Mumsnet Talk

I agree with yfronts. Head, copied to teacher.

ask to see their anti bullying policy too. If you have no luck with the head, move on to the govnors. You can't skip the Head.

write to the Head and copy in the teacher - not the other way around. You know the teacher isn't sorting it out. Put it all in writing. Write a list of incidents.

We keep ours in the first aid bags along with the accident books. Sometimes a child would be upset at lunchtime for no apparent reason, we would pass things like that to the teacher as well. Also, as we would change where we were from day to day, the first thing we would do is read the incident book from the last day or two to see what's been happening.
Sorry, don't mean to waffle but domething like this should be known to someone or at the very least logged

minnisota That sounds like a good system. I wouldn't be bothered if these were isolated incidents but when they happen every lunchtime I would expect them to be picked up on. There seems to be no communication system in place at my DS's school but I will ask in the office and see whether there is actually an incident book.

Until recently i was working as lunchtime staff. All incidents were logged in an incident book which was read by the deputy head, this was to see if any patterns were emerging with the same children. We did speak to the teachers at the end of lunch to tell them of any incidents above the norm. These would then be dealt with by the teacher.

Take it to the head.

Class teachers and lunch staff often have no time to communicate, but the head has to communicate with all the staff.

Thank you all for your advice. I am going to write to the teacher outlining all the problems and copy in the head of KS2 and the head mistress. Will see if there is any improvement - if not, I will write to the governors. Although I would class the attacks as bullying I am loathe to call it that to my DS as I don't want the situation to get out of hand.
Thanks again.

Merry

That's true too. Bullying is situational and takes place in social groups. Parents can punish, explain etc, but the school needs to tackle it. Some children have no idea what they are doing is bullying until it is named by the school as such. And hopefully the school is also in a position to tackle the reasons it is happening, for the benefit of everyone.

Where is the bullying taking place? In ks2, because of their duty of care, the school need to be on top of this and if necessary have adults monitoring what these children are doing.

Apart from anything else, without being on site there isn't much the other parents can do to manage the situation.

Jeeps

The school is capable of stopping it, if it tries. If it does not then i would take your child away. I see it as black and white as that. Pleanty of schools deal with bullying when it occurs, successfully.

lljkk sorry to hear about your DS. Was there anything in particular that you did to stop the bullying? What did you find worked?
I am fairly realistic about my DS - if he is attacked I am sure he will fight his corner but I don't think he would ever be the attacker.

Some children do not have it in them to retaliate physically, even if we think it might solve the problem. Nor should we expect them to.

Never talk to the parent about a problem.
Always let the school deal with it.
Very good advice i was given at the start of reception.

DS was suicidal from daily bullying. But he still gave back as hard as he could (as he got).

It's difficult, though, if they don't see it.

For them to act, they need to see it, not for him to tell them.

Can you teach him to speak up loudly "don't hit me I don't like it" in such a way that an adult will see what is happening?

Because to be fair, dinner ladies spend a lot of time listening to "he says, she says" and "he/she is being mean to me" type comments. And a lot of the time the complainers are doing just that - complaining, with no particular damage being done to anyone.

If your son is being hurt, he needs to make sure someone sees it happen.

If the teacher isn't doing anything, take it to the Head. Then the Board of Governors if the Head doesn't sort the problem. After that it would be the Council. Make sure you keep copies of any letters/emails that are sent & received.

I wouldn't talk to the parents personally because i feel it could just get into a slanging match and wouldn't solve the problem. As others have said, parents rarely want to believe their children are capable of such things.

lljkk guessing that you or your children have never been victims of bullying, if that is your attitude.

Put it in writing to the head and ask for a response in writing. Keep a paper trail until it is sorted. If it's still not sorted to your satisfaction, show the paper trail to the governors and LEA (or threaten to from the start).

Put it in writing to the head. Then if it isn't dealt with, put it in writing to the governors. If they still fail to deal with it, go to the LEA, in writing again.

they deff byt if their slack to admit bullying they may not in this case.

I would deff still talk to the school to, what have they said they are doing?

Jeeps.

That is another matter you need to raise with the head. Teachers rarely see bulliyng, because it happens elsewhere than the classroom.

Jamie I doubt they have spoken to the parents yet but I know they have spoken to the children involved.

How do you want them to punish the attackers, then? You need to be clear on what outcome you want.

I would be mildly surprised if your son isn't giving as good as he gets.

There also appears to be absolutely no communication between the dinner ladies and the class teachers. His class teacher never seems to know about anything that has gone on at lunch time.