Violence in primary school - advice needed please

[Andthenjust]

Hi, this is my first post on Mumsnet (I joined the site specifically for this lol), I'm asking for advice from you all in regards to my kids current school.

My eldest is currently in Year 2, and academically she is fine, her home life is good, shes generally a happy kid. HOWEVER, lately I've notic ed a dramat ic change in her personality, and yesterday she came home from school upset.
Amongst her classmates, there are seven or eight children who are incredibly disruptive- shouting out, screaming etc, and she is often bothered by that and complains of headaches. To ma ke matters worse, these same chi ldren have taken to throwing furniture across the room and my daughter has been hit with a chair on previous occasions, and yesterday her and her friend had a tab le flipped on top of them. Earlier on in the year, a student in the class trashed the classroom to the extent that the children had an emergency evacuation onto the playground and the classroom was closed off for the rest of the day. I was in the school when this happened, and it was honestly lik e a prison riot scene from a film. I know th is sounds exaggerated but its the honest to god truth - I've never seen anything like it.
After this incident, I told the teachers how it affected my daughter, that she felt frightened and spent the weekend dreading the return to school. This incident was creat ed by one child, but now it has spread acro ss the class and there is now a group of children who have started throwing furniture at other children and the staff.
Th is has been going on for the la st year; getting worse and more frequent. It was my daughters' 'taster' day yeste rday in year three, and the behaviour continued there.
She's been so stress ed her hair has started falling out.
I ve spoken to the teachers, and theyre apparently at a loss as to what to do- their only option for the disruptive kids is to let them out of the classroom and to run around the school.
Ive emai led the head teacher, but Im not hoping for much as this is the second email I've sent (the first one I didn't get a reply from for four weeks).
I don't know what to do, and any advice is greatly appre ciat ed as I am at my wits end.

Sorry for the long rambling post, and I hope it's coherent.

Contact Ofsted?

This is outrageous.

Contact the local paper. Move schools.

“Statements” (in old terminology) do exist for children and name the special school. Yes, the child may have to wait for a place but this behaviour isn’t acceptable in a mainstream school. The child needs help and he isn’t getting it.

It’s an Emotionally and Behaviourly Disturbed school that’s needed and yes, they do exist! If the child was permanency excluded, something would happen. Children can have a named “school” or setting to meet their needs from the age of 2.

It sounds like moving schools is the way forward. But please also email the chair of the governors, the LEA and any other interested group (eg if it's a faith school, the appropriate leader). While you need to do what's right for your child, this cannot be allowed to carry on for the sake of all the children, and the governors and LEA can't ignore a safeguarding issue.

(We had a similar situation which the headteacher was hushing up - it wasn't until the LEA inspector came to assess and was hit by a brick thrown by the disruptive child that they acknowledged the child had needs that could not be met by the school and they needed to find a more appropriate setting).

Bubbles EBD stands for emotional and behavioural difficulties not 'emotionally and behaviourally disturbed'. EBD has now been replaced with SEMH- social, emotional and mental health.

SEMH placements for KS1 children are vanishingly rare, KS2 more common, but not in every area.

I have worked directly in the field for 15+ years, and I would say you sound about 15/ 20 years out of date. Which is fine- but maybe don't pass such black and white edicts. The solutions you suggest are not necessarily available to the school.

I can't see if you've said if it's an academy or not - sorry.
If it's an academy - you need to contact the Academy Trust.
If it's under the local authority you need to contact the LEA.
You should also contact the governors.
You could also contact OFSTED.
You should definitely also contact other parents to do the same.

If your DD is injured or ill as a result of the poor school environment, keep notes and records, including appointment details, the hospital may write you a brief note etc. Anything the school give you regarding any injury received during school hours, etc.

The situation you're describing is my son. Except he's not behaviourally disturbed.

He's has 9 months of hell at school because he was fine and then he wasn't and his undiagnosed SEN crippled him and the behaviour to mask the severe and crippling anxiety / sensory /social communication issues. He's been excluded endless times, kept in isolation, kept at home and on a reduced timetable. He's now got a SEN specialist 1:1 and almost all of the issues have gone and he's happy again. It's taken nearly a year to get his EHCP in place and he doesn't need to go to a SEMH school (not that there are any for his age here)

Things don't always look as they seem and the system is set up to fail all children one way or another.

Rather than going to the school to complain about these children I would suggest going to the school and asking what strategies they are putting in place to keep your child safe. It sounds as if it is not currently safe. If they can’t answers then withdraw your child and let everyone know why. It sounds as if this situation is failing everyone.

I agree LadyPeacock that I’m a bit out of date with the terminology but there are things the school could do and they are not doing. Even if there isn’t a special school available, they could access outreach, could use play therapy off site and could certainly consider how to keep other children safe (which is a duty) and try and reduce the copy cat behaviour.

I am well aware that children can be temporarily bothered by events around them but that doesn’t mean they don’t have special needs. Special needs can be fairly fleeting or a life time. So what causes it doesn’t entirely matter to the other children and parents regarding this child but the provision of help does. Any child behaving in the way the one the op is describing needs help. If the child is bullied, then that needs to stop but there may be a whole myriad of reasons why a child is like this but it’s too extreme for mainstream school at the moment.

My LA still has a lot of special schools but I do appreciate others have closed them. Stupid them!

Hi Im the original op, for some reason I had to remake my account and choose a different name but anyway...
To update - I managed to speak to the headteacher over the phone today; she refused to speak to me in person. She assured me tha t my kids are making the whole thing u p, and to rest assured that the kids with the behaviour problems are g etting the right help. S he then offered my daughter counselling. After telling h er I 'm nit happy with this, she then started shouting at me over the phone saying ' I can categorically tell you the children in this school is what we have, and I will not be getting rid of them, so you are to acc ept it'.
Unfortunately, it is a COE Academy, and none of the governor's details are on the website. Conveniently. I asked them for the contact number, and the school receptionist flat out refused to give me it.
I've tried the LEA but as it's an academy, they can 't do much.
I've left a message for their religious type/ academy person ? So she'll get back to me on Monday.
In the meantime, I've removed my kids f rom the school, an d hopefully I'll get them in somewhere in September.

Phew, sorry for l ong post!

Oh, and also my daughter, along with all the other classmates, were forced to write promises to each other saying something along the lines of 'I promise not to hurt you', in regards to the latest table -flipping incident

So they are making it up but you have to accept the children that dont exist are there and won't be gotten rid of

Best off out of there hope your kids are ok

Yeah, the head teacher is... words actually fail me. But yeah, thank you! My kids aren't actually bothered about moving schools, I was ex pecting them to be a bit bothered about leaving their friends, but no haha.

I sincerely wish you the best if luck getting them into a nice new school.

That head has lost it.

Might be worth sending in a deregistration letter saying you will be home educating until they start at a new school so you aren’t fined. You may get some advice on the home ed board

Thanks Mary19, I was just looking at doing that lol. They've timed it right to start playing up - they're on ly missing two weeks.

For those of you that not believe this sort of thing goes on it really does.

My son has ASD and needed specialist provision we looked round several schools with units attached, all had isolation rooms and some were little more than cupboards.

I agree with the PP the quickest and easiest way is to move your DD.

My DS is essentially educated in isolation and has been for a year or so, we are in the process of attempting to get him moved to an appropriate school. There are none in county and all suitable schools are independent SS so we may well have to go to court at some stage, it is a long drawn out process trying to get good SEN provision.

I would be moving my child immediately. Also don't take no for an answer about seeing the head. Be scary. My school lost dd1 for a bit once. I yelled so loud a meeting was instantly arranged with the head who was very uncomfortable.

Report to ofsted and the local
Paper do not tolerate this.

Withdraw your dd now if he Hair is falling out she needs Camhs and gp urgently

I hope it gets sorted for you HBA1981, I can imagine how frustrating it is. This sort of situation isn't beneficial to anyone.

The head teacher is very good at giving 'politicians answers' that don't answer the question. Fo r the thirty minute phone call she granted me, she spoke over me, and when I brought forward my concerns she literally shouted over me 'LISTEN! LISTEN!' and demanded where I got my information from/my kids are lying/ and that what happens at the school is none of my business.

I should maybe mention that at one time I was actually one-of-them-mums-that-go-in-to-read, so I was in the school a lot and witnessed the majority of all this shit first hand.

I would agree with those that say this is more common that people realise.

Cuts to school budgets mean that they cannot pay staff. Teachers are having to work without a TA in many classrooms now. There is no-one to supervise disruptive children outside of the classroom.

I would withdraw your dd and try another school.

Oh, I originally wanted a face -to -face meeting with her so my husband could be present, bit of back-up for me, but she flat at refused saying she had too many 'safeguarding issues to deal with'.

Unless you are able to meet the head and find out what the situation is, you don’t know what has been put in place for this child/children. What you describe sounds dreadful and unsustainable in the long term and it would be surprising if this group managed to cooperate during an inspection. It sounds as though the teacher is reaching the end of her tether, if she’s urging you to keep trying to speak to the head.

I do wish though, that people wouldn’t make statements about needing an EHCP. the OP doesn’t know and we don’t know, whether the school is applying for additional funding and support. An EHCP can be a lengthy process and it would be inappropriate for other parents to know what the situation is. Having said that, every child has a right to an education that isn’t disrupted, as every teacher should have the right to teach without the lesson being disrupted. U fortunately it doesn’t always work like that.

If you aren’t getting anywhere with the head and aren’t getting assurances that your child will be safe, then another school must be your alternative.