“It’s only with a bit of distance I can fully articulate my fury…”
I’m working from home, the phone goes, it’s ‘The Academy’. G’s main Learning Support Assistant (LSA), a wonderful lady, speaks tentatively, “You’re not going to like this, I am really sorry for what I am about to tell you, G has been externally excluded for half a day tomorrow, by the Headteacher.”
I have never had such a physical response to a phone call. I suspect it is like when you receive any unexpected bad news. In that split second my head raced through scenarios with 100 questions whilst at the same time I understood completely the severity of what I had just been told. Only one question in my head – how has it come to this with no warning signs?
My stomach lurched and my heart thumped, I wanted to scream “you’ve got it wrong, there has been a gross misunderstanding, there must have been a mistake! On what planet would a child, a 7 year old autistic child, be externally excluded without any discussion, in fact, without any behaviour discussion ever, without taking into account any context of the fact that he is presenting with extreme anxiety at the moment, there must be a mistake.” It turns out it is our planet, Earth, where a vulnerable child that needs support gets behaviour sanctions instead.
Instead, I frantically listened working hard to absorb everything, the facts and details, the tone, and the unspoken silences of quiet agreement as we both wondered, what’s next for G?
I listened to how G, who was out in the playground at lunch time seemingly out of nowhere (we of course knew that it was from somewhere) had hit a midday supervisor for nothing more than her suggesting that he may want to wear his coat because it was very cold.
This was wrong so wrong and he shouldn’t have done it please don’t think in my fury at the system we lost sight in the action, and continue to be apologetic for what happened. The point is: it should not have happened.
He had been heightened at lunch, he didn’t want to go outside, when he went outside the soil was over the playground and he was frantically trying to put it back in the soil where ‘it belonged… to save the planet’ not in a give me some brownie points for tidying up the playground, but in a desperate and urgent sense of obsessive crisis that went way beyond the soil, the cold and the lady, and had been building at school for months. He was struggling to cope with the demands placed on him. He should have been allowed to a safe space. But instead, he was exposed outside in the elements and about to commit a crime that would shake the foundations of our family with the realization of our son’s disability, and it would also challenge our long-held belief in ‘the system’.
With that one action he was condemned by the behaviour system to critical point, level 7, for ‘violence towards a member of staff’ it was aligned with the same sanction for extreme violence and possession or use of weapons and illegal substances. It was clearly disproportional. The Headteacher had intervened, unbelievably without speaking to the midday supervisor or the LSA whom called me and who knows G better than anyone there. With his intervention he overrode every single behaviour policy rule from level 1 to 6 leading up to the most extreme level whilst simultaneously ignoring their own inclusion guidance and totally eroded our trust in the school. I am not privy to who was involved in the specifics at this time I have been told I cannot access these notes, all I know is that:
- The incident happened at lunchtime.
- The class teacher did not contact me.
- The Key Stage and Progress Leader did not contact me.
- The SENDco did not contact me.
- The AP in charge of behaviour did not contact me.
- The Headteacher who sanctioned the punishment did not contact me.
- It was the LSA, the person who was not consulted in any way during this reactionary response to a sensory meltdown called me apologizing for the decision made by all or some(?) of the above, a question I will never know the answer to.
I happen to be in the privileged position to work indirectly with some of the most amazing secondary Headteachers and their leadership teams in the country, I was stunned. This was not good practice. It had me feeling helpless, bereft and in disbelief, it’s only with a bit of distance I can fully articulate my fury. Not one person I have spoken to professionally or personally since that understands this decision or the process. I am not sure even the school do now. But this is what happened next.
- On the initial call with the LSA I took the facts, kept it short my only request was a phone call with the Headteacher, as it was clear from the sanction that he was the decision maker.
- I called my husband who had the same gut-wrenching reaction, and then my sister who provides me continuously with the best guidance from a SEND parental view that any expert in the field could; she is the main care giver for her autistic child.
- I emailed SENDIASS to ask for a quick explanation of where we stand legally on this decision.
- I sent an email response with my first instincts around reasonable adjustments (a term not mentioned on the initial call) for SEND students regarding the behaviour policy and challenged the decision head on as extreme and there are better ways of dealing with this.
- I contacted SEND colleagues, who gave quick effective feedback around best practice.
“It’s can’t not won’t.”
About 2 hours later I received a call from the school. It was not the Headteacher but an Associate Principal (AP); she had spoken to him about the ‘incident’ as it is now referred to by school leaders. The AP suggested the severity was because G had intended to his, as he had ‘circled before hitting’. G literally has no comprehension of anything when heightened he is highly anxious and goes into fight or flight when he is not regulated.
“I was feeling very blamed”
Now, significantly, due to his EHC Plan not being implemented for so long – this was due to unfortunate contextual reasons of no SENDco in post in the autumn term and a new class teacher that didn’t have the tools – therefore he sadly never regulated well at school since about November. I raised the fact he was a diagnosed autistic child with ADHD, sensory and anxiety needs, something that had not acknowledged on the call yet, and asked if this had been taken into account.
The fact I had to ask this was to me unbelievable, I will never make assumptions again that people know the needs of my child through the school system. With every new face I now introduce his needs and explain his support plan and of course his strengths to give them a chance; first impressions are crucial with G and a quick enquiry into his cats and he will have you marked as a trusted friend (it’s not difficult!) The AP listened and said she would take this back to the Headteacher. I explained reasonable adjustments must be made and expressed our sheer disappointment with how it had been communicated so far, making it clear we would be following up with SENDIASS.
It was revealed in this meeting no one had actually spoken to G after the event – that’s the sound of jaws dropping – so he had no comprehension of any consequence. I would be the one to speak to him at home and explain the sanction, not any of the decision makers listed earlier.
At this point I was expecting a softening of the line, perhaps the offer of a parent meeting at school to discuss further, and perhaps, maybe, even some empathetic noises as a parent I was feeling very blamed; neither happened. In the end I requested a meeting to discuss the exclusion prior to it happening. We need to have a shared approach, I urged, and suggested the new-from-January-SENDco may shine some light on language around consequence because G struggles with communication processing. I also asked if the Headteacher may attend. The AP left the call to go and organize a meeting and I left the call with the same sense of shock I’d been in since the initial call over 2 hours earlier. I was struggling to grapple with:
- Would we ask a person in a wheelchair to run a marathon? No, and yet G had been expected to function with no reasonable adjustments because his disability was hidden, challenging and inconvenient. There was no intention, he did not wake up get out of bed intending to hurt someone, he had no where to go to regulate (he does now).
- “It’s can’t not won’t” – do we have the expectations for toddlers as we do teenagers in following an instruction, they would need adjustments.
- There has been a failure building since September due to circumstance – unfortunately the class teacher had not implemented the EHCP section F strategies, which had been accepted by the school subsequently – but how did the school not know this as we did at home and had been trying to tell them? Cue the pile of correspondence emails as evidence.
“Of course he did he’s a child not the devil”
That Thursday my husband and I went into school and met with the AP and the SENDco, the Headteacher was not available; we felt gaslit. In that meeting we shared our communication with the school on behalf of the G expressing concern about his deterioration throughout Y2 due to the problematic and chaotic environment compared to last year, as expressed by LSAs and others, and the ultimate view that his EHC Plan had not been met on multiple fronts.
At this point we were then informed there had been a change, G’s exclusion, it would now be internal, this was a reasonable adjustment (too fucking right!) it had been made ‘in retrospect’ by the Headteacher. At this internal exclusion G would sit with the SENDco for the first time and talk through a social story about consequence. This sounded fair to us, and what we would have anticipated the initial response to have looked more like. One more question, what about the exclusion on his record? We can’t respond to that. The decision maker’s not here. Quite.
Roll on the next day, exclusion day. Well, it was an unsurprisingly resounding success, and everyone agreed G responded very well to his social story. Cue me with a wry smile and nod. In my head I’m screaming “of fucking course he did he is a child not a devil, of course he responds to experts that are trying to help him *cry/sigh*.”
Later in the day the AP called me, “just so you know this will not be on G’s records as an official exclusion.” Success. Success. But at what cost that week. It was too late, we had been triggered, our eyes were open to how vulnerable children with SEND needs are treated by some decision makers, I saw what they saw my child as, a deviant troublemaker, and it was the wrong punishment not based on anything but ignorance.
Our eyes were also opened to the trajectory we believed our child was on versus the tragic trajectory that the system would deliver on for our beautiful autistic boy. The realization hit home, we had put our life on hold (thanks bosses!) literally for 3 days advocating for our child, so we are now prepared to do this at every point.
And I mean every point.
So, what has this triggered for us as a family.
Complete clarity.
“We need to disrupt the cycle of perceived inclusivity to actual inclusivity.”
Since I entered education as a professional in 2008 I have always believed schools purely have the child’s interests at heart. Maybe I am lucky, I have worked in mainstream schools, some with specialist autism units, where provision was genuinely outstanding. I have never even considered that a school would ever make a decision that would harm a child. If this exclusion had stood this would have harmed G; it would have been unjust discrimination perpetrating a negative narrative.
In the instance of G this is what would have happened, if the initial decision had stood. It would have reinforced that G was ‘naughty’ and that people ignorant of autism and PDA can attribute punishments to crimes that they couldn’t prevent. How could a person say this is on the same level of bringing in a knife and attacking a teacher with intent? If you read the behaviour policy this is the comparison. You may not be surprised to hear I still never had any communication with the Headteacher about this incident. Perhaps this is why we feel the need to share the experience and say to other parents, this is not ok. This happened to us, it could be happening to others and they may not get the same outcome.
The school ultimately changed their stance and did the right thing; I am truly grateful for that. That week was hellish and it has left a mark and I also think if we, his parents, had not stood up as quickly and assertively to the school and advocated for our son, this would have happened:
- G would have been externally excluded the next day.
- No one at school would have explained it to him, he would be confused and be made to feel naughty.
- It would have reinforced the ignorant exclusive culture of the decision.
- Further decisions like this would be made for other children with additional needs – we will talk about this more in future blogs!
- Our son would have been more likely to have spiraled and lead to permanent exclusion – we will also delve into autism exclusions soon, in research phase!
- He would not have felt safe as the status quo of poor teaching would have continued – we will also explore what was so damaging about the status quo he endured since September.
- In short, the negative cycle would have continued. We need to disrupt the cycle of perceived inclusivity, shiny messages on websites, nice soundbites and the like, and hold institutions to account and insist on actual inclusivity.
With enlightened hindsight now I acknowledge we had been crawling through Y2; we were barely existing. The irony of working in the education system meant I gave the benefit of the doubt to the teachers, SENDcos, leaders, and the wider system. Every day we had been propping our son’s mental health he was a shadow of his former self despite having had a very successful Y1. It was my husband who ultimately said this is not acceptable to the people in the room, and I was so proud of him, I needed that clarity and strength. One of the reasons this blog series is by both of us is that we have found strength at different moments and in different ways which has been crucial for moving on, keeping the faith and keeping sane.
So, when I say this one event has transformed our approach it really has and I will always be able to trace my clarity back to answering that call and hearing those words “external exclusion” I had been operating in a certain, very polite-middle-class, kind of way, not wanting to disrupt, not wanting to rock-the-boat not wanting to be ‘those’ parents, but to build relationships and invest my time in contributing and communicating and our money in private play therapy. Never once did we anticipate it would be the very people we thought were there to support and champion him would be the ones to take everything away from him in a moment without any consultation or respect for the family. The change has been dramatic and sudden. We challenge, we take the EHC Plan and hold key people to account weekly.
Things have since improved. Things have dramatically improved. G has reasonable adjustments now, and yes he has that quiet place to go to at lunch if needed and it is written into his EHC Plan…
“do not ask G to take off his coat!”
We will not be silenced we will fight for our neurodivergent, autistic, joyful child to access the education he deserves. If you would like to follow our journey then please read on, you can find our other (shorter, many happier) content related blogs here: https://cantnotwont.blog
Written by a mum and dad with love and a deeper understanding of advocacy in March 2023.
