What to expect after serious injury at school

[rockybalboa]

My DS is in Y1 and sustained a serious injury at school yesterday at the hands of another child who is a known aggressor and causes physical injuries to other children at least weekly. We first raised a concern with this child and ours over a year ago and I know other parents whose children have suffered at the hands of this child have raised concerns as well. I don't know if the child has SEN but he does now have a TA with him at all times in the classroom, just not at playtimes when these incidents occur. We have been keeping in touch with the school via email as phone reception is awful in the hospital and the school have advised me what immediate steps they have taken to prevent further incident. My question is: as the parent of the injured child, am I to expect anything further from the school re follow up? I have read their behaviour policies online but they seem quite rightly to focus on how they will address the perpetrator's behaviour. I am just interested to know whether the school have to formally report the incident to anyone (the council?) and basically what happens next. DS won't be back at school until Jan now anyway and I guess we will need to advise school of any ongoing injury related issues at that point for the purposes of his own health and safety. It was just the extent of any formal investigation involving us that I am curious about if anyone can advise please? This isn't AIBU so please don't slate me if any of this is considered unnecessary info, judgey or inappropriate in any way, I am not out gunning for the child, I am just trying to find out what, if anything, happens next.

Thank you in advance.

What is the serious injury? Did DS go to hospital?

As a teacher I personally would be writing to the school stating that my child would not be returning until I had their full assurance that this would never be allowed to happen again.

If the child is a danger then they should not be unaccompanied.

It is a really hard situation for a school to be in but that's their problem, not yours. Yours is protecting your child.

I would also want a full report of the incident. If your child has been assulted then you need the full circumstances.

Rocky I hope your ds isn't too badly affected physically or emotionally.
We spent several years in fear of this happening and eventually moved school partly to sort it. My only bit of advice is to put everything in writing and keep records.

Hedgehog, I would rather not say what the specific injury is in case anyone from school posts on here and this outs me. I did say in my post that I had been communicating with school via email due to lack of phone signal in the hospital so yes, he has been to hospital and is going back daily for review at present.

Expedition, thank you. That is exactly what I was after. I didn't want to go in all guns blazing and make a fuss but perhaps I do need to be more forceful about ensuring his future safety (and I guess those of the others in his school). Do you think it would matter if I wait until after Christmas to write? I can't really focus on dealing with much more than getting DS through this at the moment but I don't want to get it 'wrong' and miss my moment so to speak.

X-post with Baffled. Thank you. DS seems ok today but he has been through some pretty invasive investigations. Time will tell how he responds and the extent to which the injury causes long term/permanent issues will obviously be relevant there too. It was only yesterday so it is early days but the consultant is pretty concerned about him.

You are well within your rights to ask if this will be reported as a serious incident to governors, LA and/or OFSTED. Also what will be done to help your son emotionally on return to school and what risk assessments will be put into place.

So sorry your little boy has been hurt.

It sounds like the other child is a danger to children at the school. I would hope they remove him. I would not be happy sending a DC of mine back to a school that could not protect them from a child who was consistently aggressive.

Can you say how and when the injury happened? Was it a time when they children were being directly supervised or was it in the playground? Was your child's injury caused deliberately- or was it an unintended consequence if you see what I mean?

Does the school know how serious the injury is?

Has the school excluded the child? Has the child been disciplined?

The school has a duty of care to keep your DS safe. Can the fulfil thier obligation?

Yes, school know how serious it is, I am keeping them informed (at their request). It was during lunchtime playtime. I understand that a witness said that DS was deliberately pushed by this child (although I doubt that the purpose of the push was to cause this or any other specific injury). Said child had assaulted another child (who had to go to first aid) during the same playtime prior to pushing my DS and causing him to be injured. Oh, and had deliberately tripped up yet another child immediately before pushing DS. I should add that this info has come from the parent of the witness. DS was too hysterical yesterday to give much of a decent account and is now backtracking on what he did say as he is worried about getting this child in trouble.

Oh bless your ds for not wanting to get him in trouble. Hopefully given three incidents had happened then the school will take the view that ministering to three incidents must impact their supervision capacity severely and therefore the aggressive child can't be left to run amok.

I am the parent of a child who, in reception, caused a child to be admitted to hospital

Please put your concerns in writing... Had my son's school been forced to deal with his behaviour at that point he might have got support earlier and the children around him would not have been put at risk.

As it was I was not informed for three days as I was working the day of the incident and didn't collect and the teacher missed me on day 2... By which point I saw child with mum and commented on the very obvious head I jury he had in a 'oh no poor you' kind of way.

As for the letter itself I would detail his injury and what you understand to be the cause. Rumours about this child will detract from your child and could be jumped on - stick to any previous incidents with your child only.

Then I would ask for a formal response that details: the outcome of their investigation and what they are intending to do to ensure that it does not reoccur. This is distinctly different to punishment as that is not guarantee of safety and actually they could refuse to share that information about punishments as it is confidential.

Focus to your child, his injury and his future safety and ask for the governors to be informed.

My sister had a similar situation, a specific item was used to physical harm her DC in the classroom. She removed her DC and homes schooled for two weeks giving the school time to put measures in place to protect the DC.
None were put in place, so she approach the LA to deregister from that school, they fell over themselves to help her find a school place (she approached them on a Wednesday and DC started at the new school on the following Monday).

Just to add it should be reported after proper health and safety assessment to local authority- even if an academy. Have had to do the investigation at work previously and part of it is do put in place any possible measures to ensure safety of all involved. I would also be inquiring as to what additional provision was in place for the child who caused the incident

Of course it can wait until after Christmas. Have a good relax over Christmas and everyone will be in a better frame of mind in January.

If it was a one off push from a friend whilst playing who obviously couldn't predict the pretty serious consequences then I would leave it.

Clearly this isn't something like this and the child is sometimes a danger to other children. As a teacher I can tell you it is really hard work when you have a child like this in the class as obviously they can still get to children sometimes before an adult gets to them. As a parent I can tell you I would not be taking someone assaulting my child lightly. Try and stay calm about it at all times though. Calmly worded but very clear and strong letter in January is a good start.

Thank you all. Had a quick chat with school today when I went in with DS to get a better understanding of where/what happened. DH is furious though so wants to have a meeting with school on Friday to understand what they are going to do to ensure DS's safety when he goes in Jan.

I am a school governor, and I would suggest

1. tell your ds that the other child needs more help and support so that when he gets angry/upset he doesn't hurt people, telling isn't getting him into trouble, it is getting him more help that he needs.
2. put everything in writing, and keep a paper trail
3. Write to the school, asking for a written account of what happened. Ask if the incident has been referred to LA/governors. If they say no, ask for it to be referred, if they say no, then write directly to the governors, with copies of all correspondence so far.
4. Once school has given their account, ask what steps they are taking to safeguard the other children in the playground from this child. This is a tricky one as they won't discuss another child with you, but you need to know from them that this child will not be unaccompanied in the playground at any time.
5. It is important to stay calm, and very focused on what you want. The issue is safety, so that is the focus. If they have a child who is putting others at risk they have to take action.

I think a meeting now is a good idea. You may not get a final result, you may just get to express you concern and they go away and think about plan, but then you can put a date on the table for first day of term (or day before) to review. When you have a meeting, follow it with an email which says 'thank you for meeting, just to confirm what we talked about, school will do x and we will do y. So you have a written record of what has been promised.

Thank you Steppe, that is enormously helpful.

The child must have pretty serious SEN if he has a TA with him all the time. Does he have the TA during breaks? If not, then as a minimum that should be sorted out as he clearly needs one.

I am just so bloody angry right now. I have mentioned on another friend that the serious injury my DS sustained was the permanent loss of sight in one eye. We spent an hour with school on Friday morning discussing the issues and being assured that it had been a huge wake up call for them and they had urgently reassessed and reorganised the assailant's supervision to ensure that he is supervised at all times, not just playtime but in the cloakroom etc. and then I discover last night that this child attacked one of DS's classmates on lunchtime on Friday morning. How!!?!??!?! I feel sick with rage. I'm going to get on to the school admissions team tomorrow to see if DS can be found a new school because I can't see how I'll ever be happy he's safe there (and I have two younger DC who will follow him to the same school). But he's distraught about even the prospect of changing schools and although he's v adaptable and sociable and would cope absolutely fine, he shouldn't bloody have to, HE is the victim here. It all feels like a very bad dream at the moment although I am trying to focus on that fact that he still healthy and happy and his life will remain relatively unchanged. But still, it bloody well sucks

Oh rocky that's infuriating. So sorry that your poor boy has this to deal with.
I agree with you that it's not fair that he should move school while the other child gets to stay. I would speak to the admissions staff to see what your options are before making a decision on whether he moves. Might as well be armed with the facts. I fail to see though how the original school can continue to brush this under the carpet and I would think about legal advice and bringing that to the governors or LA.
Deeply frustrating that it's school holidays so you can't make any progress though.
I do understand that rage and feeling sick at sending my gentle dc into the lions den every day.
Hope you can get people to listen.

As a teacher and a parent I would also be devastated at this. I really feel that there are enough grounds to exclude the other child permanently. He clearly needs more specialist support than this school can provide. He is a serious danger to other children, and given what happened to your son for another incident to be able to happen so soon afterwards when presumably school were on high alert regarding his behaviour is totally unacceptable. Although school will now be closed I am sure that the head will be checking their emails over the next few days. Presumably they are aware of the very serious nature of your son's injuries. At the least school will need to have a plan for supporting his physical as well as emotional needs. I feel that the other child should be excluded, this is not from a punitive point of view but rather to get him the help he so clearly needs. Good luck to you OP, I hope that all of your family are ok

Have you considered taking legal advice? I know we are a litigious society now but this seems a circumstance where there may be a genuine case of neglect on the school's behalf. Your son has a serious injury which is lifelong and should be compensated.
Also second everyone who says the other child should be excluded and again not for punitive reasons.

I'm so sorry about your ds's injury.
The other child seems unable to cope at all with being in the busy playground/cloakroom situation. I am amazed that the school have not properly addressed this.

Look at your Home Insurance Policy and find out about legal advice via your insurance there. The LA will have consulted their lawyers already and the school will be told to minimise harm to reputation. Our school (Scotland) has insurance that covers such injuries so, at the very least, there will be money to help your DS adapt or to pay for education. From memory, an eye is 40k (pupils joke about it as they are given a list of the compensation amounts when they go on a trip).

Sorry to sound hard and legal, but the LA will be getting ready to fight all these things to protect the school. You need to be ready.

Maybe one parent focus on DS, the other on the school who ARE at fault if the incident could have been foreseen. Al colleague (I am a teacher) was in a legal battle over a similar incident and the LA brought out the big guns to protect their reputation. He was exonerated and it WAS an unforeseen accident. But this sounds very different. Get a lawyer.