School says my 4 yr old kicked Year 6 pupil

DON79

melancholly wrote: »

so entirely irrelevant but in my head your 4 year old is a flying ninja who did some flying spinning leap to kick over a much bigger child (and yes, i know it's completely wrong for him to have been violent, but the idea of him going for a much older kid and winning does make me smile a bit!).

thank you for making me smile at the ninja thought a bit too... I thought it was ds2 who was going to be told off at nursery today from the danger signals lol and not the oldest one at school!

the_cat

But if your son has not told the teachers that he was hit/provoked they presumably think that they HAVE told you the whole version of events

As much as it would be nice, the idea that a 10/11 year old would admit freely to doing this to a little 4 year old knowing that they would get in trouble for it, is highly unlikely and a little naive!

If you want to take it further go in and tell the head calmly the lead up to the event. Explain that although you know your DS is wrong and you fully support his punishment, you are concerned that the older child has also behaved badly and also deserves correction

busiscoming2

I suppose it depends on the school. In our school the whole age range 4-11 share the same facilities and play together, generally with no problems. There is plenty of space and lots of toys/activities.

I am surprised that if this is an isolated incident (from your childs point) that the school needed to mention it to you. It would probably be quite ususal to mention it to the older childs parent if it was thought a bad injury. I am probably right in saying that in school a child has to have been in trouble a few times (unless a very serious incident has occured) before the parents are notified as school likes to try and deal with 'naughty' and 'provocating' children in the first instance.

JodyBPM

DON79 wrote: »

I don't disagree that the school have handled this correctly - my dispute is that maybe more of the blame is being put on my son that there should be and that the yr6 child is not admitting to something they have done as provocation. I think there is possibly more to this so am emailing the school to ask for a full version of events.

I think that from what you say it sounds like you have handled this correctly - BUT, I don't see any need to further involve the school. What difference will it make if they know he was provoked or not? Incidents like this are 10 a penny at school, and they have dealt with it and moved on. Your son kicked another child and provocation or no provocation, the school would have told him off for it. I very much doubt the outcome would have been any different had they known about provocation, assuming they don't already.

I understand your concern, the first time my DS was in trouble at school I was MORTIFIED! Absolutely gutted, and really worried that he'd be known as the naughty boy etc, but honestly that's not how it works. A good proportion of the children at the school will get into trouble for something at some point. One incident is no big deal!

It has been a good (if hard) lesson for your DS, and I expect next time he will tell the teacher if someone is bugging him, rather than lashing out!

Let it lie, and move on with your life, its no big deal, honestly! The school will have forgotten about it by now, and so should you!

make_me_wise

Blimey your son is brave, or has a death wish, kicking a year 6 kid. At 4 that would put your son in a reception class wouldn't it? Im confused as to how a kid so young came into social contact with a year 6 child not closely supervised by a responsible adult, who could have seen the incident and intervened. At my nephews school the kids are seperated according to their ages in different playgrounds. I guess for him to be able to kick this kid who would be about 10 or 11 in the back, the older one must have been sitting down.

Its good that when this happened the school addressed it and spoke with the kids involved. I would leave it for them to deal with and just be approachable to discussing it further if they see the need to. The school will have seen this hundreds of times before and it will be forgotten by now. Most schools have a policy that every day is a fresh new start. There are not enough hours in the day for them to fester on every little incident. It sounds as if you are doing all the right things at home using time out etc.

Kids will be kids, just keep emphasising the behaviour you expect, its all you can do.

DON79

Had an email back from the Head which is good - she says now that she has spoken with the Yr6 teacher and it was not a child from Yr6 involved. Not sure why I was told that but will see... she said she will find out more for me tomorrow and let me know. but still not nice to think he has kicked someone else and hurt them.

I really do not want to be seen as the mummy who believes her child can do no wrong ( I have daily proof with fighting siblings lol! ) but something just didn't add up about what I was told about the incident.

Plans_all_plans

If I felt my child had been physically provoked and then had lashed out, then I would think they were justified in acting that way. I see far too many incidences at playgroup and in my DD's nursery where there are 1 or 2 kids without any boundaries whatsoever, who think they can kick, slap and punch anyone they like.

Once my child had been hit one too many times (without any reprimand from parents/teacher that stopped them being the aggressor again), I told her she was to hit them back. I have since noticed a reduction in the amount of incidents where she's been hit. I don't think it's right that undisciplined kids can go around being mollycoddled by teachers, hitting whoever they want and then having some half baked punishment. I'd rather my child got in trouble too for hitting them back, so that the aggressor knew to think twice before hitting her again.

msb5262

Hi OP,

Just for information, it's supposed to be best practice for reception children to have a play area which is separate from older children. It certainly sounds as if this whole incident needs to be checked out and then recorded appropriately...if you as a parent are being informed that your reception age child has hurt an older child, it's really important to know exactly what happened as this may appear on your child's school records.

HTH

MsB

meritaten

Personally, I think you dealt with it well on the 'facts' you were given at the time! However, it seems to me that YOU havent been told the true story and this does need further investigation. Experience has taught me NOT to automatically take the teachers/schools word for these 'incidents' and to ask other witnesses (easy enough to phone another mum and ask them to ask their child what happened). I am of the opinion that a 'crime' in school, once its been dealt with should not result in more punishment at home.

balletshoes

busiscoming2 wrote: »

I suppose it depends on the school. In our school the whole age range 4-11 share the same facilities and play together, generally with no problems. There is plenty of space and lots of toys/activities.

I am surprised that if this is an isolated incident (from your childs point) that the school needed to mention it to you. It would probably be quite ususal to mention it to the older childs parent if it was thought a bad injury. I am probably right in saying that in school a child has to have been in trouble a few times (unless a very serious incident has occured) before the parents are notified as school likes to try and deal with 'naughty' and 'provocating' children in the first instance.

If its out of character for the child at school to be taken to the head/deputy head and told off, at my DD's school the parents are informed as they pick up the child from school at the end of the day.