school is failing my son and boys

[Loopylewanderin2]

Hi I am new to this, but after doing a search thought mumsnet may be helpful - I have a bit of an ongoing issue with my sons primary school (he is yr 4)..
I moved him to this school last Feb following 4 years of bullying at his old school, this led to low self esteem, aggressiveness and my son was under cahms and thenwhen school was changed he was discharged as the problems went away.
Behaviour changed again in autumn last year to something very similar but also he began making comments about hating hislife, wanting to die and went so far as to attempt to burn his hair off (he is strawberry blonde but gets called for it) schhol initially would not listen and placed him on school action plan and his IEP said he had to refrain from shouting out answers in the class, lying about his peers. I (single mam) and my mother (ex social worker) met with the head and she finally began to listen and investigate, it was found he was not nbeing bullied as such but that inhis year group there was a group of boys (of which he was part) who all wanted o be the leader of the gang so to speak and therefore play and such was very rough (they were alowed to play dodge ball in the yard etc) she would keep an eye on it!
Things seemed to settle down and he became established within the group of boys, made a best friend and behaviour at home setled down again and he actually wanted to go to school. I recevived numerous positive reports about him, he even won pupil of the week, is top table maths and science and second top for literacy/comprehension. In his parents review his teacher kept referring to him as a 3 point child and all was very positive.
Then I witnessed an incident in the yard one mornoing where these boys (inc son) were getting very rough with one another, one child had my sons arms behind his back another child had hold of another child by the ears and this child was on the floor - one parent shouted at their child to stop i just went over and removed my son from the situation and took him to the teaching assistant who was on morning yard duty. I explained what had hapened and was confronted with "have you told your mother what you did yesterday" znd from that thigs escalated. my son became very upset and annoyed and was taken into school. When i called later i was advised by the acting head (who is also my sons class teacher mon - wed) that my son had been removed from the class because of his actions that morning in the yard - I asked what she meant and she informed me he had (in front of me) dragged another child across the yard and had injured the childs back! I advised her i witnessed the events and that had in no way occurred also other parents had witnessed it and wouold support me - she said I was his mother therefore would defend him. THings escalated again and i did lose my temper and threatended to remove him there and then from school she threatened me with the EWO and social services! so i contacted the EWO and schhol nurse myself, they set up a meeting with the acting head, me, son and themselves for the following week - the meeting was very positive but the acting hea took no notes at all, the ewo and nurse didand the conclusion was that the school was not cping with this group of boys very well and instead of looking at the bigger picture were singling out my son as he was owning up to any of the fighting etc that was happening, however whn he would then deny having involvement in other incidents they said he was ying and as it had been him before it was hi now! The EWO remedy was to involve an outside behaviour person who would work with the group of boys! I since found out that the acting head wil only allow her to work with my son as he is the instigator apparently!
On friday i received a call from her at 3.25 asking me to come straight to school and collect my son as she was not allowing him to atend the after school cricket club - i asked why and she said beacause she was unable to supervise it and she felt after an incident at lunch time my son was a danger to the children at the club. I got very defensive and demanded reason as to why and she said he had kneed another child in the privates at kunch time, and then in afternoon break another child had ran at my son and to stop him my son had raised his knee again and had caught the child in the thiogh but it was obviously meant for the privates, and great injury had happened. She said she woild be discussin exclusion with the head on monday.
My immediate reaction was to collect hima nd shout at her!
When i had collected him i asked what had happened and he said theother child had kicked him in the shin (showed me huge bruise) so he kneed him back, he said the later incident was not intentioanl but the boy was running at him so he raised his leg to brace himself for the impact!
I fell like the school ( inparticular the acting head) is using my son as a scape goat - I am at a loss as to what to do - the princiapal head is a very scary lady and is retiring hence she is only working mon - wed. I amvery concerned about what to do with my son tomorrow - send himin or keep him at home!
Also where do i stand with this - as my son has an IEP still (he was taken off but then placed onit gain wheni contacted the EWO) surely they cannot exclude him as although he has not got a statement isn't an IEP an indication he has special needs? or are IEP's a way to get an outstanding ofsted report ( school recently got this awarded after only being a god school before but teaching side was still only satisfactory) the ofsted report also points outh they are not catering for boys's needs. I am really at a loss!!!
Sorry for the waffle but am new to this and will gte used to the abbreviations I should be using!!!
thanks to anyone who can help in advance!!
xx

[Tomsolomon]

As a single parent with a son in a similar situation I can empathise with the OP. Things have gone much further in our case though. We moved to a new school last year to get away from his mum and he settled in very well to start with, although things changed after a while. I noticed four other boys surrounding him in the playground before school punching and kicking him. Of course I immediately removed him from the situation and reported it to his teacher. I was told that what happens before school was none of their concern and I should deal with it. but surely if this sort of behaviour was going on before school, it was going on during school.
This began to happen on a daily basis and all the while DS's behaviour and school work began to suffer with him being singled out as a trouble maker, I found out later from the head that they knew about the problem and the children had been spoken too, what she didn't know is that my son had been outnumbered four to one. He never fought before he attended this school, he came home one night and he knew how to punch. I never taught him that.
Anyway as things stand, my son has had to attend a short stay rehabilitation school for his behaviour. This school has some of the most badly behaved children in the county, Guess what, they leave him alone, he doesn't get picked on and he is currently top of the class. He still attends his normal school on occasional afternoons which he cannot stand to be at. They have colour charts for behaviour and he always ends up in red, which is followed on to the short stay school the following day and he always manages to get back into green by break time.
Now the head, the liaison officer between the schools and a few others seem to think the problem lies either at home, or DS is having separation problems or the trip to school is stressing him out. If this was the case then his behaviour would be the same at the short stay school surely. I have been lumbered with a parenting class where I am teaching the group more than the lecturers.
I feel like the school has let him down at a time where he needs as much support as he can get, they are talking about exclusion if his behaviour doesn't improve. I feel like they are not taking his feelings into consideration. This is most apparent when it took one of his teachers an hour and a half to talk him out from under a table. It's almost as if they want to give up on him. The same teacher expected me to punish my son after he had already been punished for this.

I know this is an old thread, but I could really do with some advice on this. before things get too out of hand.

[ipadquietly]

mrz: 'It's a huge part of my role to work with outside agencies'
So is it mine, if there were outside agencies willing to work with me. I have a child on full statement, who gets not-a-second of outside agency support. But that's another story....

OP, just one thing. I think you should be a bit careful about going into school all guns blazing.
Some of the situations you've quoted happened in the school day, when you weren't around, so you have no evidence of the course of events (apart from your ds's story). I'm not saying your ds has been lying - it's just that sometimes children have a very warped different impression to an adult of what has gone on!

[socharlotte]

Maybe I am very old fashioned but I think schools should have some vigorous physical sports activity for boys to challenge their boisterousness into.A cool male teacher to run martial arts, rugby,trampolining classes etc.

Op I think you need to go through situations with your DS which are likely to end up in trouble, and give him ways to cope with these situations before they escalate.
You and the school need to be looking forward at preventative measures trying to find out 'who did what to whom first' would defeat of Scotland Yard's finest.

[socharlotte]

channel their boisterousness

[ipadquietly]

Sorry socharlotte - so you don't think girls should be offered these cool activities with cool male teachers, then?

[socharlotte]

Yes not exclusively boys, but as this thread is about boys that is why I said 'boys' instead of children.