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Secondary education

How to help DD. PE and bullying.

2 replies

Smerch · 07/09/2016 14:05

Hi, this is long but i'll try to keep it as short as possible.

DD2 is 15 and has just started Year 11. She has always struggled socially, she is a bit of a tomboy but also a bit of a geek (her words) and is quiet and shy. Not an ideal scenario for fitting in amongst a predominantly girly and confident year group although she does have an excellent but small group of friends. Throughout her time at school she has had difficulties with a particular group of girls in her year group. We've had name calling, teasing about clothes and incidents of being tripped over in the corridor and in PE. Unfortunately these girls are clever and nothing is ever seen by teachers, general talks about behaviour are had and then things settle down for a period before starting up again. The main issues have been in PE lessons where she is frequently called fat and useless. DD is quite sporty but has gradually removed herself from all participation at school except for compulsory PE. Her confidence is wrecked because of these girls.

Before term started DD decided that she would just battle through the relatively small number of PE lessons until the end of the year, she is adamant she doesn't want teachers involved because she thinks it will make things worse. Unfortunately the main PE teacher is a stereotypically shouty type who openly favours and is 'matey' with the popular girls. DD is terrified of her but also I think idolises her as she is everything - popular, sporty and cool - that DD wants to be.

Things seemed to be going ok. 1st PE lesson on Friday and DD and her friends were allowed to go off and play football, this is her absolute favourite sport so she was pretty happy. Unfortunately the girls who are causing the problem decided yesterday to join in with football and proceeded to torment her. The group were unsupervised and DD and her friend walked away and went back to the changing room. They were hauled out by scary PE teacher half an hour later and given a very public dressing down. They have a lunch time detention tomorrow for truanting a lesson.

I have no problem with the punishment as such, although I'm frankly amazed that obsessive rule follower DD walked out of a lesson. This is her 1st ever detention. My question is what do I do now? She really doesn't want me speaking to her teacher and would prefer to take the punishment but I don't think we can let this go. These girls have made her school life miserable and now she's in trouble. Any tips for approaching the school and how I can help DD to speak up for herself more and/or survive the next 8 months?

Thanks for reading this far.

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ArmfulOfRoses · 07/09/2016 14:53

If they're upsetting her enough that she's given up things she loves and is walking out of lessons then you have to address this even though she is asking you not to, so good for you, it can almost seem like you're betraying them.

Jot down any specific incidents you can remember with rough dates if possible, clubs given up and why/when plus what she told you re her last lesson.

I think I'd ask for a meeting with pe teacher plus maybe head of year. Take notes.

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t4nut · 07/09/2016 16:11

I'd go beyond PE teacher (they're mostly useless bullies themselves) and start with head of year and move up rapidly. Get everything agreed in writing and get early, frequent and regular review points.

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