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Join our Primary Education forum to discuss starting school and helping your child get the most out of it.

Join our Primary Education forum to discuss starting school and helping your child get the most out of it.

Primary education

Ds has been exluded for 2 days.

25 replies

ChocolateFace · 20/01/2010 21:43

He's 11 (Y6)

He threatened a teacher with a meter rule. A TA removed it from him, and told him to behave.

I'm not sure what I'm looking for from posting this.

I'm just so Please go easy on me. I don't want to explain were are a decent family with 2 other perfectly normal children, and that DS does have firm boundaries at home.

OP posts:

Report

EccentricaGallumbits · 20/01/2010 21:46

what are the school offering in the way of support? behavioural approaches for DS etc?

Ingles2 · 20/01/2010 21:47

Oh you poor thing... you must be so worried/embarrassed/angry...
So has anything like this happened before? Does he have any SN? any problems?

ChocolateFace · 20/01/2010 21:48

Nothing.

Although the new head will have him assesed by an educational psychologist on Monday. Who, I expect, will discover he is a perfectly normal child.

OP posts:

nickschick · 20/01/2010 21:49

Hes 11,hes a big fish in a little pond and in September he will be at secondary school.

Hes made a mistake and is being punished for it,its no reflection of your parenting its to do with him growing into an adolescent.

Do you think he would actually carry out this threat? I suspect no,he got caught up in the heat of the moment and has slipped up.

He will do his suspension and that will quiten him down.

Ingles2 · 20/01/2010 21:50

and his behaviour normally?

ChocolateFace · 20/01/2010 21:56

He's lovely at home, absolutely lovely. But "challenging" at school aparently.

He's not keen on school (I've psted previously on this).

The school are convinced he won't "survive" at high school, and are "putting things in place" ie a TA to help him at high school. If it wasn't for this, I would just keep him at home untill September.

Although this incident happened late yesterday afternoon, he came out of school perfectly happy (well, as happy as he ever comes out of school) and I knew nothing of this untill this morning.

OP posts:

frecklyspeckly · 20/01/2010 22:00

poor you.

We were threatened with exclusion when ds (6) physically retaliated to a very unkind comment from a boy in his class. They said should he hurt anyone again they would look at exclusion.

As nickschick summarised with your ds I know he just got caught up in the heat of the moment.

We were mad and so upset. I can only imagine how you feel - you know you are good parents.
Sod giving in to feeling bad at what others think. You will be moving on soon as will we (new school thank heavens).

He is not the first and nor will he be the last.

Ingles2 · 20/01/2010 22:01

in what way won't he survive?
can you tell us more about the "challenging" behaviour?..

frecklyspeckly · 20/01/2010 22:04

yes I was at won't survive

OF COURSE he will SURVIVE!!

they come out with some mumbo jumbo don't they!

nickschick · 20/01/2010 22:08

I think lots of boys grow up in their body before they actually maturein their mind iyswim? and the transistion from the safety of the family type primary compared to the harsh grown up world of secondary can come as a huge shock for a child not yet up to par socially.

This boy is clearly having some difficulty wether its with peers or wether its with school full stop but only a well rounded child can have the coping mechanisms to succesfully handle 'big school'.

I rather suspect this is all to little to late for the OP and its now apparent her ds is frustrated with himself and has reacted in a 'out of the norm' way.

ChocolateFace · 20/01/2010 22:09

WEll, even the school can't explain exactly what his challenging behaviour is. I can forgive them this, though,a s he was very hard work as a toddler, but I could enver explain why exactly, he was just very bright and energetic and stubborn, and never liked any change in routine, which made him hard work.

They think he won't survive at high school, as he doesn't respond well to a change of teacher (he has a different teacher on Tuesday afternons, when his teacher goes to do her planning and preparation) and this seems to really throw him. In high school he will have a different teacher for every lesson, which could cause him difficulties. DH and I are telling him he will be fine. We are convincing ourselves he wil be fine. What else can we do atm?

OP posts:

frecklyspeckly · 20/01/2010 22:10

definately agree with you re maturity. What a shame can't be easier way for all concerned than exclusion.

Ingles2 · 20/01/2010 22:14

ok, well I think it's good news the Ed Psych is seeing him.
He may well be on the spectrum somewhere.
Have you talked to ds about the incident? What does he have to say?

ChocolateFace · 20/01/2010 22:26

DS was tested in school for Autism/Aspergers 2 years ago. He was given a test, "theory of mind" I think they called it, in which he scored "high average". It was bsically seeing if he could tell how someone one was feeling from looking at a photo. We'd done loads of work on this at home, so no wonder he did so well. I don't think he is Autistic, but does have autistic tendancies, as many males do.
He does however have sensory processing difficulties, which he has to learn to deal with, which he is in fact doing quite well. I've no official diagnosis for his sensory issues, but to me they are very clear, and we've learned how to deal with them at home.

I don't think that's any exculse for him becoming annoyed with a teacher though.

She had asked him to draw something from his imagination. (He has no imagination!) and so found the task impossible, leading to him to threaten her with the meter ruld.

OP posts:

saintlydamemrsturnip · 20/01/2010 22:41

They shouldn't really diagnose/discount autism on the basis of a theory of mind test. Has he had a proper test such as the ados?

Having said that many of the problems in autism are caused by sensory issues and it's great you have tackled them so well at home. There are lots of strategies that can be used to help transition from class to class - visual timetables and countdown timers spring to mind. Are the school putting these in place.

Similarly there are strategies that can help with recognizing frustration and prevent lashing out which would probably be more effective than exclusion.

I would read up about autism - not from the point of view of a diagnosis but to borrow the strategies. My eldest is autistic, his younger brothers not remotely but I still sometime borrow strategies to use with them - especially ds3 who finds behaving and being calm a bit if a challenge.

I can't link as I'm on iPod but I have a blog that reviews autism products and services - the time timers might be helpful for your son - or iprompt which is for the iPod touch or iPhone and allows you to show time passing and what is coming next. Of course you can make paper versions of this as well. Blog here: interactioninmind.wordpress.com

ChocolateFace · 20/01/2010 22:45

Thanks mrsturnip, I'll look at the blog, then go to bed.

Has been a draining day.

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SE13Mummy · 20/01/2010 22:52

I'm surprised (but actually also impressed) that the school have excluded him for threatening behaviour although I appreciate that it won't make you feel any better.

Once a child has received a short-term exclusion it is often possible to access support that is more tricky to get to if the behaviour has been 'serious enough' to warrant an exclusion. Maybe this will trigger some additional support e.g. anger management (which is as much to do with communicating frustration appropriately as managing outbursts).

Lots of children find it hard to be covered by someone other than 'their' teacher but staff can do a lot to help reduce the stress that some children experience e.g. visual timetables, personal timetable describing which teacher/subject/room, letting particular individuals be part of the hand-over from one teacher to another etc.

It's good that some transition support is going to be put in place for when he transfers to secondary (although really it should be there for all Y7s!) but it sounds as though he needs something in place now - from my experience as a Y6 teacher the number of referrals for behaviour-related issues went through the roof pre-SATs/secondary applications and then again at allocation time as they are all worried about one, if not all of them

cory · 20/01/2010 23:03

SE13 makes a valuable point: sometimes things have to get bad to get better. This could prove a turning point for your ds.

admission · 20/01/2010 23:16

You say you only found out this morning about the exclusion, had this not been communicated to you by the head and confirmed in writing? If not it is not an official exclusion.

saintlydamemrsturnip · 21/01/2010 08:50

Lots of the blog won't be relevant but here's the iprompts post - I did buy it and it is good.
this post too might be useful- as it can help with transitioning e.g. lesson to lesson. So you set the timer and can see how much of the lesson remains. I have to use countdowns with NT ds3 when he's playing and needs to move onto another activity. the watch is good as well and more discreet
I think you can get a time timer app for the ipod touch/iphone as well now. So it looks just like the watch, but is on the ipod touch instead.

smee · 21/01/2010 09:36

CF, are you surprised that you didn't know until this morning? Am just curious as to whether he accepts what he did was wrong, as that in itself tells you a lot about where he's coming from. From the outside, it seems a huge deal to threaten an adult like that, and though it spiralled frustration it's still not a small thing to do. If he was upset and shocked by himself that's one end of the scale of reaction - if he's at the other end, so doesn't care or even realise it was wrong then that's obviously another. So I'd imagine how he feels about it is key in terms of helping him through iyswim. If he's so different at home it sounds like he can be helped if the school get it right. Poor him and poor you though.

ChocolateFace · 21/01/2010 16:31

I'm not suprised I didn't know untill this morning. (Very little the the school presents me with suprises me theses days.) The Head wanted to get all facts clear before speaking to me, and although the incident happened at the end of the day, DS came out of school quite calmly, and I had no reason to suspect anything had happened. I had a phone call at 8.30 am from the Head, explaning what had happened, and that he would be keptin during break times yesterday, and would be excluded Thursday,a dn Friday, but we came to the agreement that he would be excluded Wednesday and Thursday.

DH had already set off with DS, so I went to the school, collected DS, and DH and I met with the head to discuss the situation. The paper work will be arriving in the post.

He knows what he did was wrong. He knows he scared the teacher. He feels gald that he scared her, because she annoys him. This is where I have the problem. I'm trying to get through to him that you can not behave like this towards some one who annoys you.

At home, if his 6 year old brother pesters him, or, for example, goes into his bedroom, and fiddles with things and doesn't leave when asked, DS1 will pick up his light sabre and say "Get out or I'll whack you with my light sabre"

I don't come down hard on DS1, as I think DS2 should have done as he was asked and left his brothers things alone. So, I'll give a bit of a lecture to both of them.

I think DS1 can't see the difference between this, and waving a metre rule around and threatening to hit the teacher with it.

OP posts:

ipodtherforipoor · 21/01/2010 16:42

saintlydamemrsturnip - I think I love you for making me aware of that app for ipod - cant wait for payday so I can get it!

DS is likely on the spectrum - and actually has my old ipod touch - so it will be brilliant for us.

saintlydamemrsturnip · 21/01/2010 18:07

LOL iPod. I think you share my excitement about iPod apps

saintlydamemrsturnip · 21/01/2010 18:10

It's a subtle difference isn't it chocolate. I would google social stories or try to find a teacher who could help you draw up one - I think a social story could be ideal for trying to teach the difference between sibling stuff and waving a ruler at a teacher.

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