Not informed about violent incident

[foibles2011]

Hi all I'm not sure whether I'm overreacting here so I'll explain the situation first.

There is a young boy in my dd's class (9y) with suspected autism from what I understand, who has no support from a TA etc. Since school has returned he has become increasingly aggressive towards his classmates, swearing, using the middle finger, shoving, pushing and being defiant and rude towards teachers.

On Monday this culminated in him having a meltdown during class, swearing, shouting abuse, throwing pencils and a bunch of keys at other children, ripping up books and destroying ipads. My dd along with her classmates were initially told to ignore him (my dd was actually told off for looking and threatened with losing a house point!) and then removed from the classroom when he escalated.

While I understand that he was clearly in distress and this was not his fault the situation concerns me as I dont feel it should have got this far or would have had he had the correct support in place.

My personal issues are that as a parent I was not informed about this incident by the school, my daughter was understandably upset but no staff checked with me to see if she was OK, I don't believe she should have been told off for looking (what was she meant to do, wait for something to hit her first then look?) and that when I tried to approach the teacher on Tuesday to speak to her she interrupted me said "yes we are aware children were upset, things are being put in place" and then walked away giving me no chance to discuss my concerns.

Am I making a mountain out of a mole hill?

How would you feel in the situation?

TIA xxx

Again thank you for your responses and opinions.

I think unfortunately after having my kids educated abroad initially I got used to different standards.

As a parent it does make me feel sad that that little boy was in a situation that was so overwhelming for him and had no one with special training to help and that in turn impacted the others 😔

@LaBellina

Not my child in this story obvs but we're talking about the most essential part a school should offer: a safe environment for all students.

Which is great because evacuating the classroom in a situation like this is absolutely the best way to keep the children safe.

After this, prevention strategies should be put in place. But you won't necessarily know about these; however, if your DC comes home and says "it's not fair that X got to go out early for play" then that might give you a clue that going to run around is a helpful strategy for this child and that your DC needs some information about how some children need extra help - some children will have a helper in the classroom, some won't get told off for fidgeting, some will need to type rather than write.

OP, while "being told off for looking" is not ideal, children do need to learn that staring at someone in crisis is neither polite nor helpful. Perhaps something to have a chat about as well.

Finally if you think you are being helpful by telling the school how appalled you are, you probably aren't. They are aware.

I think it would be unusual for them to tell parents about an incident like this unless your child was directly involved which it doesn't sound like she was. While some dc would be distressed a fair proportion wouldn't be so a letter home seems a bit over the top. Especially given the children are at the age where they can talk to their parents about any issues. However if your daughter needs some extra support maybe you could ask the school what they might be able to do.

I actually agree with you @drspouse that prevention matters should be put in place but from how I read OP's post that wasn't the case and I think evacuating the classroom should be a last resort. Therefor I say until they put proper prevention matters in place they haven't done their duty to provide each child with a safe environment. Let's hope they will take more action to make it safer after this incident.

I get your concern but I'm not sure what else the teachers can do. They clearly can't discuss the issues the other child is clearly having with the rest of the parents. Since no child was actually hurt I don't think they necessarily need to bring up the incident either. I can see how it would be upsetting for the other children but I guess it's normal for kids to occasionally be upset at school - someone wouldn't let them play, they got told off etc. As long as they're not actually in danger or seriously distressed (as this boy clearly was) I don't think you would necessarily expect to be informed. It does sound like measures are being put into place in the future which is good. I would just trust the school at present and give them a chance to deal with it.

As an adult you wouldn't expect to have "resilience" in that situation so why would you expect that from a child?

Completely agree with this. What is asked of children by some posters is highly unreasonable. If someone was having a meltdown next to you in the supermarket or in a bus stop you’d be able to get away quickly and you’d still be watching if there was a change something would be thrown at you so you could to run away or defend yourself. Having that happen in an enclosed space is far more intimidating. The emphasis shouldn’t be on young children to turn a blind eye, whatever the cause of the outburst.

I think it’s appalling that you weren’t informed. The school has a duty of care and that includes the welfare of the children who witnessed this incident. The school know that most children will have gone home and discussed the incident and they should have sent a text/email to all parents concerned explaining how they were going to prevent a reoccurrence of the incident. Obviously the child who caused the incident would not be named.
I would write a letter to the chairman of governors and the head teacher to ask how they will be ensuring the safety of your child in the future.
Please don’t try and excuse this child’s behaviour to your daughter by telling her that he’s autistic. That would be grossly insulting to most autistic children who are polite, friendly, excellently behaved and cause no disruption in an ordinary classroom.

@Happyhippy99

Please don’t try and excuse this child’s behaviour to your daughter by telling her that he’s autistic. That would be grossly insulting to most autistic children who are polite, friendly, excellently behaved and cause no disruption in an ordinary classroom.

I assume you just worded this really badly because it comes across as massively ignorant. It is absolutely right that the children should feel safe in school but an autistic person having a meltdown is a failure of the support system and is absolutely not the fault of the autistic child.It's not uncommon for a child with ASD to have a meltdown if they become overly stimulated or stressed. It is absolutely right that the other children are kept safe from violent behaviour but also that they understand that the child involved cannot help becoming overwhelmed.

Sorry but I have to say to all posters on this difficult subject, welcome to the real world in many schools. There are in most schools now pupils with significant special needs, which in the most part the pupils benefit from being in the mainstream school. Unfortunately when pupils have a "meltdown", which can be often, the school has to deal with those in the best practical way, which will vary from pupil to pupil.
Having a TA velcroed to each pupil with special needs is simply not sensible or financially possible. The current situation on the funding of pupils with an EHC Plan is such that many do not receive any funding into the school to help the situation. Many Local Authorities are running significant deficit budgets around the care of pupils with SEN and it is likely to get a whole lot worse in the future.
HandfulofDust is right in saying this whole situation, happening in many schools, is a failure of the support system. Schools will always do their best but with the best will in the world the support system in many schools is hanging in there by the skin of their teeth and there are no easy answers now or in the immediate future.

I would be interested to know why your child was threatened with a punishment for looking when the child next to her had been hit with keys.

I feel that throwing keys is a real threat of injury to children and the pupils clearly were not safe. A child was hit with keys and the ops child was sitting next to them. This behaviour clearly upset the other children and that’s a reasonable position to take.

It’s not usual behaviour in school either. I know in some schools it might be but certainly not in every school. It’s fairly unusual.

Schools have devolved money for SEN. It’s never enough but they are given it. They also can buy in educational psychologist services too. They can temporarily exclude a pupil. They can even permanently exclude a pupil. Pupils who consistently cannot manage mainstream school after intervention do go to special schools. None of this is down to the op but schools are given money for SEN and even PP money might be useful for a TA in the class in the circumstances. Schools always say they have no money for Sen but they have a duty to this child too.

Also: don’t say safeguarding if you write to the school. It’s a duty of care to keep your child safe and they will have a Policy outlining this. It’s important all children feel safe at school.

Unfortunately every school will have children who need support

Very few children are this violent.

Not all classes have violent children

The sad part is that the class get so used to this behavior they see it as normal and don’t even mention incidents because it happens all the time.

DDs class was evacuated almost daily - which meant ‘learning’ happened in the hall - no access to pens pencils glue worksheets etc not even a white board or a qualified teacher. Hours wasted.

She left that school because she was so angry at the lack of time given to their learning. She was 9! She know it was wrong. There was no class support.

Some schools manage children with severe behaviour problems very poorly and allow other dc to suffer. They must support the child with difficulties. Often the resources in school are not sufficient but the school has a duty to support Sen children and they are given a certain amount of devolved money via the funding formula for this. Some of these dc might attract pp money too.

If a school has a child like this they should aim to deal with the implications of it very quickly. Lots of schools would have the dc with issues isolated for certain times so the others can work - not the other way around.