Pupils made to leave classroom? Is this common?

[ThatWildMintSloth]

Hi,
On the weekend my child told me that a few times last week, themselves along with the rest of the class, including the class teacher, were made to leave the classroom and stand in the corridor due to the behaviour of one child. So the child who "wasnt making the right choices" (some kind of bad behaviour) as the teacher put it, had to stay inside the classroom and everybody else had to wait outside until said child "made the right choice."

I was pretty surprised and confused about this situation but then also I'm like ok maybe this is normal, what do I know?!

7 year old children.

Very interested to hear if this is common practice please.

Thank you.

This was happening on an almost daily basis at a primary school i used to work in, it was one child that could become very agressive and disruptive. That year group were sevelery impacted that year, the following year the child's parents moved them to a more suitable setting.

@fluffiphlox there are many threads on MN about how our education system is failing our children, but many posters only tend to take notice when it is their child being impacted.

@MissyB1 it's not that easy to find a suitable setting, The parents might have been in denial that a specialist setting was required, or possibly more likely they had been waiting ages for a place to come up. We have a special school in our area, it has had over 100 possible referrals recently for the current 10 places that are available. There just aren't enough places.

This happened in my child's class and my dc has ptsd as a result of being subjected to this for years. I feel sorry for the child in question but know that the parents refused to consider an alternative for their child despite it being offered. It had a hugely negative impact on my child and many others in the class whose needs were not taken into consideration because they didn't have SEN.

@ThatWildMintSloth ah you certainly won't be that sort of mum. I didn't read that from your post btw. I was thinking out loud as I've encountered so many people who are like this talking about other parents.

It's rubbish it's like this really in our current education system.

They did this with dd2's class, although moved them into a side room rather than a corridor. The school was very old and some classrooms had side rooms.
A boy who'd coped in reception was no longer coping in year 1. He moved to a special school. This was when there were more places available at special schools though.

Sounds like the teacher has downplayed it to the other children that it's about 'making the right choice' but essentially the child is a danger to them/the teacher if they all stay in the room.

Why are parents allowed to make that choice? It's not in anyone's interests.

Everyone in this situation is losing but it is absolutely horrifying to read about as a parent. Does this really happen regularly in most schools?

Yes. I’m in my 60s, no kids, so no grandkids obviously. I dare say I’m out of touch.

@MounjaroUser I really don't think there is alot of choice out there. There is virtually NO suitable provision whatsoever outside of mainstream.

If you do have a school that is specifically for kids with additional needs, they are guaranteed to be unsuitable for the incredible vast number of kids who are Autistic ADHD. Many of whom are incredibly intelligent, yet have various struggles relating to say communication or emotional regulation. You can't lump these kids into say a school for children with more obvious learning disabilities.

I overheard a conversation between teachers regarding this 'difficult' Autistic child in my own son's primary. They had zero choice but to take the pupil, knowing full well they could not entirely accommodate, because the Local Authority instructed them they had to.

The authorities will now do whatever is cheapest and will probably ( in a case where a parent refused a place) have offered somewhere completely and utterly inappropriate and soul destroying for their child.

Worked in a PRU and we often had to do this for the safety of the other students and staff. The child wasn't left alone though, two members of staff would stay in the room. I'm surprised that this is happening routinely in mainstream primary though. There is much more emphasis on inclusion nowadays and it's debateable whether this is in the best interests of the child. It's certainly disruptive to the rest of the class if there's multiple instances of challenging behaviour. The child probably needs a specialist environment with a much higher staff ratio to thrive.

If you are alone in a classroom with a class of children and one kicks off very violently then what are you supposed to do? The safest thing is to remove the other children from potential harm and send for another adult or adults to come and deal with the disruptive child. Even if you are trained in soft touch restraint to protect a violent child from their own behaviour you would need two people , plus someone to supervise the rest of the class.

This is very common nowadays. Or at least it is in our local primary. I have children in 3 year groups and two of them have spent a fair amount of time in the corridor due to dangerous behaviour. Disruptive child is left in the classroom to create havoc/ calm down. Everyone else into corridor for safety. It normally seems to involve chairs/ projectiles being thrown. The concern is for the safety of the other children.

My eldest is in high school now but this was going on 7 years ago in his class so not new. They don’t seem to put up with it the same way at high school. One of the boys who used to do this is constantly being suspended/ in isolation for violence, vandalism and theft.

Honestly I’d move your child if you can, my child was bullied in a similar scenario and it was impossible to get the school to do anything. We went through this very long complaints process and it achieved nothing. It seemed as if they’d decided nothing could be done about the other child and there was no bullying at the school so the problem was DS complaining about being hurt.

This often happened with my autistic, eight year old son when he was in mainstream (he’s now in an SEN school). When he gets dysregulated, he ‘freezes’ and won’t budge. Any attempt to remove him results in extreme aggression (which at school would include throwing things like scissors and turning over tables and chairs). As a result, the class was always evacuated.

Although it wasn’t his fault, we (parents) were always mortified when it happened - the majority of parents knew our situation and were supportive, but there were a few who judged and complained. We, and the school, were doing everything we could to get him moved, but it was a lengthy and incredibly stressful experience for all involved. As others have said, the SEN system is broken.

They were 100% in denial about the need to move the child.

I cannot remember exactly but it is something like under the Equalities Act children are allowed to be educated alongside their peers. The sheer number of steps a school has to go through to show all the strategies they have applied to help a child and given that time to work is quite frankly ridiculous. In the meantime children are trying to learn in that environment.

I know from speaking to SENDCo lead that lots of parents won't admit just how bad the problem is with their child until much later in primary or even at secondary application stage and there just isn't the provision for the children who aren't suited to main stream schooling.

I believe that they often need the support of the school to assess and provide evidence that a child is better suited to a specialist school so sadly it is not easy for parents to just move their child. Sometimes they have other children in the school so a school run to one school is easier.

As a volunteer I was not usually in classes where they had violent children as I do not have training to deal with that. However, sometimes I was an additional help to the TA/LSA already in there. Plus you can hear them shouting fuck of your fucking bastards down a corridor so you don't need to be in the classroom to witness it. Staff were absolutely brilliant. It was a large school and teachers with children with issues had walkie talkies to call for back up. They did their absolute best by all the children.

Sadly this is in all schools, it usually hides comes under the SENDCo umbrella and is called Social, Emotional and Mental Health team (SEMH) whereby they teach the children to make "good choices" emphasising that their behaviour is often a choice. However, you have to understand that for some children this reaction is the only reaction they know so they have to be taught better reactions, sometimes just pausing before they act to consider the thing they are about to do. Strategies are put in place to support the individual child. It is not a one size fits all. I would take a year 2 child to the nursery play area to help him regulate his emotions if he found the work too hard and I could see it coming so I was allowed to take him out. We built a lovely relationship and I used the walk to teach him things without the overwhelming noise of the classroom. You have to have staff or volunteers to be able to do that though.

Education especially for SEND needs to be improved in school so that they do stay with their friends but that there is the support children need without having to travel miles to access it.

Yes it does. It's very distressing for all concerned. When I was still teaching, I found it terribly upsetting whenever I had to evacuate a class and it would cause me sleepless nights.

It’s good practice to remove other children if a child is unsafe. This is because restraining a child is legally only as a last resort if you can’t get others to safety. However, normally you would take the class to the library, playground, hall etc rather than standing waiting in a corridor.

If this is due to a disruptive student for whatever reason surely this only need to happen twice for alternative provision or some form of support to avoid the disruption to eveyonelse.

😒 you’d think, wouldn’t you…. Sadly there is unlikely to be staffing or money to do much about it at any great speed.

I wish. Sadly not the case. There just.iant the staffing or the provision.

One of mine had that fairly frequently (think once a week level) in reception and the first part of year 1.*

You're probably thinking, why didn't the school do something.

They tried. The child in question clearly had SEN. ECHPs were turned down, the head appealed, they put one of the TAs basically 1-2-1 with him taking him away from another class, they appealed for him to be assessed again etc. They wanted to find something that worked, and they were offered very little, and all that was offered was more of a sticking plaster that didn't help him.

Eventually, after discussion with his parents and other heads, the head excluded him. That was the only way she could get the cc to pay attention to the situation. Within a month they'd found him a place at the particular special school that the head had pointed out as being ideal for him, but the cc said there weren't spaces.

He did very well there too.

*I'm sure it was disruptive, but dd just found it exciting. "We had to leave the classroom again. Josh threw a chair and it broke the window..."

@Ilovetowander there just isn't alternative provision. This situation is no joke. Even if there is an alternative SEN school, of which there are hardly any, then you have a similar problem wherein you just can't lump every SEN child into an establishment thinking they're all the same.

I don't know the answer but my own child does well in mainstream and absolutely wants to be in mainstream. Luckily he is supported and accommodated. He's incredibly intelligent and does better academically than alot of his peers but can be disruptive due to fidgeting and making noises.

The school recognises this and they do the right thing by accommodating it. ( I've been pretty firm about this without being a difficult parent. I know it's hard for teachers these days). Accomodation involves just understanding what each SEN kid needs and doing that. For my child that looks like allowing a bit of time to get fresh air and fidget about throughout the day so not to lose focus and irritate others by not being still.

Investment in alternative provision within mainstream and additional support staff such as 1 to 1's for kids like this one having a meltdown would help immensely. But the current situation is such that the Local Authority will just gaslight parents, gaslight teachers I imagine and do the absolute minimum. In the situation of this kid OP references, they need a professional with extensive experience and understanding of Autism as a 1 to 1 to make sure this situation is averted or avoided. It rarely happens because it costs too much so everyone suffers.

It's a shit show right now for alot of parents.