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.

"Same boy also wrecked havoc in the school library. The solution - the ht removed the furniture from the library. She was incredibly proud of telling me this. Again, not getting to the root of the problem. Nobody benefits from it."

And that I afraid says everything about the head teacher's grasp of discipline in the school.

It sounds like he needs movement breaks throughout the day.

Where I live children who are chronically disruptive are evaluated by a school psychologist and if there's no short term fix they are placed in a school within the county that specializes in students like this and has the additional resources and support to manage it properly. This removes the problem from the regular school and gives the kids with behavioral issues additional support.

@Shockers It sounds like he needs movement breaks throughout the day.

For all we know that may be happening - it certainly does in my mainstream primary as standard practice. The staff however won't be able to say what is happening with regards other pupils to the OP due to confidentiality. All they can say is what they can do for her DD.

OP it sounds like your DDs school is overwhelmed by pupils that need extra support, and as other PPs have stated there is a lack of funding to support the children's needs. I would therefore also CC your MP in any letter to Ofsted to let them know the crisis taking place in some schools.

Sadly I’m the parent of a classroom trasher. He hurts the adults more than the children. He has spent a lot of time in restraint or in a padded room but can now smash out of them. The school are doing what they can for him. He has developmental trauma and due to his early life he is scared of adults, especially when away from me.

He has been in a small unit since reception. He has an EHCP but ther is NO SEMH provision for infants in this authority. There is one school in a neighbouring authority that is full. Now he is nearing the end of Y2, he has moved early to a ks2 SEMH provision where he feels safer and has settled quite a lot. Sadly, there is not enough help for these children, and, along with their classmates and teachers, everyone suffers.

Scared children do scary things.

I moved DD from a similar class as she was being hurt and scared in a daily basis - she was much happier.

It's awful for all the children and not what should be happening at school. The parents of the boy are probably at a loss as well - but that's funding for you.

She said I have 'parent power' and that I may get listened to as the staff dont. Not good hearing that from a member of staff!

Sadly this is also true

Shawshank, I was pondering about the fact that ‘it all goes south in the afternoon’.

I work in a PRU, and we find movement breaks help some children enormously. I agree that we don’t know whether this child has them or not, but in my experience (I visit many mainstream schools as part of the reintegration process), funding is so dire that often there aren’t the staff available to manage those sort of strategies.

I'm a massive advocate for P.E, movement, not being glued to a table for six hours a day, so it horrified me to find out P.E lessons were cancelled as a punishment when the kids played up too much. The one thing nearly guaranteed to help was banned. That was for the whole class too.
Playtimes also reduced/taken away completely. enough to drive anyone mad. Ended up orchestrating my own exercise routine with my kids in the am before school. The school did this then wondered why kids were bouncing off the walls by 11am.

Please contact Ofsted and SIAMS - this is awful. I've had challenging behaviour in class before but this is no way to deal with it. Poor children - all of them.

Can I suggest any further meetings or calls with the head are recorded