When a child starts struggling at school, it can be difficult for parents to understand what has changed, particularly when that same child seems happy and settled at home.
Georgia Morris-Boyce, from Inclusion First Education, shares the story of one family’s journey through behavioural challenges, school exclusion and a diagnosis of autism and ADHD, and how finding the right support helped their son to thrive.
Every parent knows a ‘cheeky chappy’. Quick with a joke, the one teachers can’t help but like. That’s how Sam’s family would have described him in Reception – bright, funny, full of it, in the best way.
So when the cheekiness started tipping into something else in Year 2 – outbursts, aggression, a teacher who couldn’t quite reach him anymore – it didn’t make sense. He was still the same boy at home. Nothing about him had changed. And yet everything, at school, had.
By Year 3, Sam was being removed from class most days. He changed teachers because the first one couldn’t manage him, and his classmates – understandably, if painfully – were growing tired of him.
Language that hurt other children, language no parent wants to hear repeated back to them, was becoming frequent. The complaints piled up. So did the shame. If you’ve sat in a meeting like that, dreading the phone ringing during the school day, you’ll know exactly the weight his parents were carrying.
This is where I came in. Working alongside the family, we secured an AuDHD (autism and ADHD) diagnosis, and Sam started medication.
What followed was a genuinely good Year 4. I supported the family and school through the transition, and Sam landed with a teacher who was calm, consistent and utterly predictable – the kind of steady presence that regulated a child who so badly needed one.
He thrived. Progress everywhere, at school and at home. By the end of the year, my involvement had naturally tailed off. He didn’t need me anymore. That, in this line of work, is the best kind of goodbye.
Year 5 told a different story. A fixed-term exclusion, again for language aimed at a peer, brought me back in.
But when I actually sat down with Sam, away from the incident and the fallout, the real picture emerged: he wasn’t being defiant, he was drowning. Routines had shifted, boundaries had softened, and the overwhelm had nowhere to go. The language wasn’t the problem – it was the smokescreen, a way of grabbing back some control when everything else felt unpredictable.
School refusal followed close behind, as it so often does when a child has run out of ways to cope.
We found him a place at a forest school alternative provision, three days a week. He came alive there. On those days, his family had their boy back – calm, engaged, himself.
As SATs approached, both school and family understandably wanted more classroom time, so we tapered it carefully: two days, then one, protecting what was working while making space for what mattered too.
Sam sat his SATs with reasonable adjustments in place, and did well. Genuinely well.
Then came the transition every SEND parent dreads most: secondary school.
I toured placements alongside Sam’s parents, so they had someone beside them who knew Sam, knew what to ask, and knew what a good answer actually sounded like.
We settled on a resource base attached to a mainstream secondary school. Today, Sam splits his week between the two on a hybrid timetable, and by every measure that matters, he’s thriving.
Sam’s story isn’t a straight line, and it was never going to be. Needs shift. Placements that work in Year 4 stop working in Year 5. Progress isn’t a graph that only goes up – it’s a family and a system staying alert enough to notice when something’s changed, and brave enough to act on it.
That’s the work I do at Inclusion First Education. If your family is somewhere in the middle of a story like Sam’s right now, I’d love to help you find the next chapter.
Find out more
Georgia Morris-Boyce offers a free 15-minute introductory call for parents who would like to talk through their child’s situation and explore what support might help.
For more information, email email hidden; JavaScript is required or visit inclusionfirsteducation.co.uk
