A mum has expressed her grave concerns that her son, who has complex challenging behavioural issues, has been allowed to make a ‘shank’ at school. Kez Murray was left stunned to discover that her eight-year-old boy had been taught to whittle a piece of wood into a nasty looking ‘knife’ 16 centimetres long (6.2 inches) especially considering his mental health and behavioural problems which can lead to bouts of violence and aggression.
The mum who lives in St Columb Major between Wadebridge and Newquay, with her husband Robert and their son was at a loss when her boy returned from forest school across the road from St Columb Major Academy where he is a pupil with the sharpened stake in his pocket and proudly told her he had made a knife at school.
Kez, who did not want her son’s full name to be known but was happy for us to refer to him as BM, said: “He’s pulled scissors on teachers before. He’s held a ruler to one of his one-to-one worker’s throat like a knife before and even put her in hospital after punching her. He has a very challenging behaviour and something as trivial as losing the lid of his lunchbox can be a trigger to some violence.
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“While forest school is great and teaching children how to whittle and use a penknife safely is fine, why did the teachers let BM make a shank. The children had the choice of making a little wooden table for insects which he did too, or a wand. But to allow him to make a knife as he called it. I don’t understand.
“I spoke to the headteacher about this. They’ve lost control of him and that’s what concerns us.”
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According to the dictionary, a shank or shiv, is any crude weapon used as a knife which can be made from anything from broken glass, plastic, metal or a sharpened piece of wood.
Full-time mum Kez said there is a special education plan in place for BM at the school which acknowledges that his behaviour in class can be “challenging and non-compliant and he has got very angry and hurt others.”
She said she regularly has chats with other parents after her son has threatened their children or behaved in a distressing fashion. BM requires to have an adult with him almost at all times and can have up to nine one-to-one teaching sessions with a specially trained SENCO member of staff.
“When BM is at home I have a completely different boy. I can be very firm with him which is something they’re not doing at the school. They don’t ever say no to him for fear he’ll get angry and violent. They just can’t cope very well and that’s not good either for BM or for the other kids.”
She added that while the school has been supportive in Kez and Robert’s efforts for a proper mental health and behaviour assessment of BM to be made and a more appropriate support package to be found for the lad, it’s taking years and nothing has happened yet. As of today, Kez and Robert still don’t know if the boy has ADHD, or a form of Pathological Demand Avoidance which another form of autism.
“I’m not even allowed to home educate BM because there is a plan in place for him at the school when I’d be more than happy to do that. We’re in the hands of CAMHS (Cornwall’s child and adolescent mental health services). There doesn’t seem to be any support for children like BM. We keep being pushed from pillar to post and hope for the best. It’s tiring and frustrating.”
We have asked St Columb Major Academy to comment on why BM was allowed to create a so called ‘shank’. Marie Taylor, the headteacher of the school, said they that were working closely with the family.
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