Can school do this?

[drspouse]

DS is 7, has ADHD, trying meds but no luck yet but it's early days. He's on 1:1 with breaks outside the classroom and making more progress than he was. He's in Y2.
He has always been aggressive at home and was at nursery but he managed Reception well so school have kept saying he's fine (plus, nursery didn't pass on their concerns though we thought they had )
He's had a couple of playground refusals to come home this week, frankly normal for us (lying down and/or hitting me). He's run into the park on the way home in the past, and run off and hid, just not in the playground or else school haven't spotted it!
School say he's pushed staff a couple of times now too.
They also say that in KS2 they cannot provide an out of classroom area "so he must be able to be in the classroom".
They are very proactive in general and after school on Friday they were emailIng for a referral (does this mean help in his current school? Or exclusion??) to the local short stay school (primary aged).
It's very close to us and right age range obviously so if it's going to help him, bring it on, but can they a) suddenly decide he's going there? We aren't sure what they are thinking and b) say they can't meet his needs in Y3 due to needing to go out of the classroom??
Also if they are saying they are concerned he's not safe going to and from school - what can they do about it? And how will moving him help (both schools are walking distance, we always manage to get there in the morning no problems except moaning! and we pick him up from after school clubs half the time anyway).
He's awaiting an EHCP and we have a TAF which we will have a meeting for shortly.

Be careful. It sound like a pupil referral unit which may well not be the best place for him. They need to seek advice on how they can meet his needs not unilaterally deciding to get rid of him without your input!

It is a PRU but they are asking for input from them, rather than a place.

(They asked me about it when I was wrestling DS after school. I said OK apparently).
I'm also concerned about the classroom requirement in Y3.

I think getting advice on how best to meet his needs is one thing, but this isn't usually via a referral to a PRU although I may be wrong and it may be different in your area. Short stay PRUs in my area were designed to be short stay placements where they work with the child and then get them ready to return to mainstream. In reality they were often used as dumping grounds for children that mainstream couldn't manage and whilst the child held a place in a mainstream school, they actually never returned to it. The PRU they are talking about might be brilliant and just what your ds needs but I would always, always take what the school is telling you with a huge dose of scepticism. Not being able to meet his needs due to the classroom layout sounds odd. If he needs breaks outside and has a 1:1 surely there are places he can go to in the school environment for that break? Where I work, it might be a walk around the school grounds, ten minutes on a beanbag in the library or a safe space outside the Learning support base. Moving to KS2 should not necessarily mean needing to be in the classroom the whole time. If he has 1:1 then there should be a way. It may be that this requires effort and funding but frankly that isn't your problem. Many children with high levels of need are supported in mainstream. Your little one has recently started medication. There is potentially still a lot that can be done to manage his condition. They are also out of line to be asking you for decisions when managing an incident. Maybe ask for a meeting so you can get the full picture.

It's for the PRU "outreach service".

I agree there should be places. KS2 is in the old Victorian building while earlier years are in a modern space with a nice breakout area but even if it involves walking down a long corridor he could just go back to his old breakout area I'd have thought! Or as you say the library. He will happily run round the playground likewise.

The classroom thing sounds a bit made up to me. As you say, corridors, library. Also classrooms can move. My friend's child uses a wheelchair, and as she moves through the school, the classrooms move so that her year group is always downstairs. To say the school could no longer meet their needs because Y4 is always upstairs would be ridiculous. It must be a pain for the teachers to have to move classrooms but she needs a downstairs classroom, so it must be done.

I find it unlikely that ALL KS2 children have always been able to stay in the classroom all day.

Odd. My DS is taken out of the classroom for breaks - his 1:1 takes him into the playground for some movement or just takes him round the school to find a space. He apparently spends time in the school office, head’s office, senco’s office etc. They don’t have a particular break out room.

odour of bovine farmyard

I will suggest some creative alternatives. He'd like to run around in the playground plus he could have set activities he does rather than a set place to do them.

Hmm I think we are slightly getting to the bottom of this.
School have finally twigged that DS can be aggressive and hard to handle.
Well done DS for doing this at school instead of only at home!
So they are now panicking, not (sadly) because they've realised they should have listened to us but because they don't know how to handle an aggressive DS, they only know how to handle a hyper and inattentive DS.

Sigh.
School meeting today. They've listed about 4 incidents over the last 2 years where he was physically aggressive. One was pushing a child in the playground (no other child has ever pushed a child in the playground I take it) and one was elbowing a child. Obviously there should be zero but they are saying he'd be excluded at many other mainstream schools. Seriously? Is this true???!

In my, albeit limited, experience, no. My son has had 4 exclusions since Y1 and all have been for violent to adults. Any odd push/shove of other kids is (rightly) put down to age appropriate fuckwittery.

As an aside, my son has had outreach support and they are fucking MARVELLOUS. I adored the woman who came as she was the first and only professional to walk in, tell school to do everything I’d already told them to and they’d ignored and made it very clear that he wasn’t ‘naughty.’

Currently they are saying "but he MUST have a consequence for every instance of not listening".
So every 5 seconds then.
Let's hope the outreach person sees how ridiculous this is.

Have they done ABC forms to record the incidents and help understand what led up to them? If not, perhaps now would be a good time to start.

They have but they didn't show us the A just the B. I should ask.

Oh sorry you mean the aggression.
So we have
Pushing child in playground - I'm guessing just messing about TBH or child was in the way.
Elbowing child - don't know.
Pushing teacher - I think she told him to do something when he was already fed up. That's what usually happens at home.

No, my point is that they should be looking at the antecedents to the behaviour, not just the behaviour in isolation.

If he was wound up before the incident they need to look at what needs to change so he doesn't getting that point. If they are ignoring what happened in the run up and not trying to defuse these things earlier then they are setting him up to fail, not to succeed.

At home it's almost always when we've said no to something.
I'll ask to see the charts.
Honestly though I don't see how they can keep saying "not listening" is poor behaviour when it's a symptom of his disability.

There was a boy in DS year at secondary, known to have ADHD - so the boys used to deliberately wind him up until he exploded. Eventually, he was permanently excluded in Y7 for an incident that happened outside school hours and not on school grounds!

I always wondered if it was just the excuse the school was looking for, to get rid of a disruptive pupil?

He's not actually that disruptive (at least, I don't get the impression he is) just spending all his time a) being told off b) in time out c) refusing to do what he's told. So not getting any work done/making any progress.

(And he's mainly not disruptive because he's not in the classroom - but this is their issue - they say he can't have a desk outside the classroom in Y3).

The short stay outreach team have supported two children at my school. In each case, they suggested that the child be put on a highly reduced timetable (as low as an hour a day at one point) to ensure that their time at school was positive and as stress free as possible. They worked with us on our safe spaces. We already had an area developed as a separate "classroom" and also a low sensory withdrawal room.

They looked at every aspect of the school day and supported both teachers and TAs.

The children they were supporting were very aggressive. There were occasional short exclusions, but we never even considered permanent exclusions. Over the course of a few months, the children's time in school was gradually increased, always making sure that any time in school was positive. This had the effect of "re-setting" both their feelings about school and learning, but also that of their classmates, teachers and TAs.

You honestly wouldn't be able to pick one of the children out in a classroom now. Both children are on full time timetables and making good progress.

That's reassuring but really I'm questioning why they are saying "he'd be excluded at another school" as he's very defiant but the aggression is really limited.

We've asked for copies of the ABCs... we'll see.