Violence in primary school

[Carrotsandcauliflower]

Looking for some advice on this.
My kids are at primary school, eldest was attacked a few months back, by another kid in his year, (6) the other kid was annoyed at loosing a football match they were both playing during play time.
The kid grabbed my son who is smaller- the offending child is stocky and much taller, threw him to the ground and then repeatedly kicked him while a couple of friends tried to intervene. They ran to get a teacher who was near by and the whole thing ended there.
The kid was kept in for a week from play.
So then this week, my youngest was playing with a couple of friends, the big kid came and took their ball, so one of the boys also year 3 takes the ball back- and gets thrown to the ground and repeatedly kicked. Other kids tried to break it up but couldn’t and ran to get a teacher. This time the child has been given a “yellow card” I believe he has to clean in school this week from what my kids have said.
Thing is my kids don’t see this level of violence on telly, or in films, or on games, but they have gone to school and seen this, and sadly experienced it in real life. Not really what we signed up for when we were choosing a school. I’m really determined that I don’t want them having to see this kind of thing again. I’d be freaked out if I saw that happen to another adult.
What would you expect from the school? I don’t feel like my kids are safe around this kid who has an obvious violent streak. There have been other minor incidents that I know of also, and I am fully convinced that it will happen again, just because it’s so extreme and it happened almost the same way twice already.

Unfortunately this is the norm now we have mainstreaming of children with severe behavioural problems.

I would expect the child to be excluded for a period for violence that severe - even if he has SN. Kicking another child repeatedly is extreme, dangerous and unacceptable.

The first thing to say is that you would not know or be told what has actually happened to this lad. There may well be other punishments that you are not going to be made aware of.
For the child to have carried out two such attacks does lead to questions. The first of which has got to be whether or not this child does have recognised special needs. If that is the case then I would be expecting the school to be ensuring that suitable help is being given to this child and his parents. I would see this starting at "team around the family" where all relevant organisations are represented, including the parents, so that a plan can be formulated. That will clearly include some help in terms of anger management.
If the pupil does not have any recognised special needs, then the next question has got to be should they and if the answer is no,then one has to be asking the school what is their intention with this pupil as they clearly could cause significant injury to another pupil if there is a repeat of the attack.
Your problem is that whilst your son was directly involved in the first attack, your younger son was really only a witness to the second attack. It is really for the parents of the second pupil attacked to make suitable noises to the school about what it happening to the pupil who is doing the attacking.
Whilst an obvious answer is to give a fixed term exclusion, the reality is that at age 6 that is not going to be seen as a punishment, more just having a few days off school. I think there needs to be a better way of getting the message across to the pupil and his parents.

I read it as Year 6. If it is a year 6 child who has anger management issues, then he will be well known to the school. The school has a duty to the other children and a duty to meet his needs.

Supervised play, withdrawal of play time and exclusion can be used. Managing his anger is obviously a priority and, as admission says, it’s important for the school to facilitate this.

I’m afraid children can have problems with their behaviour. You may find it quite difficult to avoid your children seeing violence if there are children with behavioural difficulties in the school. You can certainly ask how the school intends to keep children safe but they won’t discuss an individual case with you. I would certainly expect more diligent playground supervision. Ask if this is being implemented.

Exclusion wouldn't be a punishment in this case, it would be necessary while the school works out how to keep everyone safe!!! Twice the child has been so poorly supervised, he has been able to kick other children repeatedly, requiring children to inform the adults!!!

Thanks for your helpful replies. It is a very sad state of affairs that we have come to when we are asked we to accept that our children see violence like this in school. I am finding it very hard to accept. I wonder what parents can do to put a stop to this being the new normal. Perhaps I could approach the governors and see if they have any suggestions. I will certainly be asking about how the school will be keeping mine and the rest of the kids safe. I will also be suggesting, seeing as I can’t ask; that perhaps the lad has special needs and if children with emotional issues or special needs are specifically supervised at play time, if not why not? and how this was allowed to happen for the second time. The boy is year 6 and is absolutely huge. He is the same height as his mum who is average height. So he could have done some serious damage both times worse the second time as the child he hurt them was only 7. I imagine I am going to be given very little information and very little in the way of reassurance, I don’t beileive the school will be effective as whatever they put in place this time as this is the second attack. I wonder how many other children at the school have been on the receiving end of this violence and if he is a victim of it himself at home.

As a year 6 (i obviously misread the original post) I would very much expect that this pupil will be well known to the school.
I do think that it is likely that there have been other incidents, so it really is a question about what the school is doing to help this pupil to control his anger issues and also in terms of protecting the other pupils in the school.
If you intend to take this further with the school then you need to establish what is the complaints procedure of the school and follow that. You will not get any response from the governors of the school until you have gone through some of the stages of the complaints procedure.
If you complain about the behaviour of the pupil then you will not get a very positive response because the school will not give you any detail of what they are doing involving this pupil. I would suggest that your best line of attack is around the apparent lack of supervision on the playground. You can quote the two instances involving this pupil and be asking why the incidents were allowed to happen without apparent adult supervision to break them up and what they are going to do in the future to improve the situation.

This is really bothering me at present. We see it in primary and secondary. DH is a teacher and some of the violence and every day verbal abuse that they're expected to just stomach is ludicrous. Some of the violence to other children is also crazy. Good teachers are leaving in droves. Pupils with significant issues are acting out and not getting support. Everyone is losing out.

I've been trying to view how it can be thrown back to school boards, governors, councils and ultimately the government so they have to act.

I wondered if the health and safety at work act could be relevant where employers - the school/ council have a duty of care to employees and third party users of their services that they are protected from harassment, threats of violence and violence. Only I'm not in any way legally trained so its just theoretical that this should be relevant.

Clearly some pupils make threats and acts of violence, employees and third party users (pupils) are not protected and schools/ governing bodies/ councils are burying their heads in the sand.

Maybe if every time there is an incident we as parents ask the school for a copy if it's health and safety policy, then when it's not forthcoming/ not followed or completely inadequate we contact the governors and council, something would eventually happen.

Why are children with behavioural problems not specifically supervised at break times? Because schools have no money for proper staffing levels.

Thanks for that I will take that route admission. I also agree that I have heard lots of stories from parents in many schools about incidents, ans also violence against staff, some of whose are my friends. I would happily ask for the health and safety info from the school and I think will do when I ask about supervison, which I think I’m going to pop in an email so I can have it all in writing. I also agree that just stomaching all this kind of thing just allows for it to grow. I don’t know anything about the legal frameworks around schools and this kind of thing. I am sure the school have the same funding issues for staff cover at playtimes as other schools and probably struggle to have as many as needed. Probably more than the legal minimum (if there is such a thing) but it’s a playground with lots of nooks and crannies - a bit of a jigsaw piece so you need lots of staff to cover as all areas are hard to view in one go.

Can I just say, also I do have sympathy with schools, I know they are desperate for money, but incidences like this can lead to serious injury. If pupils like this boy are not helped or can’t be helped by this school and are just left to continue then what happens to the next kid or kids he comes across. If somone gets badly injured the school will be at fault. For retaining him as a pupil but failing to meet his needs. But that won’t undo any physical harm done. I wish I could show you a photo to compare the sizes of these two children it is ludicrous and would illustrate the danger he was in.

1. Footballs universally cause problems and aggression on primary school playgrounds. And that's before you let an uncontrollably violent child near them.
2. You should not allow footballs on the school playground at all if you are unable to supervise dangerous children adequately, however unpopular this is with the children (mainly boys - they tend to take over the entire playground and push the girls out of the space altogether, rather than letting the join in).

It sounds very much as though the school needs to reconsider its entire playtime strategy.

Hi round-
I know they have defined areas for all sorts of games and areas for even board games etc. So they do have lots going on for different groups. It sounds to me like for some reason there was not a member of staff near by. I don’t know what the minimum ratio rules are for primary playground or even if there are any official guides - would be handy to know if anybody can tell me before my conversations with them. Thanks again.

I think the ratio is just based on the school's risk assessment - an assessment your children's school has patently got wrong, if such a violent child has been allowed to play football unsupervised and far enough away from adults that they had to be fetched, not just called over.

Legal ratio arguments are unlikely to help you. There basically aren't any rules at that age, it's up to the school's discretion about what is safe, though you could of course try to argue that their arrangements are insufficient. But without a full time one to one for this child (which of course means more than a full time one to one, to cover the first one to one's break times) it is incredibly difficult to provide a sufficient level of cover. And the school might have a number of children who require this, none of whom might have any additional funding. And I don't disagree with you at all about the consequences of having a child with severe behavioural difficulties in school, but there is a very real limit about what the school can actually do. The rules around exclusion are very strict, particularly if the child has SEN. And if they do get excluded, what next? Probably a move to another mainstream school, which is unlikely to help and may make the child even more unsettled and put the other children in that school at risk. Waits for special school places (even if this is appropriate) can be literally years. I'm honestly not minimising your situation, but the school may be doing all it can with the resources it's got. There are impossible situations like this up and down the country, with schools having fewer and fewer support staff to help with supervision, more and more children with behavioural difficulties, and nobody really knows what to do about it.

I’ll eat my hat if this isn’t the same school and same child that’s been bullying DS2. Hampshire? School beginning with H?

Complain - in writing - to the governors. Nothing less will do anything, trust me.

I hate to judge kids but at 10/11 they do know right from wrong and this one is just a little scrote.

Hi hollyswift it’s not the same school, we aren’t in that area, but it sounds like you’ve got a similar issue.
It’s just so frustrating when the school can’t act. My children are not safe with this child unsupervised. And I do intend to lean on them and make sure that happens. I know a few parents who would volunteer on rota for play cover we do it for school trips forest school etc, all the school have to do is ask people will try and chip in a bit of time here and there if they are free. I’m going to try and get an appointment booked to have a cut with them.

Appointment not cut sorry-

I agree they do know right from wrong too

Obviously a six year old shouldn't be excluded - that's ridiculous and unhelpful. However a child who is violent to other children to the extent you describe will need to be monitored more closely so they simply can't harm other children. A certain level of scuffling and rough play is to be accepted but this goes way beyond that - all of the children should feel physically safe. Apart from keeping other children safe the child needs a behaviour management plan before their behaviour escalates. There will be a reason for violence in a young child and it needs to be stopped.

BottleofJameson - read the thread more carefully. The child is in his last year at primary school, so 10 or 11 years old, and physically large for his age, so a genuine danger to other children. I do not think it inappropriate to exclude a child that physically aggressive from the school for the purpose of safeguarding the other children when he has committed such a violent assault on others twice already.

Perhaps not inappropriate, but what happens next? The problem moves onto the next school? One of the dangers of this is that the 'problem' children get shunted down the hierarchy of schools, so that the schools at the bottom of the heap find it harder and harder to improve.

What needs to happen is we start insisting every violent act is documented and not swept under the carpet. If we can ensure evidence trails are created for every child who isn't behaving within age related norms then support can be directed towards them. The evidence trail can be used to push county for extra funding.

My youngest is at a bottom of the pile kind of school. One child I know of managed to have no record of her violence all the way to yr 6. She's caused mark injuries to other children in her class on a monthly basis from reception year. She's done serious damage to furniture, clothes of other pupils, had infinate internal undocumented isolations. She's been let down, her teachers have been let down, her class mates have been let down.

It's time for action as violence shouldn't be allowed to continue as the new norm.

I didnt say permanent exclusion - that could not happen before several fixed term exclusions and every effort had been made to cater for the child... What it would do would signal to the child how totally unacceptable their behaviour was and give the school some time to work out a more effective strategy on the child's return. Sometimes it isn't until a school has started excluding a child that outside support services take a school's requests for extra advice and support seriously.

It is inconceivable that the school does not know about the behavioural difficulties of this child. I rather suspect that if a teacher was attacked, there might be a different outcome.

All schools have a duty to keep children safe. They also have a duty to educated SEN children and behaviour difficulty is an SEN. No one would care about his size if he was dyslexic.

Schools have access to educational psychologists and behavioural specialists. They can exclude this child. He could go to a PRU. I’m amazed he’s not in one to be honest. Behaviour is a serious SEN but it’s always seen as less important than dyslexia or similar learning difficulties but it affects this child and the whole school. Clearly he needs supervision and the school can certainly negotiate for him to go to a PRU . So why haven’t they?

In my old job we moved our most violent children out of mainstream and certainly by y6. They also had access to NHS services. Parents, however, are desperate for mainstream and usually believe the best in their child. The school has to be firm and keep the other children safe and they have to find the money!

Children don’t always know right from wrong. They don’t all develop in the same way - just look at the James Bulger case.