Bullying messages... WWYD?

[PenguinBear]

Nasty messages written on a toilet wall? Including comments Wishing she was dead and should kill herself.

This is so disgusting, we are fuming. She is a popular girl and has never experienced bullying of any kind before this. No-one is unkind to her face but a few messages have been written on the toilet wall.

The no1 suspect was off today when an additional incident occurred, which rules her out.

School don't seem too worried and have said they think it was just a 'joke'. It is certainly not a joke having a dc terrified to go anywhere alone as she thinks someone wants her dead.

Head has been copied in to all Communications but at the moment they are 'investigating'. I personally think they should tell all the children that the police will be involved to scare them and get someone to confess.

Advice please, WWYD?

[Muminwestlondon]

If you haven't done so already, I would have a face to face with the Head or his/her deputy and explain how seriously you view the incident and how worried your daughter is. If it is a one off and they genuinely don't know who it is, perhaps they can do a general session for the students about bullying and how upsetting it is to be on the receiving end. Also a message about damaging school property and forensic handwriting analysis might be in order.

I would not report it to the police personally unless the school think they should. Personally I was advised by my DC's school to report an incident to the police, but that involved an adult impersonating a child on Facebook and harassing my DC outside of school.

[burntoutdad]

This needs to be dealt with before it gets anychance of getting out of hand. It is considered as bullying(wether the child involved is adversly affected by it or not) and should be stamped out by the school.
As muminwestlondon as said you should talk to the head, but more importantly write explaining exactly what has happened, how DD feels and asking what they are going to do about it. In your letter you should specifically ask for a copy of the school bullying policy (which all schools should have by law) and how it is being adhered to in this instance. Explain that if any further behaviour or incidence of this kind happens without investigation that subsequent letters will be copied to the L.E.A.

This should galvanise them into action and get them to take your complaint seriously. We had a similar issue with 'bullying' although to anyone else it would have been considered as boisterous banter, to our sensitve DC it was quite worrying. The school only acted when we started asking about thier implementation of thier own bullying policy.