A 12-year-old boy was left hospitalised with concussion after he was punched in the head by another pupil at school. Louise Randall said her son, who has asked to be anonymous, was punched so hard at the end of a science lesson on September 23 last year that he was left slurring words, unable to hold a conversation, and drifting in and out of consciousness.
The boy, who is autistic, was routinely bullied at Ysgol Bae Baglan in Port Talbot including being held by his throat, slapped, and punched in the stomach, his mother claimed. On one occasion she said her son’s shoes were taken from him. She alleged he was then headbutted when he tried to retrieve them.
It isn't the first time a parent of a pupil has contacted WalesOnline regarding their child being punched while on the school premises at Ysgol Bae Baglan. A video emerged in 2022 showing another boy at the school being punched repeatedly to the head.
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“He’d ring me in school distressed and he’d locked himself in the bathroom and I’d tell him to stay there and ring a member of staff,” Louise said of her son's daily struggle at the school. “He had a room he could go to if he was feeling overwhelmed. But it felt like nowhere was safe for him in the end.
“For example the most recent incident after which I took him out of the school happened in a classroom full of pupils and two staff members were present. The boy had started saying to my son that he wanted to beat him up and he’d get others to come and beat him up. My son was trying his best to ignore him but when he got up he shoved my son, who then asked why he did that, and he punched my son so hard I’ve got a picture on my phone of the side of his jaw, eye socket, and cheek that is bruised and he was left with concussion.
“The teachers took 20 minutes to inform me that he had a significant head injury. By the time I got to him he was struggling to walk, slurring words, and really struggling to hold a conversation. He was also nauseous, had a bad headache, and was having difficulty in staying alert and awake. No ambulance was called by the school and only a cold compress was administered. I was really trying my hardest to keep him awake in hospital and when they called him to triage they were so concerned they transferred him to Swansea where he was for six hours.” Try WalesOnline Premium for FREE by clicking here for no ads, fun puzzles and brilliant new features.
Louise said the incident in September was the “final straw” when she felt she had to withdraw her child from the school despite him having nowhere else to go. Louise, a full-time carer, has been homeschooling him for more than four months, which she said "has provided its own challenges for me and my son to overcome".
It isn't uncommon in the UK for parents to feel they have little choice but to withdraw their children with additional learning needs (ALN) from school. Parents of children with ALN have banded together with a petition telling the Welsh Government that the education system in Wales needs to change in order to better support young people with ALN with a focus on individually-tailored development plans known as IDPs.
ALN Reform Wales, a campaign group made up of parents including Louise, held a peaceful protest last year outside the Senedd. Some of the parents spoke about how they had also decided to take their children out of school. An organisation that supports them told ITV Wales last year it "hears at least once a week that someone has either taken their child out of a Welsh-medium school or is considering taking them out".
The teaching union NEU Cymru said the Additional Learning Needs Code, introduced in 2021, was not working. More than 15,000 people have signed a petition calling for more funding and training for staff. The petition closed in January and it will now be discussed by the Petitions Committee.
“I told the head and the assistant head that he won’t be returning to the school until the child who hit him is removed,” Louise said. “That child still goes to school. He had a week’s exclusion and was back before the conclusion of the investigation. I’ve finally now had enough and removed my son from the school register. I had tried my best to keep my son there. He wanted to attend school with his friends and work alongside the school to rectify the matters. My son wasn't asking for a lot – he wanted to be able to socialise with friends and do his lessons in peace. I tried my best with keeping constant communication with the school but in the end it went to a stage three meeting.
“I met the head in front of the committee for school complaints and an action plan was put in place to help him with his safety at the school but there was nothing new and I left the meeting totally unconvinced anything was going to change. Instead they heightened my worries by not being able to answer questions during the meting about the best way to progress with the situation should he return. It smacked of teachers being too scared to discipline pupils.” WalesOnline has seen a letter addressed to Louise from head teacher Richard Rees. The letter tells Louise that the committee concluded that “the school adhered to all current local authority policies”.
Sickening video footage below from 2022 shows another boy at the school being punched repeatedly to the head:
Louise’s son had told staff that he was “struggling” to focus at school because of the bullying. The school had put certain things in place and the boy had a one-to-one staff member he could talk to, as well as a room within the school where he could take time out and have privacy, but the bullying continued. “When he was getting home he was so frustrated because it had got to the point he felt he couldn’t keep going and yet he wanted to be at school," Louise said. "He would say to me: ‘Mam, I may not like school but I understand I need to go in order to get by for myself when I’m older.'
“He was going into school and putting on a brave face and trying to stand up to people bullying him – not physically but verbally telling them to leave him alone. But it got to the point he felt it didn’t matter what he did or said – he couldn’t stop it. It was constant and it was allowed to happen.”
Ysgol Bae Baglan is a super-school with more than a thousand pupils from primary to secondary years. “I’ve reluctantly decided that I need to share this story to show what happened to my son and how it wasn’t taken seriously at such an established school,” Louise added. "The whole situation and the stresses of having to change school have had a very negative impact on his mental health which we've spent years getting him to a better place with. He's been denied a right to a proper education by them not being able to provide a safe environment for him to do so. As a mum I can't allow him to return while the school is run as it is and disciplinary action is so lenient."
School head teacher Mr Rees said: “The wellbeing of our pupils at Ysgol Bae Baglan is one of our top priorities and in fact it is the strength of our school. The school does not wish to identify the child because of the child’s young age but can confirm an incident involving the child last September following which prompt, appropriate action was taken against a fellow pupil. The other alleged incidents which led to complaints from the child’s mother were examined carefully by the school’s governing body but none of the complaints were upheld. The school’s safeguarding procedures adhere strictly to guidance from the Welsh Government and local safeguarding board.”
