the lad received a harsher punishment.
Because he punched someone in the face, the other bully did not punch anyone.
Edit, make that two people a boy and a girl
What are you going to do if they say ir’s dealt wih , none of your business, or that your son is not seeing the complete picture (to be polite)
Then that's fine, the concern has been raised and they can act on it or not as they see appropriate.
If the school have a reputation for being good with these things let them get on with it
Even good organisations miss stuff or get stuff wrong. The school can't act if it isn't aware; or may want to reflect on how they did act. The OP says (in separate posts)
A teacher saw the incident and it appears the lad received a harsher punishment than the other two.
and
“What if this particular teacher is really bad at dealing with this type of issue? Bad kids get away with a lot in her lesson and (autistic/ADHD boy) is an easy target for her.”
and a possible interpretation of that is that the school hasn't dealt with it, a (possibly substandard) teacher has dealt with it.
I know that's what-if, but it's unclear enough that I wouldn't have a problem in raising to the school so they can deal with it, or tell me they're aware and have dealt with it.
As I said, I used to be a club Welfare Officer, I'm also a newly appointed trustee for a charity that deals with vulnerable children at times. I haven't yet re-done my formal training on safeguarding but I opened up the docs I've been sent and here's a couple of salient points about duties of the people that work for the charity in any capacity. I'm sure they're pretty similar in any sports, cubs, whatever. Notice a lack of facts in the below - particularly the 'feels wrong' bit.
Exercise ‘professional curiosity’, including questioning, challenging and raising concerns when something
feels ‘wrong’;Staff may become aware of, or suspect, harm or abuse when they:
- Witness a harmful or abusive act;
- Are told directly by a child, parent or carer or someone else about harm or abuse to the child;
- Are told something indirect by a child, parent or carer or someone else that leads to suspicion of harm or
abuse to the child
and
Concerns about harm or abuse to a child must always be shared and should be shared as soon as possible.
It is not your responsibility to investigate or verify concerns of harm or abuse.
Now, someone can pick me up on this about whether the incident in the OP is harm or abuse, but the PRINCIPLE is the same, that it's a duty to flag it and where it goes after is not your concern at that point. Assuming someone else is looking into it or has done it isn't good enough, particularly to someone trained or professional.
Last night we saw some friends, one of whom works with similarly challenged kids.
Again, to me if someone works with similarly challenged (ADHD, autistic) kids then I'm going to make an assumption they are trained to some degree and therefore have a similar set of expectations as outlined above.
and a possible interpretation of that is that the school hasn’t dealt with it, a (possibly substandard) teacher has dealt with it.
Now, if a teacher has seen an incident of physical assault and no other teacher is involved afterwards my flabber would be well and truly gasted. This sort of thing would go straight to a head of year/head of house and then straight up to SLT. The punishment isn't mentioned by the op but an exclusion would occur at my school. If the child involved was on the SEN register this may be an internal isolation type exclusion but it would not be down to the teacher who witnessed it to decided punishment unless that teacher was the member of SLT who deals with behaviour and even then others would be involved.
I agree - but playing what if's, I'm pretty sure that would cause another professional versed in these things to be worried enough to flag it to the school. The OP and follow up isn't clear enough to know.
Anyway, it wasn't my intent to particularly discuss the case, much less 'what-if' scenarios of it - back to my OP on the subject answering the very specific question of
Can a 3rd party outside the school get involved like this?
The answer is still a big fat
Absolutely. As they said they have a duty to, in fact we all do where we spot such situations, but someone with expertise and responsibility absolutely has a duty to report it appropriately and can face legal or professional sanction for not.
They don't need to 'know' any specific facts, as per other post can be as weak as a feeling. Better over cautious than stuff gets missed.
It is entirely possible the professional friend is an interfering busybody too. And that the school has dealt with this perfectly and their worries are unfounded. Still right to raise them though. And I'd hope that a decent school with a decent policy on this sort of thing would thank them for the concern and say it's been / being looked into, even if their immediate response is more '**** off and leave us alone'
and he punched two of them (a boy and girl) in the face.
Most schools will deal with physical abuse more harshly than verbal abuse regardless of the people involved. Most schools will teach kids that fighting is an absolute line not to be crossed. Most schools will teach kids that they report to a teacher any verbal abuse they've received from other kids, and not to take it upon themselves to react to it, or otherwise retaliate. Those are fairly standard SOP for most high schools.
Laddo broke two major rules that are enforced pretty robustly at most schools. I'm not massively surprised that he was dealt with harshly. That the OP's son is pissed off at this, is to his credit as a mate. They both know now how to deal with any abuse in the future. That's probably where it should stop.
As a Head of Year for 12 years, been there, done that, and seen/dealt with a number of similar situations.
At the core of this, is the school's response to that one particular incident. Sanctioning each student in line with the published behaviour policy (meaning the ASD student receives the more serious sanction here) does not automatically make it a discriminatory action and there are usually better ways to resolve/improve things with a decent school without resorting to legal process.
SEN status provides context in these situation, not excuses nor a 'free pass'. Reasonable adjustments should kick in prior to any potential incident - if this is an ongoing situation then school should have adjusted social times/duties/etc. to try and mitigate. ELSA or similar support could also already be in place.
Reasonable adjustments could be applied to any consequence put in place, but imposing a suspension on an SEN student does not automatically mean the school has discriminated.
All students, SEN status notwithstanding, need to be supported to understand that there are boundaries and consequences when those boundaries are broken.
Bottom line. We don't have detail of context or what else the school has done so it's really tough to judge. My concern is that this looks like it could be one of a series of similar events, and the school don't (again, from our limited information) seem to have a strategy in place to mitigate things. For me, that's the real potential problem.
Thanks again peeps.
I'm going to chat to the form tutor as I mentioned yesterday, and it looks like I've got more context from some of the replies to here to assist with that.
FTR this is one incident, but I've heard more than enough about how much the 'bad' kids get away with since the start of yr 7. Added to that, my son was implicated in a misdemeanour 3 months ago that resulted in me receiving a call from the deputy head stating he will be issuing an invoice (for repairs) and had CCTV evidence... after gathering my son's side of the story, I shared it with him and diplomatically made it clear that I would need to see said evidence before settling any costs, and that my stance was based on principles not financials. That was the last I heard of it, which makes me question the legitimacy of how well they supposedly deal with other issues involving bad behaviour - especially as they're supposed to be very well respected in this area.
Read the first post only, so apologies if anything else has already been said and I'm repeating.
I'm the parent of a similar child to your son's friend. My lad is 13, diagnosed ADHD (full list, he defines it!) and we are working towards finding out if he is autistic but we strongly suspect he is. He has no empathy, has real problems controlling his emotions. At primary he did not display too many symptoms. In secondary, and following some challenges at his mother's (leading to him moving in with me), he had real problems. Resulting in similar circumstances as you describe. He was regularly targeted (school have admitted this, too late) due to his extreme response to certain situations, yet seemed to be the only one being punished. He's spent the whole of year 8 up to this week at a PRU and on a reduced timetable, had essentially no education as the PRU cannot meet his needs. This week he starts at a proper Send school and I cannot have enough hope that it works out.
If there is a 3rd part person who has experience, especially in a workplace environment, with kids like you describe and like my son, then their help could be vital. My experience is that the mainstream school couldn't and didn't want to help my son, same goes for the PRU. Neither have listens to my concerns nor my advice and the result was exactly as I warned them. It's not easy for them, I understand that, but it's much more difficult for the kids.
You should give a huge amount of credit to your son for being to kind and caring to a kid who struggles so much and can (if like mine) be quite full on and overwhelming at times. Most kids don't care, so to have someone to look over those kids with struggles is so incredibly impressive. I hope it works out for all, chances are the school won't ever change, though, and the kid may be better off elsewhere.
Most schools will deal with physical abuse more harshly than verbal abuse regardless of the people involved. Most schools will teach kids that fighting is an absolute line not to be crossed. Most schools will teach kids that they report to a teacher any verbal abuse they’ve received from other kids, and not to take it upon themselves to react to it, or otherwise retaliate. Those are fairly standard SOP for most high schools.
I've often wondered about this. Surely people realise that getting punched in the face once (and after trying to wind up a vulnerable person over a long period of time) is nothing compared to low level abuse that can carry on over months or even years.
I wonder if the reason it is dealt with more harshly is a variation of the McNamara fallacy. If you can't easily observe what is important, make what you can easily observe important.
Punching is easy to observe. Constant low level torment and abuse is not.
Also, I think your son is an absolute superstar, @spacemonkey. I'd be very proud if my son should the same empathy and moral values as your son does.
Punching is easy to observe. Constant low level torment and abuse is not.
I was about to say the same thing in reply before you answered your own question.
Someone said earlier about the punishment for thumping someone being exclusion. I've got to admit, I'm a little surprised by this. The number of scraps I saw at high school, there would have been more kids excluded than not. It was easily a weekly occurrence.
Cougar, the 1980's were a long time ago
Someone said earlier about the punishment for thumping someone being exclusion
Exclusion as punishment is essentially a thing of the past in many (if not all) local authorities in Scotland. You can exclude to give time for planning/risk assessment after a serious incident but not as a punishment.
If you look at other countries you'll find in many that any sort of formal punishment is a thing of the past.
If you’re asking whether a third party can get involved, yes, absolutely. An advocate or SEND worker can step in and force the school to look at the pattern instead of just reacting to the latest incident. It usually helps because schools take things more seriously when the complaint comes from someone “official”. And yes, the school can do more. They can put safeguarding measures in place, supervise the groups that target him, and record every incident so there’s a clear paper trail. They don’t need to wait for another meltdown before acting. I used Autism 360 to map out what was provoked behaviour versus actual impulsivity. Their behavioural breakdown sheets made the school stop treating it like random “bad choices” and start acknowledging the targeting. If something doesn’t change soon, someone external pushing them is probably the only way they’ll fix it.
One point. Do not believe absolutely any child's version of events, particularly if they were unhappy. Often, yes, always, no. Not saying kids lie but rarely do you get the complete version. You get what they saw or heard. From 30 plus years in primary education I know that face value has to be , shall we say, considered not believed.
We live in a world where no one takes responsibility for their actions and schools can struggle. I can think of several kids I dealt with yesterday whose parents will back them to the hilt, declaring staff liars, rather than accept that their little dear had done something wrong. We had to resort to cameras to get them accept this and we still were blamed for their child's actions. Another problem people come across is that mostly schools will not discuss another child. You won't know what is being done. At least you shouldn't.
Another issue is that modern primary educations has no means of stopping poor behaviour. Probably the only sanction we have is to take a few minutes play time. We have excluded a child for a couple of days but that was for an unprovoked physical attack that carried on after adults intervened. In the months before the child had hit or kicked every adult in the school several times but we couldn't even keep them off the playground because of parental and social worker objections. Our head, who works in two schools, has been reprimanded by the LA for permanently excluding a 10 year old. The child took a knife into class and started slashing at kids and staff, the latter being injured taking the knife. His sanction? Two days off school before the exclusion was over turned. That cost the school about 10 pupils whose parents took them to another school. My point? You don't know the whole story and what else is going on.
Not read many of the replies but want to jump in with my sons situation a few years ago. Very similar problems and reactions.
My son is now year 10 and has an ADHD diagnosis, is on the ASD waiting list and attends a SEND school now thanks for an EHCP. This wasn't the case when he started secondary school in year 7, mainstream school. First couple of months had a few issues and detentions but made it through, only made 1 friend (had loads in primary, really struggled in secondary). After Christmas things turned, his first suspension was entirely his fault, but he started to hate going. Was getting in trouble daily, getting picked out by the teachers for his inability to focus in their highly academic lessons and punished because of this. Kids picked up on this and tainted him, he developed the "Flight" response and ended up melting down and running around trying to escape. He got suspended. This happened repeatedly for the next 2 months or so, ended up suspended around 7 times as a result. The school did not really help enough and kept blaming him, despite the external triggers he had no choice of. They held an assembly for the whole year, this just highlighted his struggles and made things worse. Ultimately he left and whilst viewing another school (which was a major disaster) I had a conversation with his, now departing, SENCO. She admitted that, apart from the first suspension, he was not to blame for any of the later suspensions, but the actions of other children were the cause. I was appalled, they knew all along but failed my son horrifically.
Action needs to be taken sooner rather than later. The school have the duty of care here. Kids with ADHD do not have the same ability to deal with their emotions and reactions as other kids, hence they get into trouble. The school need to reduce the opportunity for those triggers and then nobody has any problems.
Bizarre thread revival!
I probably should have read the earlier posts/dates 🤣
