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My grandson aged 8 was diagnosed last year with Aspbergers & AD/HD. Last term he had an incident with another child hitting him, this was quickly knocked in the head by his then teacher and no further incidents followed. From day one of this term my grandson has been repeatedly hit by this same child, most of these incidents has resulted in him being punched in the privates. Other times he has been punched in face & back, feet being trod on and most recently stabbed in back by pencil. Had been at school and complained to his teacher and head mistress. On my first complaint i was told that my grandson was attracted to this boy, even though we had told him not to go near him and he said he hadn't. My grandson doesnt lie and wouldnt know how to. On the second complaint we where then told that the boy had a similar disorder to our grandson and that they would try a different approach with both boys. Past incidents were put down to misunderstanding(misreading of situation ) on the childs part, or accidents.There approach was to involve them playing together supervised in school, hoping to make them friends. Being sympathetic to the childs condition and parents plight we agreed to this happening. Needless to say it never materialised as on the next day at school, our grandson was stabbed in back with pencil. What followed was us taking our grandson out of school for the following 3 days. On his return i had a meeting with the head mistress and got the assurance that the boy would not be allowed in classroom while my grandson was there. This has resulted in the boy being excluded from classroom, doing all his work in office. He has also been excluded from playground. How long this will last for i do not know, but think it will change very soon. I should point out that the incidents concerning the pencil and punch in face were done in classroom with both teacher and support teacher in attendence. Both busy at time with other kids and did not witness incidents. On both occassions my grandson was asked by support teacher if he was sure it was not an accident. On both occassions the boy was asked by support teacher did you accidentally hit grandson.

On another occassion grandson was eating his lunch when the boy sat across from him and dropped his cutlery, while under table retrieving items he punched grandson in groin area. This resulted in my grandson being moved to another table. Another incident was when grandson was just about to leeave cubicle in toilet, when same boy stopped him from leaving, blocking his exit, and began to hit him in groin area. The head teacher had said at meeting it would be best if i had a meeting with the senior manager pupil support for the area as they did not know what else to do with boy. Not sure why we have to have meeting with senior manager and not boy's parents. Also in last few days our grandson has been taken out of classroom by support teacher and taken to boy in gym hall where boy has told him he doesnt know why he hit him and was sorry for his actions. On an other occassion, again he was taken out of classroom and taken to boy by support teacher and he was toldby boy he wanted to be friends with him. Just recently, friday, he and 2 other kids were taken from classroom, during golden time, too office where they played with there ds's with this boy.Feeling very angry about last few days as we were not consulted about any of these things happening and feel this has a lot to do with forth coming meeting wih senior manager, this coming monday. Any ideas on how i should approach this meeting or am i being over protective.

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Oh dear. This is an awful situation. From what you say it is the other boy`s problem and your grandson is having to suffer (from the attacks but also classroom exclusion). I do feel sorry for your grandson (and you!) but also for the school. What on earth can they do faced with this behaviour from the other boy? I`m not surprised they have enlisted the senior manager pupil support. I`ve always thought that bullying in childhood is a junior version of adult crimes eg, assault, bodily harm, GBH, theft, intimidation etc. Is this therefore a child protection issue? Is the school failing to protect your grandson while he`s in their care? You could raise this with the pupil support person. For the other pupil`s sake maybe its time to involve Social Work? Maybe he needs another form of education? Just thoughts! Good luck on Monday

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I believe the child only recently tranferred from another local school 2 terms back. On that occassion a girl had to be placed in another class of same year. Seemingly girl had been transferred to present school because of bullying by this boy. Once her mother found out they were both in same class, girl was replaced in another of same year. I also believe that said boy is already under social work supervision and believe this maybe why school is giving him so much leeway. The reason we took him out of school was that we did not feel that school could safe guard him from further attacks within classroom setting. Even with 2 teachers in classroom, boy was still seeking opertunities to attack grandson. Im angry with the fact that other than being unable to safe guard him from attacks, the school is taking advantage of his condition in trying to make them friends. He (grandson) thinks that because attacks have stopped that everything is okay between them and will go along with anything that school says. Thanks for the support.

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This is a very difficult situation - we have been facing a similar problem with our son who has been having issues with another ASD child in the school. What it really means is that the school is not really the right place for at least one of the children involved - if not both. While a mainstream

 

I have a lot of sympathy for the school - particularly if the children involved don't have the support they need (typically provided by a statement) so the school are left to cope with the issues arising from their underlying needs not being met. The way you address this will depend a lot on your relationship with the school and what you are trying to achieve.

 

Firstly you are correct to characterise this as bullying - the school will be very reluctant to admit that, because no school wants to admit to having a bullying problem. Read their anti-bullying policy. If you are not happy make a formal complaint stating in writing that he is being bullied. It won't achieve much but it will get it on record. Note that you have the right to appeal to SENDIST if the school are not protecting him, but this may not achieve a lot.

 

If you press the school on this you will probably get the other boy removed from the class - either to another class in the same school (if they have two classes for the year) or if not he may be excluded. Do you really want that? It may be worth having a talk directly to the parents of the other child to see if you can work with them to get a resolution. Between you you should be able to devise a better approach than the school can on its own.

 

If you press the school then this will also impact their response to your grandson, it may even lead to him being excluded, or it may lead to them having a better understanding of his needs. Neither are necessarily a bad thing.

 

In the end you need to work with the school to achieve the best outcome for your grandson. That is either getting him the support he needs in that school or getting him out of there into an environment that can meet his needs. It won't take long for you to work out whether the school is genuinely trying to help or whether they will never understand and you are best getting out of there now. If there is another mainstream school that you think may be more appropriate (and it is likely that there is give that he has recently been diagnosed) then you could use this as a bargaining chip with the LEA to get him moved there.

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Given that we don't live in the area of his school, and he has been there since nursery, the option of moving him to another mainstream school is not likely. He is settled there, has some friends and those within his class, although not fully understanding his condition, know he is slightly different to them. He is very intelligent, loves talking about space and science, is very good at maths and has a very good understanding of the meaning of words with no problems with his reading. Unfortunately the teaching side could be better, some teachers better than others, taking the time to understand his condition and work with him to overcome any hurdles he may have.

Any way the outcome of the meeting was basically what I thought it would be about. The integration of the child back into the classroom setting. The safe guards that they would implement for grandson during integration and the period of time for complete integration.

This would involve a slow progression of integrating the child back into classroom with the goal of having the child fully integrated by Easter break. While child was in classroom setting he would be monitored/supervised by classroom assistant. Any chance that both boy and grandson would come into contact in a 1 to 1 situation would be appeased by either child having to change for P.E. or get ready for playtime/home time separately from others. When in a group setting both children will not be allowed in close proximity to each other i.e. not sitting next to each other or across from each other and situation to be supervised at all times, a risk assessment to be made before this can happen.

Have agreed to this, against partners wishes, because I feel that school must be given the opportunity to rectify the situation. If this fails and given that they have had the opportunity to rectify situation then they can have no qualms about myself then asking for other child to be excluded from school. It's not my wish for this not to succeed but given past history I don't hold out much hope. I don't blame the child, he has his problems, and to a certain degree I don't blame the school either, they try there best, but maybe for this particular boy mainstream school is not what is needed. Thanks again for the advice.

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If this were happening to my child, I'd have him or her kept out of school until I was assured this wouldn't be happening anymore. I'm sorry that your kid has had to put up with this abusive treatment. You definitely should not have to put up with this as a caring parent.

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As hard as it is, I don't think you should keep him away from school [unless he refuses school due to anxiety and fear around being hit by this child]. Because if you keep him off school you kind of solve the problem for the school ie. your child is not there, so they don't have to do anything.

 

I would put my concerns in writing to the Head, stating that my child has an SEN and is vulnerable, and ask them to put in writing how they will resolve this in practical terms ie. staffing arrangements and supervision in terms of hours, both in the class and during dinnertime/playtime.

 

The school will have delegated funding for SEN, so ask them what their funding is in terms of hours of support and how they will use that to stop this child hitting yours. I know they have said what they will do, but by asking them how many hours they have allocated by delegated funding, and how those hours will be used for each child, and who is going to do it, will immediately highlight any lack of provision. Eg. if school is for 6.5 hours a day, and delegated funding is for 14 hours a week, you can immediately see that there will be days when both children will not be supported. It maybe that the other child, or your child, needs a Statement.

 

A Statement should detail all the needs the child has, and how each of those needs will be met. Therefore if this other child needs 'constant supervision during school hours', that is what the Statement should say, and if it does say that that is what the child must get, otherwise the parents can take the Local Authority [who are responsible for funding the Statement] to court via Judicial Review. In your case the problem is that it is another child that is causing the problem, so how do you get his parents and the school to request a Statement. Or you apply for a Statement for your child, and part of that is asking for 1:1 support due to him being vulnerable and being bullied by other children. Obviously the LA are not going to want to fund that, and are more likely to get involved to sort it out. But that maybe something to consider, if your child also has additional needs that need to be specified in a Statement to secure funding for them such as speech and language therapy etc.

 

You should also ask the school for a copy of their bullying policy. And if you are not happy with the steps the school takes, you should write to the board of governors. And if that does not resolve anything, I would suggest you write to the Local Authority and lodge a formal complaint with them to the effect that this other child has a SEN which is resulting in them hitting your child, and that therefore he needs to be in an educational setting that can support his behavior. If this other child is hurting other children due to a SEN, he should be properly supervised, and may need to be in a SEN unit, or special school.

 

Could this other child be placed in another class? In that way the times they would meet eachother could be more easily controlled and supported?

 

You could also contact an organisation such as IPSEA [www.ipsea.org.uk] and ask for their advice on this subject too.

Edited by Sally44

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The only other thing I would add is that although the school may think, and want, to integrate this child back and as part of that integration have supervised interaction with your son as well - you have to monitor how that is or will affect your child. He has an SEN and part of that will be problems with speech and language, understanding emotions [in himself and others], social communication etc. Both children will also have high levels of anxiety. If he is genuinely scared of this child, trying to get him to interact with him could be traumatic.

 

Is your child showing anxiety and fear about being around this other child?

 

The reason I say this is because my son used to really struggle with unsupervised play in the classroom, and the schools response to this was to support him with a TA, and for him to spend more time doing these kinds of activity. But the whole point was that he could not and did not want to socialise at that age. He wanted to play with the things he wanted in the way he wanted because he was autistic. No amount of TA support was going to stop him being autistic or get him to play with the other kids with the toys in the way the other kids did. It just became an area of extreme anxiety for him. Now that he is older he does want to interact and play and that is what his current school support him to do. But now he is also in an independent school for children with Aspergers and so all the children are highly supported all the time.

 

In primary we also went through a phase where another child was intentionally winding up our son for the reaction it produced ie. my son losing it. He would do things like repeatedly tap and touch him until he got upset, but the teachers did not appear to understand why this upset him so, because the other child was not hitting, just tapping/touching. In the end we asked for this other child to be in a different class and the following school year he was. But this was one of just many many things that made it impossible for our son to remain mainstream because he could not cope there, and was not supported there to the extent he needed.

Edited by Sally44

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Thanks for the advice on this , very much appreciated. So far child has not been placed back in classroom, and only very minimal contact with my grandson during p.e. So for the time being the integration doesn't look to have progressed as nothing has changed. Grandson can become quite anxious and withdrawn when unhappy, hense reason for it coming to our attention in first place. He isn't really able to interact at the same level as other kids and mostly his social time at school revolves around his ds games. There are other kids who also have ds's , and they all tend to have this as a common interest, so grandson tends to be accepted as one of them. Outside of these groups i'm afraid he would be alone as he just cant grasp the concept of playing within rules. He has recently lost his closest friend who left to go to another school in area, he always had plenty of time for grandson and seemed very understanding and compassionate for one so young. He felt his departure hard. It now looks like his other close friend could be leaving after festive holidays also, so will have to keep eye on the situation, Thanks again.

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I think you need to start looking at the bigger picture. This is probably not so much about him being bullied but more a sign that he is in the wrong educational environment.

 

If he is struggling at this stage it is likely to get worse as he gets older, so you need to be thinking now about what sort of education is going to suit him and how to get that. In England I would say you need at least to consider specialist ASD provision - but I don't know about Scotland.

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I don't know what the options are in Scotland. But you want to be looking for similar peer groups academically, socially and emotionally. If the only choice in Scotland is mainstream or special school [and special school is for moderate learning disabiliity or behaviourial issues that your child does not have], then the best way forward maybe to look for a school with an ASD unit [and again ask questions about academical levels, social and emotional ability etc as they too maybe more autistic than your child]. If mainstream is the only way, and that is if he is academically capable, then you should seek full time 1:1.

 

But in my case my son was not coping even in primary. And he also has dyslexia/dyscalculia, so was very frustrated academically too. We did find an ASD independent school that is suitable for him. But we still have issues with anxiety and also OCD, which he was diagnosed with a couple of years ago. So life can be very hard for him at times. But academically he is blossoming at this school, and does have a couple of friends there.

 

And because of what you have said about your child, I am not sure that reintroducing or integrating them is going to be helpful. It maybe that a simple apology for hitting him [if the other kid can do/understand that], and them both saying that they will be 'kind' to eachother from now on, and then keep them apart as much as possible.

 

In primary I asked the school to stop trying to get him to play with the other kids because it was stressing him out too much. He did learn about sharing/turntaking etc later on. Like your child he is interested in Nintendo and also Lego, Pokemon and similar and TV.

Edited by Sally44

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As you`re based in Scotland can you ask the school if they are aware of and using the "Autism Toolbox"? Its development was funded by Scottish Govt and the Scottish ASD Strategy has led to the development of a host of other useful/practical developments. Some schools seem to be more "switched on" to ASD than others. It seems to be a typical post code lottery. Check the Autism Network Scotland for independent local advice.

Dont be afraid to focus specifically on your grandchild. Good luck

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Thanks again for the advice/support, it's very much appreciated, some of which i am now looking into. Have now went from being sympathetic to school/child too being angry, frustrated and at my wits end with the whole thing.

Child was reintroduced back into classroom setting at beginning of new session in New Year. 6 school days later child has hit/assaulted my grandson on 2 occassions.

The first in the morning when in line up too go back into class after break. Child repeatedly kicking grandson on back of legs. Grandson reported to teacher and child got into trouble but not put out of class. The 2nd occassion was during fruit break, child kicked grandson in back as he was returning to his seat, this was in the classroom. On the 2nd occassion grandson told teacher again and when child was confronted by teacher about this his reply was he was only trying to hold onto him to get up from floor. Grandson was adamant that both had already stood up and that when incident occurred grandson was near his seat, other child should have been in opposite direction as they are not in same group.

When Grandson had told me about these incidents i was very angry as no-one from schoool had informed me of this. After talking to partner we decided that it would be best if he did not return to school until we got some assurances from them that this was not going to happen again and what strategy/plan they where going to put in place to make sure it would not reoccur.

Unfortunatly on contacting head teacher about incidents i was informed by her that she was NOT aware of any incidents. The teacher concerned was on a training day and not available to confirm/deny incidents. If incidents had occurred then she would have known as at end of day as any incidents in school get reported to her. On this occassion it transpired the incidents where NOT reported to her.

On asking what the next step would be as i couldn't be expected to return Grandson to school in the knowledge that he was still being targeted by this child. Was taken aback when told that the reason the 2nd incident had occurred was due to support teacher having to leave early for appointment and that other teacher failing to turn up to take her place in classroom. Was told that this was a one off and that they would ensure there would be 2 teachers in classroom at all times. In otherwards i was to put my Grandson back into classroom with no punishment for the other child and under the same integration plan. Told her i was not happy with current arrangement, that i had agreed to plan but as it had failed i needed further assurances other than present plan that Grandson would not be hit again. Was not willing to give assurances , in fact was told couldn't guarantee that he wouldn't be hit again, but that they would do best they could to ensure this didn't happen.

Told her i wasn't happy with this and wouldn't be returning Grandson until something better than this was put forward. Was then told to speak to Pupil Support Mgr, which i did , but both seemed to be reading from same script, that it was a hiccup and wouldn't happen again, and give plan another go. Told her i would need assurances and if any further incidents occurred then what steps would be taken against other child. Was basically told they couldn't give any further assurances that incidents would stop or that any further action would be taken other than what was already implemented. Again i was not happy by response and said so. I was then put in touch with Quality Improvement Officer who was in agreement with the integration plan that was agreed and on him looking at it,on paper, it should work and i should give it another go. Told him the same as Pupil Support, and no point in me sending Grandson back to school if that he got hit again no further action was going to happen. He inferred that if the frequency of the occurrances got longer then everyone was winning. I begged to differ as it was my Grandson who was being used as the guinea pig and as such would not be returning until they changed present set up. So as it stands we are at a stand off with a further meeting to take place next Tuesday with Head teacher and Quality Improvement Officer. Think it is going to be a pointless exercise as no one seems to want to budge. Have looked at getting Grandson into other school, which does have ASD wing, but Grandson would have to be assessed by forum for this. Have a showing this morning at said school. There is a place available for his class year, but down side is that school intake is double the size of his present one. Class size is also about 10 more than his present one.

Have tried contacting Ed Resources to get matter resolved only to have Quality Improvement Officer phone me to say that he is the one i am going to have to deal with as he the one under the Head of Ed Resources. Not totally sure of this but had already said to receptionist that i was not happy with response from both Pupil Support & Quality Improvement Officer and as such looking for someone else to deal with my complaint only for him to phone me 30 mins later. Think we are in an upward struggle and could take the easy option of taking the place at other school but think it is morally wrong that we/grandson have to do this. Also think that as things have strained between ourselves and school if grandson had to return to school he would be looked on/ treated differently. Grandson has now been out of school for 2 weeks. Have had to give him work to do at home, i.e. curriculum books bought from shops for his age group, these have mostly been Maths & English books. Only good things that have come out of this is that he now knows all his times tables and can now do long division as well as harder subtraction than he was used to. We have plenty of reading books for him to read, which he appears to do fluently without much trouble.

Although this is not ideal it is better this than letting him sit about all day watching t.v. or playing computer games. He does get out to local indoor play area where he can burn up some energy, not on a daily basis but every 2nd day ( 2pm -4pm ).

We are trying our best to do what is best for him but finding it really hard to get someone in authority on our side. Still waiting for social worker to get back to us, been on holiday.

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Oh dear. Sorry to hear all this. Fingers crossed for the SW looking at the situation from the childs point of view rather than the school`s or that of the other child. Where is GIRFEC in all this?

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Thanks. Been wondering the same thing myself. It certainly may be working for the school and other child, but it most certainly is not working for grandson and ourselves. Will be raising this issue with them myself. Unfortunately social worker on duty this week and as such if anything comes in prior to meeting then that would take priority. Willn't know if s/w are going to be at meeting until I turn up. Will keep you posted on outcome of meeting.

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Well had my meeting earlier today and although we didn't get all we wanted from it, i think we got enough to satisfy our concerns. Where in past school was not willing to deviate from plan we now have it entered that if child continues to hit grandson then he will be excluded from classroom setting for a undisclosed period. Have also got assurances that if any further incidents occur we will be notified immediatly and not several hours later or end of day. Have also got the assurance that grandson's honesty will not be getting questioned, when reporting incidents to teacher( other approaches to be used to confirm findings ). Added monitors in playground too stop any incidents developing. Not to force friendship with chlld on grandson through play. Grandson and child to be seperated at all times in classroom/ meal time settings. 2 teachers in classroom settting at all times with 1 designated in area of said child. Although notes were being taken it wasn't until i started taking notes that i was offered a copy of meeting, to which my relpy was i've started now so i might as well finish. Did reiterate what was written down, which was acknowledged. Grandson will start back tomorrow , but for the remainder of this week he will only be going in from 12noon -2pm and 10am -2pm to see how he adapts being back in classroom. If everything okay and he happy enough then we will extend this to 10am -3pm and then 9am -3pm the following week.

Thanks everyone for advice and support through this difficult period.

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