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School incident - should i do something?
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Our school is next to a special school for kids with learning difficulties - from autism to downs syndrome, there's all sorts of different ones there.
Anyway, we share our 6th form base with their '6th formers', this morning one of them was coming in with her carer and was trying to bring a chair through the door, so i waited while her carer got her to leave it. Then the next thing i knew she'd grabbed hold of my hair - her carer got between us and was pulling her away but she'd still got hold of my hair, so i automatically pulled it out of her hand - and i didn't get much back.
Afterwards when they were filling in a form for the girl, they were asking me if she'd got hold of my neck, she didn't but i found that quite worrying. I know she only pulled some hair out and didn't really do me an injury, is it worth going to school about or not? Because i don't think it's really fair for us to share our base with potentialy violent disabled kids that don't know what they're doing. I'm not sure what kind of difficulty she had, but it must have been severe autism/downs or something like that. Or would i be being unfair?
Anyway, we share our 6th form base with their '6th formers', this morning one of them was coming in with her carer and was trying to bring a chair through the door, so i waited while her carer got her to leave it. Then the next thing i knew she'd grabbed hold of my hair - her carer got between us and was pulling her away but she'd still got hold of my hair, so i automatically pulled it out of her hand - and i didn't get much back.
Afterwards when they were filling in a form for the girl, they were asking me if she'd got hold of my neck, she didn't but i found that quite worrying. I know she only pulled some hair out and didn't really do me an injury, is it worth going to school about or not? Because i don't think it's really fair for us to share our base with potentialy violent disabled kids that don't know what they're doing. I'm not sure what kind of difficulty she had, but it must have been severe autism/downs or something like that. Or would i be being unfair?
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Have you got a head of sixth form you can talk to like that?
That said, you should be reasonably safe at school and if this person is repeatedly violent then it is a cause from conern. I can tell you the answer now as to what they do about it, they report incidents and monitor the occurences, and she has a career who basically 'minds' her.
If she wasn't 'special' what would you do? Maybe have a word with your form tutor and say you don't like having your hair pulled. So do that.
I'm not getting at you, so please don't take it the wrong way, I've tried to reword it to sound nice and make the point and I can't.
I do have a 'on the other hand' comment but it's pretty obivous really (she's disabled etc)
I'd personally kick up a fuss about that- I couldn't give a toss about her SEN, you should be able to go to school and be protected from violence.
It's a touchy issue.
as for people saying "she's special needs, let it slide" i don't agree
why should she? she was attacked and the matter should be taken up, special needs or no special needs
however, to the OP, you say that they were filling out some form....who were? her carers? If that's the case then i doubt a lot more can be done as the school would be aware of this person's outbursts which to me, would be the only reason for going to the school.
Youre not her carer so you didnt have any idea to be careful. If theyre taking her to places where shes likely to attack the public, they should bloody well be watching her every move.
Im not saying prosecute, but id definitely mention it or make a complaint.
I think the ones that need care all the time because they don't know what they're doing shouldn't be allowed over tbh. We shouldn't be at risk of being attacked. We don't know what to do if it does happen either.
We have locks on the computer room door and the study room door - it's supposed to be a school not a lion pit. They're never locked either because people are coming in and out all the time - and the computer room door is currently broken (has been for about 2 months) so we have to leave it open.
I'm probably over re-acting but i just don't see why they have to come over just to use some class rooms in our 6th form base. I guess it's to make the govenors go 'aaw' when they visit. But we shouldn't be in danger of being attacked.
If someone else had pulled your hair in the common room, what would you do? Report it I suspect, and expect them to get some kind of reprimand. It sounds like that has happened. If it happened repeatedly you'd kick up a fuss.
Do whatever you'd do if it was anybody else.
They may need care all the time because they don't know what they are doing, to the extent that they may stick their fingers in plug sockets, or because they'll walk out into the road, or because they have very little sense of time and would never get anywhere if left to their own devices. Needing a full time carer doesn't make someone dangerous in itself.
You do exactly the same as you would do for anyone else.
Odds on that's a security issue and possibly general personnal safety, rather than for you to lock 'them' out.
They are just as entitled to facilities as you are, it probably gets you some funding. From what I can gather it's not a regular occurence and you're in no more danger of being attacked by them than you are by any other member of the 6th form, if not less so, because they are with someone who knows them well and can spot a foul temper brewing, rather than if one of your 'normal' 6th formers is having a bad day and decides to lash out in which case there's no one to stop it or manage it.
If you've managed to get through the whole of your school life and never be touched by someone in a bad mood then I'm ver glad for you, but you've had an easy ride. There are all kinds of people in the world and you need to learn to live with them at some point.
They shouldn't get away with it, but neither should you overreact.
At no point, ever, in any situation, should anyone have to put up with an act of physical agression.
Careers for people with disabilities which make them prone to violent outbursts implicitly agree to having to deal with it, and get training.
Fiend, if you're going to call that physical assault with all the implications that go with that then I hope you never work with children, ever. A one off hair pulling doesn't make someone a violent person.
PLUS the OP said that their carer "got between them" maybe if they hadn't the attack would have been worse than the pulling of hair
Indeed, it wasn't exactly a little tug to get someone's attention either was it, she removed a handful of the OP flowing locks.
Everyone has a right to education without fear. Someone without a SEN would have it reported and action taken. In this case we know it's been reported and I'm pretty sure action has been taken. Because of the way the systems work I suspect that there will be far more input put into preventing a recurrence for the girl with SEN than there would be had it been another member of the 6th form that had done it.
At the end of the day Ballerina comes across as having her head screwed on so I'm sure she can look at this, engage her pretty little brain and make her own decisions.
I do think we need to be more informed on who exactly we're sharing our center with because we know nothing about them, just that they all have a mental disability of some description.
I know nothing about the girl who got me, i don't know if she's prone to outbursts or what. Her carer did say that she's very quick and was asking about my neck. So to me it sounds like she has outbursts on them - which is probably to be expected. But it's not expected to happen to pupils at our school.
I'll talk to my head on 6th form next time i see her. I'm assuming she's been told because they'd have to tell school.
It sounds quite dangerous though if she normally goes for people's necks...thats quite worrying if she was alone with another pupil