education is compulsory

Then there was the playground. By going into reception he now shared the playground with children up to age eleven. Sometimes it was a ten year old in unstoppable motion who ploughed into him. At other times it was being thrown against a wall. Lunchtime staff failed to respond to most of these incidents. I mentioned my concerns. The staff were "vigilant" for a week, witnessing and responding to some incidents. Then it was business as usual.

Things deteriorated. Many meetings. Most afternoons my son was sent out to the head's office. One day, he refused to do some work because he had already done it the previous week while his teacher was off sick. He was sent to the head. His teacher remarked to him as we left, "If you misbehave again tomorrow, you’ll have to miss more of my lessons." What an encouragement! The next day when I went to collect him, his teacher snarled that he was with the head. He wasn’t, he was dancing along the corridor singing, "I’ve escaped from Mrs R..." At this point I was told that someone from behaviour support would be visiting me at home that evening. In walked Mr Tough Guy whose opening remark to me was, "I mostly work with Afro-Caribbean kids, some of whom come from utter devastation, so when I saw this white boy misbehaving in school I thought he must have been seriously abused." So that put me at my ease. I was further shocked when he called my son into the room, forced him to sit on his lap, restraining him from leaving and demanded of my son, "Tell your mum what you were doing when I saw you in school today." My son was four years old. I talked to this man, who made all manner of allegations, and discovered that he didn’t know my son was on special needs, knew nothing about him and my son had not been referred to him. He’d been in school observing another child that day. I wrote to complain to this person's boss about his confrontational manner and spurious allegations. He denied it.