by Cathy Glass
‘Hello?’ I said.
‘Mrs Glass, it’s Betty Smith, the school secretary. We need you here now.’
My heart started to pound. ‘Why? What’s the matter? I’m in the supermarket.’
‘It’s Reece. He’s attacked another child and is now running round the school completely out of control. The head and the year head are trying to contain him now. Mr Fitzgerald says you must come straightaway. How long will you be?’
‘About twenty minutes,’ I said. I could hear the urgency in her voice.
‘I’ll tell him.’ She hung up.
I pushed the half-full trolley to one side of the aisle, hurriedly left the supermarket and ran to my car. Five minutes into the journey my mobile rang again.
I touched the button to put it on handsfree. ‘Yes?’
‘Are you on your way?’ It was the secretary again. I could hear panic now. ‘The head wants to know if you will be here soon. If not we will have to call the police. It’s not safe for the other children or staff.’
‘I’m driving now,’ I said. ‘I should be there in ten, fifteen minutes at the most. What’s happening? Where is Reece now?’
‘Somewhere in the school, out of control. We are clearing the building and taking all the other children on to the playing field for their own protection. You need to be quick. Come as soon as you can.’
‘I am,’ I said, nearly shouted. ‘Tell Reece I will be there soon.’ But she had hung up.
When I arrived, ten minutes later, the gate was unlocked and I could hear the children on the playing fields at the rear of the school. I ran in, hot and nearly faint with fear. The head was waiting for me in reception, his face stern and severe.
‘I’ve been in touch with Education,’ he said, immediately turning and leading the way through the ‘welcome’ door. ‘This can’t go on. The child is disturbed. It’s not safe for the other children, or the staff. I shall be writing a full report and I will send you a copy. I can’t discuss it all now, as I need to get the children back inside the school.’ He was walking quickly, a little way in front of me, talking as he went. The corridors were deserted. As we passed the classrooms I saw they were all deserted too. We stopped outside the quiet room and Mr Fitzgerald hesitated before going in.
‘He’s in here,’ he said, as though some dangerous animal had been contained within. ‘The head of year finally cornered him in the cloakroom and persuaded him in here.’
He pushed open the door and stood aside to let me go in first. Mrs Morrison, another TA, and his teacher, Miss Broom, their faces tight and anxious, stood in a semi-circle around Reece, who was seated at the small table in the centre of them, painting!
‘Why is he painting if he’s in trouble?’ I asked, unable to hide my annoyance. ‘I’ve only been ten minutes. The last time the secretary phoned he was running riot.’
‘I can’t go into all that now,’ the head snapped. ‘I’ll phone you later. Please get his coat and take him home. He is formally excluded for the rest of the term. What happens next term, I don’t know. I will need to speak to the director of education. But this can’t be allowed to happen again.’
With no detail about what Reece had done I couldn’t start to tell him off because I didn’t know where to begin, apart from which, it was obvious the head just wanted us out, and as quickly as possible. ‘I’ll phone you later,’ he said again. ‘And I’ll send you a copy of my report.’
‘Come on, Reece,’ I said. ‘We’re going home.’
‘I want to finish me picture,’ he said looking at me. The three staff members and the head looked at me too. I sensed they were watching me to see how I dealt with his refusal.
‘No. We need to go home straightaway. You’ve had a bad morning.’ It would have helped if I had known what the bad was, for clearly Reece had either forgotten or had no idea in the first place.
‘Have I, Cathy?’ he suddenly asked, very sad, and putting down his paintbrush. ‘Have I had a bad morning?’ He stood and, coming to my side, took hold of my hand. ‘I done well yesterday, didn’t I, Cathy, but done bad today?’ My heart went out to him. I wanted to hold him close and kiss him, despite whatever it was he had done.
The head took us straight to the cloakroom and stood waiting pointedly while Reece put on his coat. He then took us to the main gate and saw us out. I felt as though we were being escorted off the premises, which in a way we were.
As Reece and I walked towards the car I heard the whistle blow on the rear playing field, so I assumed the children would be going back into school to resume their lessons, which had been interrupted by whatever atrocity Reece had committed.
‘Reece, what happened?’ I asked in despair as soon as we were in the car. I hadn’t started the engine but had turned in my seat and was looking at him. ‘What did you do? What went wrong? You had a good day yesterday.’
‘I done well yesterday, Cathy,’ he said sadly.
‘I know, love, so what went wrong today?’
‘Somefing ‘appened. I’ve had a bad day, but Monday I done well.’
‘Reece, look at me, sweet.’ For his eyes were darting all over the place, as they used to when he had first come to me. ‘Reece, can you remember what happened this morning to make it a bad day?’
He thought for a moment. ‘No, Cathy, but it was bad. Monday I done well.’
I turned to the front and, with tears in my eyes, started the engine, and began the drive home. Reece sat in the back, quiet and subdued. Every so often I glanced at him in the rear-view mirror. I really didn’t know if he remembered what he had done or not, but he looked so very sad. I desperately wanted to make it all OK for him, but how?
It was a very different Reece from the one who had greeted Lucy and Paula at four o’clock the day before. ‘It’s not a done well day,’ he said quietly as they came in. ‘I can’t go to school tomorrow. I am bad.’
I took the girls to one side and told them what I knew and they were as shocked and puzzled as I was.
‘Do you really think he was that bad,’ Lucy asked, ‘or is the head overreacting?’
‘I don’t know. He cleared the school and was going to call the police, so it must have been pretty bad.’
‘Perhaps Reece is like Jekyll and Hyde,’ Paula said. ‘When he gets to school, he changes.’
‘That wasn’t a very helpful comment, was it, love?’ I said.
She shrugged. ‘Well, something’s happening to him, because he’s not like that here.’
‘I know, but what?’
The head phoned at nearly six o’clock and I was even more at a loss to understand what was happening to Reece at school. I’d asked the girls to keep Reece occupied in the living room so that I could talk without being overheard or interrupted and I took the call on the extension in my bedroom.
‘I’m afraid I can’t give you long, Mrs Glass,’ Mr Fitzgerald began. ‘I’m due at a board of governors’ social in an hour. I have spoken to the director of education this afternoon. He has said Reece must return to school on Tuesday 18 April, which is the first day of next term, after a reintegration meeting. I have been advised that I will need to bring in the educational psychologist to reassess Reece. Then I will have to call a meeting to review his statement. Both of which I will set in motion on my return from the Easter break. That is the only way to have him permanently removed from this school. I shall send you a copy of my report detailing the incidents in school to date.
‘Oh, I …’
‘This morning’s incident was by far the worst,’ he continued without breath. ‘Reece pinned a child against a wall and when the head of year went to intervene, Reece punched him. Then he ran berserk around the school, kicking and punching everyone and everything he came into contact with. At least ten children received a thump as a result. We also have a broken door and a smashed window. I have spent all afternoon phoning parents, apologizing and trying to explain. That child is disturbed, Mrs Glass, and looking at the reports from his previous schools, his
behaviour is exactly as it was then.’
He stopped. I didn’t know what to say. I heard his challenge to my claim that Reece was good at home, and I could understand it, for clearly the child he was describing was completely at odds with the one we saw at home.
‘Was there a trigger to Reece’s behaviour?’ I asked lamely. I wondered if something had sparked his behaviour — not that it would have mitigated what he’d done, but it might have offered a clue in helping me understand it, and thereby help Reece.
‘No. None,’ he said flatly. ‘Reece was walking down the corridor with Mrs Morrison when he leapt at a boy who was passing and pinned him against the wall. The boy is in the year above Reece and big for his age, so you can tell the strength Reece had in him. Reece said the boy was laughing at him but the boy denied it. As I said, Reece then took off round the school, out of control.’
Supposing the boy had provoked Reece by laughing at him? I thought but didn’t say, for really that was no excuse. I could only repeat what I knew. ‘I’m sorry. He doesn’t behave like that here.’
‘No. Well, count yourself lucky. It was extremely frightening for us all.’
And in the ‘us all’ I felt the school closing ranks and shutting out this demon intruder — us and him.
‘Although Reece has to return to school next term, following the reintegration meeting,’ the head continued, ‘I shall not be allowing him in the classroom for some considerable time, if ever. He will be taught separately from his class by his TA. The other children are frightened of him now, and the parents of the children he harmed have expressed concerns about their children’s future safety. I have reassured them that Reece will not come into contact with their children, not in the classroom, not in the corridor and not in the playground.’
‘You’re not letting him in the playground?’ I asked in disbelief.
‘Not while the other children are there, no. He will be able to have some fresh air after they have come in. I’m sorry, Mrs Glass, but you didn’t witness what we did. If you had, you wouldn’t be so sympathetic to Reece’s case. Now, I have to go. I’ll email you a copy of my report.’ I couldn’t bring myself to say thank you. ‘And would you explain to Reece the new arrangements, please? I don’t want a scene on the first day back. Goodbye, Mrs Glass.’
‘Goodbye,’ I said. The line went dead and part of me felt dead too.
Chapter Fourteen:
Seaside Escape
The following day, Wednesday, which should have been a school day, I reverted to the routine I had used before Reece had started school. I got out the work sheets that I had only just packed away, we did some reading, writing and number work, and then we went for a walk by our local lake. I had tried to talk to Reece about what had happened at school, using the details the head had given me, but Reece just kept saying, ‘I’m sorry, I done a bad day,’ followed by: ‘I will say sorry, won’t I, Cathy?’ I nodded, but thought, to whom? From what the head had told me, it wasn’t just the boy he had pinned against the wall who needed the apology, nor the head of year whom Reece had punched, but also ten other children whom Reece had come across and attacked at random. Again I struggled to equate the child who was now feeding the ducks on the lake with the one who had run riot in school.
The head’s emailed report arrived in my inbox on Thursday morning and I printed it out and read it straightaway, even before Reece was up. My concerns grew with each paragraph, for the head had described in great detail all the incidents, including the quite minor ones when Reece had become overexcited in music and in the playground, both of which I thought had been dealt with, and more or less forgotten. His grabbing Mrs Morrison’s breast and putting his hand up the girl’s skirt in the canteen were, he said, further evidence of why Reece shouldn’t be in a mainstream school. His report culminated with Reece’s attack on the boy in the corridor. In graphic detail he described how he had ‘viciously pinned the boy to the wall in a completely unprovoked attack’ before ‘running berserk’ through the school. Set down like this, it certainly did appear that the child he described was so disturbed and such a danger to other children and adults that he should be removed not only from his class and that school but also from society at large.
I was mortified by the time I came to the end of the head’s report, and at a complete loss to know what to do or say to Reece. I was also aware that any chance Reece had been given to prove himself as a reformed character at school had now been dashed. He had fulfilled all the head’s expectations based on the previous schools’ reports, and if he did permanently exclude him part of me felt it would be a good thing. For it would be virtually impossible for Reece to lose the tag of a disturbed and dangerous child, as the head and the rest of the school now perceived him to be.
When Wendy Payne, the Guardian ad Litem, arrived, as arranged, at eleven o’clock that morning, I handed her the head’s report to read while I made her coffee. It was a lovely warm April day and I had the French windows open in the living room. Reece was playing on the swings in the garden. Wendy Payne, casually but smartly dressed in trousers and a white open-neck shirt, seemed approachable as well as efficient. She sat in the living room and read the head’s report, keeping an eye on Reece in the garden, while I made coffee. When I carried the tray of coffee and biscuits through she was just finishing the last of the report’s six pages.
‘Absolutely dreadful!’ she exclaimed, not looking up from the page, as I entered. By that I thought she meant Reece was absolutely dreadful. I was about to defend him by explaining that he wasn’t like that at home, when she continued, ‘Clearly the head didn’t want him there in the first place. Unfortunately Reece has played right into his hands.’
I passed her the coffee and sat on the sofa, relieved, and surprised to find this sudden ally. ‘But why is he behaving like this at school?’ I asked in desperation. ‘It is pretty atrocious stuff. He’s never like that at home.’
‘You’ve seen his family,’ Wendy said. ‘I don’t doubt Reece has seen his mother act like that — pinning people up against walls, punching them, and screaming and shouting. One report I have read details an attack by Tracey on a teacher in front of Reece at his previous school. Reece is copying his mother. It is learned behaviour, and let’s face it, three months here isn’t going to blot out all that.’ Her words were like a breath of fresh air to me. I passed her the plate of chocolate biscuits and could have kissed her feet.
‘But why isn’t he behaving like that with us then? If he is reverting to learned behaviour?’
‘Because he trusts you, Cathy. You have invested a lot of time and effort in building up that trust, and managing his behaviour. What strategies have the school put in place for managing Reece’s behaviour? They had all the previous school reports and his statement of special educational needs. Have they drawn up a behavioural management plan?’
‘I don’t think so. I’m not aware of it.’
‘Exactly. The head made it quite clear at the start he didn’t want a child with Reece’s high level of needs in his school. He was forced into taking him, so he palmed him off on a TA, who is doubtless very nice and is probably an ex-dinner lady who is used to giving extra help with reading.’
I smiled, and the relief I felt was enormous. ‘Yes, that’s exactly Mrs Morrison.’
‘The head must put something in place to manage Reece’s behaviour or else he is on a hiding to nothing. And what about his IEP?’ She was referring to the individual education plan that all special needs children have. ‘Have you seen that yet?’
‘No.’
Ask to see a copy. Because one thing is for certain: the head won’t be excluding Reece permanently very easily. He is a looked-after child, and he must be in school. It’s policy to have all looked-after children in school quickly. Bearing in mind it took over three months to find Reece this school place, the education department won’t be looking for another in a hurry, which is what Mr Fitzgerald will have been told.’
‘I wondered wh
y Reece was being allowed back into school next term,’ I said. ‘That explains it.’
Wendy nodded. ‘It is possible that in the end we decide that Reece’s needs would best be met in a special school, but that’s for the special needs panel to decide once the educational psychologist has reassessed him, not the head. In the meantime the head needs to invest a bit more in managing Reece’s behaviour instead of demonizing him.’ I couldn’t have put it better myself! ‘When you have a date for the meeting to review his education statement, let me know and I will attend,’ Wendy said. ‘Actually I’ll make contact with the head myself. I need to be included in the loop. He can email his reports direct to me.’
‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘That would be terrific. I’ve been feeling as if I have been fighting a lone battle here.’
‘I take it that Jamey Hogg hasn’t been too proactive in this?’ she said.
Again I was surprised by her directness. ‘Well, no, I keep him informed but he seems very busy with other cases.’
‘Busy with his divorce,’ she said. ‘I’ve left him three telephone messages to call me, and emailed him twice. I haven’t had a reply to any of them. Jamey will need to pull his finger out, and pretty smartly. I know it’s a complicated case but we’re in court for the final hearing in September, and all the reports need to be in by the end of July — which isn’t that far away.’
Reece bounded in from the garden, ready for a drink and a snack. He was in such good form that I felt it reinforced what I was saying about him — not that Wendy needed any convincing. She was excellent, and had hit the nail on the head in her appraisal of the school and what was happening to Reece there. She spent some time talking to Reece and then played a high-spirited game of Snap.
When he returned to play in the garden Wendy continued to discuss the case. She said there was no chance of Reece (or Susie) being returned to their parents’ care, but that the aunt who was looking after his half-sister Lisa was considering offering to look after Reece too. Wendy said she would be visiting the aunt in due course, and that if the aunt did feel she could look after Reece then she would be assessed as to her suitability. I was sad to think that Reece might eventually be leaving us, but as a foster carer I have to accept this, difficult though it is.