Child throwing chairs in classroom

[mondray]

I recently found out that there was an incident in my son’s classroom (year 2) where a student lost his temper and started throwing chairs around. It resulted in a student getting caught in the crossfire.
The teachers ushered out the rest of the children while they got the situation under control.

This was never mentioned to any of the parents and seems to have just spread like gossip through kids/parents over the next few weeks.

I am a bit in two minds about this situation. The child is new in the classroom, but I believe he might be SEN, which could explain the behaviour.
My own son wasn’t directly impacted, but has shown anxiety that this might happen again.

What would you as a parent do? Is it worth speaking to the school about it? Would you as a parent in this situation have expected to have been told that something like this happened in your child’s classroom?

I don’t want to be that parent, as I am sure the situation is being dealt with. But I am struggling with the fact that nothing has been communicated to us.

It isn't selfish to worry about your child. If your colleague was chucking chairs around your office, it would be making everyone pretty anxious.

For those saying I sent my child to independent school to avoid issues/children like this, you can get chair throwers there too.

My DC is in a class with several chair throwers. The class has had to be evacuated at least once a week. I am annoyed at the disruption to the education as well as the physical risk my child is exposed to. I do really feel for the chair throwers' parents. I'm not sure what the answer is. I suspect it will end in work arounds (prison type chairs that can't be thrown) rather than addressing support issues.

I cannot remember any child doing this at school when I was younger but then our school didn't have gates so maybe those kids just went for a sprint around the block when they got overwhelmed - it was the 80s after all.

I didn't know it was a competition but if it is we sold the house and relocated to an EU country because we couldn't afford a private school for our ND child not throwing chairs/books/scissors/random stuff but refusing going to school because of the ADHD child who did....

I had a meeting with management and asked what they're doing to keep my child and other children safe. And if the child who is being violent is getting the support he needs.

Phone or email to chat with them about it. It shows that parents are aware and that you need assurances it is being dealt with and that your son has said he is scared. They may not know how traumatised some of the other children are in the classroom until you bring it to the school's attention.

Really sorry to read how this is affecting you. I cannot begin to imagine the stress of keeping composed in front of all these small children when this scenario breaks out in a classroom. Stay signed off as long as you need. This is a crisis in the system that needs dealt with on how to manage children with such difficulties. They are not getting enough support. Other people are suffering due to this including staff and other innocent children caught up in the crossfire.

And best to not speak to the class teacher - this is outwith their jurisdiction. Always speak to management in the first instance. The class teacher is powerless. The head teacher has the ability to go higher up the chain to head of education services and take it further (I'm in Scotland!).

Keep making a noise about it, and indirectly you're helping the affected child get support he needs.

Schools do realise how traumatising it is for other children. They see it every day. They also can offer no cast iron assurances. They can put measures in place to support children but there is no guarantee of safety. I wish there was but children are unpredictable, triggers are not always clear. This is sadly what schools are dealing with and it makes it heartbreaking to work there. The dysregulated child is being failed by the system and the other children and staff are too. Specialist provisions exist for the good of everyone. Inclusion isn’t always the answer.

Happened at my child's school. They would evacuate. My child was matter of fact about it, but I didn't feed into any anxiety. Tables and chairs thrown. At home we talked about the impact on the child throwing stuff and how difficult it was for them, empathy etc.
School didn't communicate with patents about it.

It simply isn't true that every single child who can't help it is in special school. More and more SEND children who desperately need to be in special schools are now forced into mainstream due to 'inclusion' and lack of special school spaces.

With the changes coming due to the SEND white paper, this is only going to get worse and all children will suffer because of it.

Well that’s quite a length to go to rather than just teaching your kid some resilience. What about next time they see something that worries them? Here’s hoping there’s no scary disabled kids in the new country you moved to 😂

What a brilliant idea. I have to admit martial arts has never crossed my mind. He is very conflicted avoidant and would benefit from some extra confidence.
I will definitely look into this.
Thank you.

I would expect the school to deal with it and safeguard the kids still.

It's never ok to guilt others into being silenced about safeguarding.

I don't understand the mentality of not telling the other parents what has gone in class if there has been a significant incident which has resulted in classroom evacuation or children being hurt, even if your child wasn't hurt.

Children have an uncanny habit of coming home and telling their parents about their day, and if the most exciting thing was chairs being hurled and other kids hurt. And when they do parents talk to other parents and there's a whole rumor mill about who did what and who got hurt etc etc.

Let's be completely clear. Schools not telling parents about such incidents, isn't about protecting the vulnerable kid doing this. It's definitely not about safeguarding the other kids. It's all about protecting the school from criticism about their inability to cope with certain kids for whatever reason.

In reality these kids are not able to cope with being in mainstream schools. But they can't get places at non mainstream schools because no one cares. These vulnerable children are left to rot because the school doesn't do shit to solve the problem either because they can't or won't.

So actually the best way to help these kids is for other parents to complain like hell about the lack of safeguarding and the failure to uphold their safeguarding duties because it forces the issue. The school HAVE to do something. They can't ignore it. The kid isn't going to get the help they need if the school does nothing.

Where there is an issue is from parents then ultimately withdrawing their children from school and illegal suspensions. But again this is all about the school centring their own interests and not the best interests of kids.

Never feel guilty for safeguarding a child.

Thank you for understanding. It is so hard. Having an audience of 29 children whilst you try to stop a child throwing chairs at them, who then pulls your hair and kicks you, is so stressful. Then when said child is finally removed from the room, I had to sit back down, full of adrenaline and shaking, and try to continue the lesson! It's hard to describe how that affects you mentally.

I’d be furious and would be demanding my child, alongside the others, were safeguarded from this moving forward or I’d move schools. Sounds to me like they’re downplaying it. I say all of this as a mum to a child with SEN

@NobodysChildNowDont be ridiculous! How exactly is it going to help for a child to start high-kicking and chanting in a scenario like this?

In reality these kids are not able to cope with being in mainstream schools. But they can't get places at non mainstream schools because no one cares. These vulnerable children are left to rot because the school doesn't do shit to solve the problem either because they can't or won't.
So actually the best way to help these kids is for other parents to complain like hell about the lack of safeguarding and the failure to uphold their safeguarding duties because it forces the issue. The school HAVE to do something. They can't ignore it. The kid isn't going to get the help they need if the school does nothing.

But the reality is, it doesn't make any difference how many parents complain. Schools are completely at the mercy of the LA. The school aren't allowed to exclude. The LA refuses places in specialist provision and any appeals have to be made by the parents, not the school. The LA won't provide funding for full time 1:1 support. The school doesn't want children being violent and aggressive in the classroom any more than the parents do.

Still covering their arses before safeguarding the children though.

I'm sorry but if you have a child throwing chairs a regularly injuring kids and you still enable it, you aren't safeguarding. Regardless of how much you might protest that it's the LA not you.

Teachers need to start walking out on mass when it happens.

Genuine question, why not? If a child’s behaviour is so bad that it can cause physical harm to another student parents should be kept in the loop. Names don’t need to be mentioned but if my child was hit by a chair that another threw, I’d want to know about it.

As adults we would not be expected to put up with this kind of behaviour, why do we expect small children to have to deal with it. My child was constantly being bitten and kicked by a child with SEN and I was told this detail as if it’s an excuse. No, you need to be able to protect other children from these outbursts.

whilst I have sympathy for this child, if this behaviour is a regular occurrence then why are they in mainstream school? (I assume because of the lack of proper funding - which lets down everyone involved)

Because some of how they are dealing with it might be very personal and difficult to understand and might involve the failings of outside agencies.

I dont understand the secrecy in terms of an incident happening as children talk but really all schools can say is 'incident happened, those directly involved informed personally and support given, we are doing everything the we can to keep children safe and following guidelines.

They arent going to say 'we'd like a trained TA but we cant afford one, this child should be at a special school but the LA directed us to have the child ss there are no spaces' 'they are increasing the child's dose of medication and have a psychiatric review so we are all hoping that helps But it takes a good 6 weeks'

If a child is hit by a thrown chair, their parent will be informed. OP's child wasn't hit by a thrown chair which is why she wasn't informed. They will talk about what they can do to safeguard OP's child but they aren't going to talk in great detail about someone else's child including what they are doing to help that child other than a vague 'we're dealing with it'.

With the new changes to SEND, this is only going to get worse unfortunately. It is often due to the LA trying to save money and lack of spaces in special schools as well as encouraging inclusion which just isn't appropriate for all SEND children.

No teacher is happy to have that in their classroom I can assure you. They can't tell you anything related to another child as I'm sure you would appreciate if it was your child.

Teachers need to start walking out on mass when it happens.
Walking out and leaving your child without a teacher?

Just picking this up as a few people have read it this way: my point was that teachers are 'happy to' [ie prepared to] normalise chair throwing to the other children, not that they are happy to be teaching children who throw chairs.

This isn't true either. Trying to keep calm while evacuating the rest of the class safely to avoid panic is not 'normalising' it.