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.

I was in a school last week where a very large (almost 6ft tall, overweight and powerful) KS4 boy hit another boy and then refused to leave the room. The Deputy Head was sent for and, as I was with him and have worked with the boy, I went with him to the room.

The boy was in a simmering rage. It was a Technology lesson. He was sitting at the table and had a tool in one hand and was thumping on the table with the bottom of his hand every few seconds. He was red in the face and staring into space. His SEN Support assistant had moved away because if he approached the thumping on the desk with tool in hand became faster.

The teacher took the other students to another room and the DHead and I were left with the boy. It took us 25 minutes to talk him to a point where he agreed to leave with us- during that time I removed a hammer and a Stanley knife from the table. Eventually, he made eye contact with us and agreed to put the tool down and leave the room with us. The DH was very calm and rational and eventually the boy realised he had no choice.

Schools should not face this. This school have dealt with regular incidents of disruption with him from Y7. He is a thug who just wants his own way and chooses intimidation and violence. He lives with his grandparents who are scared of him. 22 other children had a lesson wasted because of him, one was assaulted (not badly hurt thank goodness), the others witnessed the assault , the swearing at the teacher, the refusal to leave the room and the intimidation and aggression.

The teacher (in her second year of teaching) was shaking. The other students are used to him but were very very quiet. I went to talk to them to check how they were and one of them said afterwards 'I don't know how far he'll go Miss. One day he won't stop.' She is right.

He has been excluded but will be back later this week, on a 'last-chance; contract with further interventions in place. He has an ADHD diagnosis and an SEN support plan. He is very intelligent.

The provocation in hitting the other boy was that the aggressive boy had grabbed the from the other boy (not enough for one each) who had objected to that verbally.
Schools just should not be dealing with this level of threat. He will be permanently excluded within weeks but there are so many of these children around. There is little support for schools, even less for these children and nowhere for them to go. He will end up on alternative provision of some sort- a mixture of a couple of GCSEs and work experience/vocational. There will be no interventions from any kind of mental health/family work/social services.

Does the school communicate this as a method for keeping children safe to parents? It's really helpful to understand. I wouldn't want my child to know the risk they're under so appreciate them being told about "wrong choices" etc but I would want to know what was really going on.

This is just so sad all round. Thank you for your compassion and ability to help him calm down enough to leave safely with you. If I was his mum I'd be so sad, worried and helpless with the lack of specialist provision from year 7, but grateful to individual staff doing what they could in a broken education system.

His mother does not care- he assaulted her about 2 years ago and she no longer sees him. His father left when he was a child and has never seen him since.

It is sad but his needs and behaviours should not be the priority and be allowed to dictate what a school, its staff and other students experience. He is dangerous. He will return with promises to behave, will understand the support put in place and how he should use it, but when it comes to it he will choose aggression and violence and it will be over something small that he will explode into a drama, And it could be the time he chooses to go the next step. I think the school should have permanently excluded him. They have a duty of care to other students and staff.

@LuluBlakey1 what a horrible tragic story. I feel for everyone involved. Living with grandparents who are scared of him will only lead to an ever escalating nightmare of who he will become.
It's so difficult because with a great deal of time and resources and support, there could be hope for kids like this. But it just isn't there.

Unless you child was injured or particularly, visibly distressed then, no, this would not be discussed with parents. Certainly not in a sort of whole group kind of way.
The specifics of what is happening with the child involved cannot be shared with other parents.

There are no resources really. However, he does not actually want to be a different version of himself. He enjoys the control it gives him over others and the fear he creates- because it means he is unchallenged. I dread to think what he will do in the future.

@LuluBlakey1 yes that's scary. No accountability at home is a recipe for disaster with this type of individual.

Sometimes teachers use this phrase while taking class away,so the children won't see how the child in question is being restrained...

Disruptive child can be restrained , there is a procedure in place to do so. Usually, other children are removed, so they won't see it.

I’m a year 5 teacher and had to do this several times last year for a student with SEMH needs who would throw chairs and tables, punch, bite. It wasn’t safe for staff to move them so my TA or I had to evacuate the class to the hall until the child had calmed down. It keeps the other children safe.

Sadly not in even close. My own SEN child turned his pain and dysregulation on himself and would self harm and hide under furniture in mainstream because the environment was so deeply unsuitable. I am a very clued up parent and still fought for 4 years to get him moved to specialist. If you are on any SEN Facebook groups almost every single post is about how a child is totally and utterly not coping in mainstream but LA won't agree to fund specialist. Parents are (in the vast majority) absolutely desperate. Please keep this in mind before making assumptions. All the children and staff end up suffering under so called 'inclusion'. It's lose-lose.

Surely there is a safeguarding concern for the other pupils given the accounts given here - the school have a duty of care to them and whatever the reason is for a pupil being disruptive this is not an excuse.

@readysteadynono you're so right. Being part of various FB groups on this, I read daily how horrific this situation is for parents of SEN kids. I know it's difficult when you think of your own children being disrupted, the greater issue is this problem regards SEN support and provision across schools in general.

Posters believe this should trigger x,y,z but have no idea how bad the situation is for SEN parents and kids. There is NO alternative provision. And whatever the LA may offer if there is anywhere, is likely to be completely unsuitable.

The number of undiagnosed kids who are Autistic/ADHD is in my view astronomically higher than you could ever imagine. Many will ' hide' their differences and go under the radar, undiagnosed and struggling immensely.

My son is Autistic and between us we can identify the different kids quite quickly. In his primary class of 25 we established there were clearly 5! At secondary school he's pretty sure in his current class he's spotted about 5 again.

We need to remember that the LA are also under pressure. LA staff also want the best for every child.

The Conservative government funding cuts to LA’s means there is no money to support children. LA staff are having to make very difficult decisions too

Combine no money with Conservative political ideology. - LA’s cannot open new schools, only academy trusts can. Yet they don't.

Combine this with rising numbers of SEN pupils and higher needs.

Look also at how, due to too few LA SEN places, these have had to be supplemented by private provision. From deficit LA budgets, six figure sums are having to be paid annually per child to private schools.

In excess of £100,000 per year, per child!

Often these places are out of area, the LA also responsible for transport costs. This is the same LA pot that is needed to support all children with SEN.

The Conservative government put in a programme to support LA’s to meet their statutory duty - ‘Delivering Better Value’ - basically finding even more ways to make less money go further!

Fingers crossed for change under the new government.

That’s why they evacuated the rest of the class - staff were safeguarding them.

The other children become extremely stressed and anxious about going to school. They can't learn, they are frightened. It is an awful situation for everyone.
We need more specialist schools with trained staff and appropriate facilities for children who cannot cope in mainstream schools.
No child should be waiting for years for a place in a school that can meet their needs.

@DeliMARL yes 100% this.

I completely understand that parents won't realise the diabolical implications of such cost cutting measures until it impacts them directly.

Threads like these are incredibly informative and help people see what's really happening.

Just popping back on to add that the situation sounds dreadful. What I can’t understand is how this is so much more common than in my very long-ago school days. We had the odd ‘eccentric’ or class clown who would play up but not the hysteria, violence, swearing, fear, threats etc. Are there more kids like this now than there were fifty plus years ago? Or were they just kept at home? I don’t even remember ‘special schools’. My own mother taught what were known then as ‘remedial classes’ in a comprehensive school (50+years ago, retiring early in 1985) in a pretty deprived area and the only violence she encountered was from a parent. (And one kid who murdered his grandmother). I went to a different comp after the grammar school system changed and there was nothing like the behaviour described. A very informative thread.

Kids on both sides of this can end up with truama. It's a damning indictment of the state of education and how children with SEN are treated in many countries around the world, not just the UK. Some kids with SEN fall apart at home or mentally from the lack of support, they've alwayd been there quietly below the radar, but for some children it is evacuated classrooms and educational disruption and resultant trauma on every side. Whatever the cause for the rise in obvious issues in the classroom the outcome is still the same and the answer is more support not analysis of the reasons why. That might help future generations but it won't help this one.

Teachers can use reasonable force to restrain pupils in certain situations. It doesn’t have to be in a ‘support facility’, it doesn’t need permission from parents or have legal documentation.
“Miss Jones, why did you let Sam stab my child with a pair of scissors?”
“Well, I told Sam to put them down but they wouldn’t and I can’t use reasonable force to prevent it happening because I didn’t have parental permission and the correct paperwork.”
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a819959ed915d74e6233224/Use_of_reasonable_force_advice_Reviewed_July_2015.pdf

By the time a teacher has been left with no option but to remove the class, I’m certain the pupils are well aware as to why they are being removed, and sadly many of those will have been scared at the behaviour of their fellow classmate. After all, a class would generally only be removed if that pupil was doing something that could harm others.

Absolutely! That is why they tend to remove other children, so they won't see the unpleasant scene, which is coming

I do hear of it happening in secondary schools and even then I did not know it was as common as it is.

Its a very very sad situation.

Just to give you a glimmer of hope, my ASD DD was that child in year 2. She just couldn't cope with the increased expectations and formality (she just about managed year 1 as her's was one of the covid years so they went very softly). After her first suspension I researched all the alternative schools and cried because there was nothing suitable. However it took time but school found what worked for her (an EHCP and 1 to 1 support helped a lot) and she's now in year 4 in the same school. I honestly don't know if she'll be able to manage mainstream high school but there are at least more options at that point.