Posted By Jerry Sanderson Zoe, We recently had an identical situation and could only come up with the solutions you mention.We firstly advised the school to secure the classroom door to prevent the pupil running during normal classroom based activities.We suggested a thumb turn lock as our Fire Officers seem to prefer these to other forms of secondary locks. The school indicated that they did not have sufficient staff to supervise the pupil if he left the classroom with permission(eg.to go to the toilet).The only sensible option in that case then appeared to be to secure the external doors in a similar manner.The school were advised to check this out with the Fire Service first although there should not be an objection as they are happy with this method of securing external doors in Nurseries.The school were informed that if funding was an issue they should either use some of their devolved capital funding or make a bid to use some of their formula capital as health and safety issues are given high priority with this funding. We also discussed the problems relating to break and lunchtimes.The school were advised to secure as many of the entrances to the school as possible and where these could not be secured to try to ensure staff were appropriately sited to try to deter the pupil from running. Even with these precautions in place with a pupil who has a tendancy to run there is still the possibility that they will get out.We therefore discussed ensuring that the school had a plan in the event of the pupil escaping,that staff were familiar with it and it had been agreed with parents and any other parties who may be invoved.This was particularly important as this school was also near a main road and whilst the natural reaction may be to chase the pupil this was more likely to make him run across the road than summoning help from either the parents or police.This however clearly depends on the individual pupil and an assessment of the pupils likely behaviour using the knowledge of staff and parents would be needed. One final thought is whether there is any trigger to the pupils anger that then causes them to run.If by assessing the pupils behaviour over time a particular trigger can be identified that leads to this pattern of behaviour then appropriate action could be taken.This could be preventative to stop the behaviour or at least take the form of giving staff some training to recognise the signs that the pupil is about to run so they can take any appropriate action. I hope this has been of some use.If anyone else has any other solutions I to would be keen to hear them as this seems to be a recurring issue. Regards. Jerry.

Posted By Lance Morgan It is important I think to involve the child's parents in this. Does he exhibit this behaviour at home?. If so, what do they do?. Does the child require special needs in which case adequate supervision should be the way forward.