

Very concerned.

The child's mother has been asked to get him referred by his GP but so far she has not made the appointment. He does have some funding which gives him a 1-1 worker for one quarter of every day.

Because his behaviour is erratic and he doesn't always have problems during the time that is 1-1 worker is in the class, I have had to step in and deal with most of the problems whilst the teacher teaches. I am supposed to be whole class TA though.

However, we are hoping to get funding for a full time 1-1 worker but that won't come through until September.

I'm in full agreement with IndigoBell. It sounds like the school isn't handling this child at all and he needs far more support. As for restraining him, I find this horrific.

I'm not sure what the answer is, but my understanding of removal by physical force is ONLY to be use if the child is a physical risk to himself, staff or chikdren! Therefore you shouldn't be removing him physically IMO.

The restraining is bad, which is why this new approach might work. I don't see how you can judge until you've given it a good go.