Bullying

[Charlieandthechocolatecake]

My DS who is 6 is being bullied by another boy in his class. Countless times he has come home from school with the back of his coat covered in mud from where this little shit has pushed him over. We now have to alternate coats each day so that I can wash them.

DS started his new school in January. His teacher has assured me that the problem is being dealt with but it's over 3 months now and most mornings I have to prise him off of the school gates and leave him with a teacher who will take him into his class.

I can literally hear him screaming and calling for me as I walk away. I am sick of crying on my way home.

It's affecting my realtionshio with him too as I am leaving him in a place where he's not protected.

DS already has issues concentrating in class (July born) but I feel as though this is a separate issue.

I have tried my best to separate the 2 issues but his new school don't believe that his concentration problems and the bullying are separate issues.

One of my concerns is that we live in a small town and both DS and his bully are the only black children in their class.

DS is a lovely boy. He is extremely intelligent for his age and his teacher has said that he gets bored when being taught something he already knows.

All that said, I feel like I have to speak to the bullys mum. I feel like I need to tell her to tell her son not to even breathe in my son's direction.

This is so embarrassing.

I'm sorry

[Magicpaintbrush]

That's awful - it must be really hard to have to walk away and leave him at school when he is so distressed. I understand how hard it is when it affects your relationship with your child because you are legally bound to take him to school and he doesn't understand that.

Have you spoken to the head teacher as well as his class teacher? I think they need to get the parents of the bully involved (if they haven't already) to do something about their child's behaviour.

Is the school one class per year or could they move your child to a different class in the same year group (not that he should have to move).

I realise that he has only just started at the school but what other options do you have locally in terms of what schools are available? It might be worth moving him again if it helps him?

[Charlieandthechocolatecake]

Thank you Magic, We are in constant contact the both his teacher and the head teacher.

They have put things into place which means DS can go to 'chill club's at lunch time to avoid LS (little shit).

I believe they have spoken to the parents but from what I can tell, the parents have no plan on doing anything.

There are 2 classes per year and DS took the last place in January when we moved so there's no chance that he can change class.

We are considering taking him out of there, a colleague of mine has told me she has taken her son out of the same school due to bullying.

What really upsets me is that LS is targeting DS because they are the same colour.

[Magicpaintbrush]

That is a really weird reason for the bully to be picking your son - but I guess there are no good reasons for bullying and if a child has it within them to be a bully they will do it anyway.

It doesn't sound like the school has a great track record with bullying. Do you know what consequences they are giving to the child who is bullying your son (if any) - whatever they are they clearly aren't working. What is their discipline system? They need to give the child some kind of consequence that will make him stop and think twice before he acts.

[soisolated]

Have you spoken to the board of governors? Any racial bullying is taken very seriously by offsted, schools have to log incidents. The bullying needs to be addressed, your poor boy and you. The school has a duty of care to keep him safe. They may say they can't move kids about but they can if there are serious issues and it's not about creating a new place. While school may not advise talking to parents, I think I might have to in your situation. Your ds shouldn't be the one separated to protect him,hope you can sort it out

[Mistlewoeandwhine]

Don’t take your child to school where he is not safe. Just don’t. Refuse to send him in until they can guarantee he won’t be assaulted. Would you want to go to work every day knowing someone would attack you?

[Mistlewoeandwhine]

Oh and if the school are ineffectual, report the bully to the police.

[Charlieandthechocolatecake]

I told the teacher that took him in at the school gates that I'm not happy to send him in knowing he's not protected from LS. I also told her that I am happy to home school him until we can find a decent school that doesn't tolerate bullying.

I know it seems strange that I'm making it a racial thing but DS's teacher had told me LS is only bullying DS.

DS has told me that LS has said he wants to be the only black boy in the class.

DS is mixed race. He has been brought up with a very mixed family on both sides racial wise.

I'm getting to school early today to speak to LS's mum. I know they're only 6 but I will tell her that if it carries on I will report it to the police.

Thank you souch for your advice so far.

DS has been begging me to make back to Bristol so that he can go to his old school and be next door to his old neighbours (good friends of ours).

I've even spoken to DP about moving back.

One of the reasons we moved here is because we want to take our black children away from anywhere where knife crime is an issue.

I can't believe we've got here and the issue we have is with another black child!

[Thurmanmurman]

What would the police do about a 6 year old bully? Genuinely curious.

[LannieDuck]

Wow, yes if talking to the school hasn't worked, I would definitely talk to the parents.

I don't know what I would do in your place, but I'm not sure I could make him go into school when he's so unhappy there. Would the teachers let you or your partner sit quietly at the back of class one day and observe? Not sure if safeguarding would allow that tho, and may not be the same issues while you're there.

Do they have an official bullying policy? Are they following it?

[BitchQueen90]

I know it's not a popular opinion on MN but I'm the type of person that would be straight to the parents to be telling them what's going on. From what I see and read schools don't often deal with bullying properly.

[Tamalpais]

How is confronting the mother going to help? She's not there during school hours. She can't stop her son if she's not there. The most she can do is have a word with him, and at six I don't think that's going to make a difference. The problem here is the SCHOOL.

You have the right to deregister your son and home educate him. Or look into signing him off sick (with GP backup). The latter will prompt the school to act more quickly, because OFSTED rates them on attendance.

I deregistered my son and home educated him for most of a year. Got him on the waiting list for a different local school. Was a really good choice for us. Similar issue - violence on school grounds. He was coming out with "accident reports" every day from where another kid hurt him.

But really, confronting the mother isn't going to do anything and might actually make things worse. I don't understand why anyone does this to other parents for issues that happen during school time. What do you expect them to do, go in and sit with Little Johnny in the classroom? Pull them out of school? The cold reality is that the government is not funding schools properly, especially SEN. Getting a 1 to 1 aide? Hahaha. Getting an ECHP? Like pulling teeth, and the council will fight back on issuing one because they don't want to/can't spend the money. Your LS bullyboy might have special needs, or he might have shit parents - or both.

Either way it's up to the school to manage him during school hours.

[LannieDuck]

...because his parents are ultimately responsible for their child's behaviour? ...because if my 6yo was pushing another child over at school every day i'd sure as hell want to know about it. ...because I would go and speak to the teachers and work out how to tackle his behaviour in partnership with the school.

When my DD2 started to hit kids at nursery, i didn't say "Oh, it's nursery's problem". Instead me and DH had a very serious conversation with her (she was only 3, but she understood she was doing something naughty), and the teachers started letting us know at the end of every day if she'd been good or not. We would celebrate the good and she loved it and her behaviour changed almost immediately. She maybe hit once more, and then we had another conversation with her. It didn't take more than that.

At 6yo, the behaviour is learnt from somewhere, and home life is a huge influence. My concern wouldn't be that the parents won't be able to do anything about it, but that the parents won't care. That's very possible :(

[b0bb1n]

Your poor little boy :( And poor you, I can't imagine having go through the ordeal of having to drop him off and walk away when he's crying for you :( I'm afraid I don't really have any practical advice as I don't have a school child yet (39 weeks +3 with first!) but I definitely think speaking to his mum is a good idea. If she's a decent mother she should then discipline her son until he learns bulling is unacceptable. What a brat, I'd be fuming.

[ColdTattyWaitingForSummer]

I think if home schooling is an option for you (even if only temporarily) then I would get your wee one out of the school and do that. My ds2 was badly bullied in school and that’s what I did. Initially it was to keep him safe while we looked at the options; could we work with the school to deal with the bullying? Would changing schools work? But in the end we loved home ed, and three years later it’s a way of life for us. It’s taken a long time for him to recover from the bullying (to be honest it still affects him in some ways), so I’d say the sooner the better in terms of minimising the trauma.
So many schools seem to be rubbish in terms of dealing with bullying sadly.

[PlainSpeakingStraightTalking]

School issues should remain dealt with by the school - you end up dragging it out into the playground and wider community, fuelling confrontation and popularity contests. These things have potential to get very nasty if the parents live on the same estate, if one is some what more confrontational than the other - that's when the police get involved, when one mum has decked another.

Of course both sets of parents should know, but unless the school is actively managing some extended restorative practices, and everyone is in the same room this has the potential for adults to escalate the situation.

Parent A will not be told what Parent B thinks/says/does, neither will Parent A be told what interventions are put in place for child B. Parent A will only be told about Child A

ALL schools have bullying, some are more effective at dealing with it than others