violence against girls in primary school

This is horrendous. Talk to the Head. If they take no action, send her to a different school!

Is there any school out there that actually tackles bullying and peer-on-peer abuse properly without gaslighting the victims with insulting, meaningless buzzwords and flat-out denying that it exists? First, the nasty child bullies the victim; then the school doubles down and bullies them again.

I'd email the headteacher (so you have a 'paper' trail) and ask him/her: "If a member of your teaching or other staff punched you in the face from behind, grabbed you around the neck and tore your clothes, knocked you to the ground, or pinned you up against a wall and put their hands put around your neck, how would you deal with this 'friendship issue'?"

Unless they come back to you contrite, furious on your behalf and determined to act, take it to as many people as you can think of and tell them what the school's clear response is to violence. Send the head a second email to tell them what you're going to do. LEA, OFSTED, your MP, police. Local papers and SM groups can also help, as bad publicity spreads like wildfire. Once the Anytown Gazette gets hold of the story of Littleton School's problems with violent bullying that they can't/won't address, it will stay on their website forever and come up every time a potential new parent Googles the school name with 'bullying'.

Also, if you feel the need to do so, inform them in writing that you will be keeping your DD off school until they can demonstrate that they have now made changes to guarantee her safety whilst under their care. They will get frantic about the impact on their attendance records and talk about fining you etc.

Again, tell them that you realise the importance of attendance and that you very much don't want your DD to be robbed of her right to education, but her safety and wellbeing are the top priority and, again, you are very willing to discuss the whole situation, the dangerous school setting and the changes that need to be made in order to provide her with a safe place to learn with any authorities that wish to meet with you about it.

You absolutely shouldn't have to do this yourself, as they have shamelessly betrayed you and summarily failed in their duty to you and to your DD; but if they see that they can either deal with you OR deal with you plus people and bodies that have authority over them and widespread publicity, they might just spring into action. Sadly, you have to make it their problem, with negative consequences for them - as they couldn't care less when it's only a problem for you and your DD.

ETA: x-posted with FofB (I got distracted whilst typing)

Dds school are being very proactive. The vast majority of the boys are decent. The group making disgusting remarks to girls on an ongoing basis / ranking them / beating up as a group individual boys that challenge them need to be severely dealt with. No excuse.

I emailed the school.

I used 2 phrases-

1. I would like you to explain what measures you are putting in place to keep my daughter safe while she is in your care
2. I consider this to be a safeguarding issue- can you confirm that this has been noted and what procedures have begun?

I won't type it all out with what happened- but essentially, my child was cornered, hurt and then the boy said that she needed to be punished.

So it was safeguarding from both sides- she needed to be kept safe and obviously, there was something going on for the boy to say something like that.

Once there is a paper trail, things seem to start happening.

I also spent LOADS of time working with my daughter (who was also very tiny) making sure she felt brave enough to shout out NO- or DONT DO THAT. I mean, actually just shout out- not wait until she could tell a teacher- but shout loudly straight away. Once this child realised that 'other people' were looking, he stopped going near her.

There was one particular boy in my dd's class in primary who was a nightmare all the way through school from nursery.

The incidents of him hurting other children got worse and worse and the school always said they were dealing with it but he just missed a playtime or 5 minutes of his lunch break. Nothing changed.

There was a period of a couple of weeks in primary where my dd, who is a tough cookie and usually well able to stick up for herself came home crying and covered in mud because of him and I flipped out. I marched her straight to the headteacher to show him what the boy had done and he asked my dd if she'd said something to upset him!

So I went home and read all the schools behaviour policies and then used the complaints form to make a formal complaint to the school and governors pointing out all the ways that the school were failing their own policies.
They asked me in for a meeting and I pointed out how his behaviour was escalating and that whatever they were doing it wasn't helping and asked them how far he had to go before they would take proper action.
After that they put in a lot of new strategies to deal with him and keep the other pupils safe.

I encourage you to do the same thing OP about the behaviour of the boys in your dd's school and keep escalating it if they don't take it seriously. The way they are dealing with it is not good enough.

Honestly, it shouldn’t , because that’s how you end up with older boys thinking this is ok.

Because at 5, they’re small,cute and “innocent “. They don’t know what they’re saying or doing, but no one actually bothers to properly pull them up on it or explain the seriousness of it all or that they broke a boundary either . Because they’re small, and cute and innocent. How else are they supposed to learn though? Especially when it doesn’t really stop at 5 either, it can continue all the way through primary and sometimes even beyond. Then people wring their hands and wonder “oh, how did it get to this?”. Because you didn’t do the right thing at 5. That’s how.

A child that young has learnt that violence from somewhere. Close to home. Either literally or viewing it on screen.
The school is being incredibly weak, pathetic and avoiding attending to the issue.
Make them do so.

Ok.

Serious misread on my part.
Apologies to OP.

Completely different slant on things.
They are still very young, but at ages 10 it IS appropriate to work on the gender angle.

Again, apologies to OP and everyone.

As a lad I was beaten up by a boy back in year 5.

Few weeks later he beat up a girl. My only consolation was that in secondary he was bullied so badly he had to change schools.

He's also incredibly stupid and to this day hasn't achieved anything of note in life.

Taking the gender part out of it, it continues to be completely unacceptable. I would certainly escalate it. This isn't minor squabbling, especially at 9/10 years old, that can be brushed aside as what children do (although of course should be dealt with itself).

I moved my daughter in year 5 following bullying issues at a very small church school. They seem like such ideallic environments but can often have staff that get away with poor standards due to the nature of the families that attend. We found the head was woefully incompetent with anything that wasn't summer fete-esque.

Yup, if any of those boys have turned 10 years of age, there can be police involvement.

Maybe the school should think about that.

Police?

Thanks for pointing that out, I also misread it as 5yo and that makes quite a difference.

This happened to me in the 90's, I was also very small and in a mixed year 5/6 class and a couple of the year 6 boys attacked me, I remember one of them repeatedly punching me in the face for absolutely no reason other than his own amusement.

I'm so sorry your daughter is having to put up with this, it's completely unacceptable and the school are being totally useless by not dealing with the issue.

My friends daughter was sexually assaulted by a boy when they were in year 4 and the schools suggestion was that her daughter was moved to a different class!
My friend had to fight school really hard to get them to see why it wasn't ok!

Talking about gender based violence isn’t helpful. Have you made a formal complaint to school each time there has been an incident, have you copied everything to the head, governors and local education department?

That depends on the parent. When my DD was bullied horrifically during Y4 the main bullys mum approached me and we talked. However she was very apologetic, said she and her husband had talked to the boy several times (it eventually stopped when I told the school I was going to move her and name and shame them over their crap bullying policy).
These parents also had an older son who was really lovely. So some parents will be defensive and some won't. The problem is you don't know how they'll react until you speak to them.
So, I would go through the proper channels. Head, then governor's and if things are no better you might have to consider moving her. You can't let her go through another year and a half being treated like that.

I have two girls and haven’t found this to be the norm at all.
The school are handling this very badly, you definitely need to take it further.
I would also look at moving your DD to a different school if you can, I really don’t think this is normal.
I also like the martial arts suggestion too, it would give your DD confidence at least and girls learning a bit of self defence is a good thing

Hands on her neck is very serious. Id have demanded a suspension.amd have been on to rhe governors/ looking at my legal options
My piss is boiled on your behalf.
You are underracting here.

The below doesn't address the school failing iissue but others have given advice on that.

I would 100% have her in self defence / crav maga style class

Both my children will be enrolled aged 4.
My policy (controversiall) is dont initiate but do retaliate.
A good palm shove to the face and those little fuckers will think twice before trying it again.

Much in the same way abusers "just lose their temper and cant help it" yet they trash your property not their own
we are told "boys rough house 🤷🏻‍♀️ and what can you do" yet they will target those who wont retaliate.

Get her strong and confident and if / when the school call you in because she gave you of them a bloody nose id happily tell them he started it and enquire about his usage of the stupid fucking worry box.

Just a point but they are year 5, not five year olds. So not infants. One more year and they'll be at secondary school.

" gender based violence"

You are talking about FIVE year olds.
Yes there is a problem here,
yes the school need to address the behaviour,
yes you are right to be concerned about behaviour,
and yes, you are entitled to be heard.

But for FFS , using the term " gender based violence" when talking about behavioural problems with infant aged children is not only ridiculous but is an insulting trivialisation of a real social problem.

I don’t think this is a girl/boy thing. My boys were always small for their age and they were equally pushed about by boys and girls. It tended to be child specific rather than gender specific.

Crikey this all makes me very grateful for the schools my children attend. Bringing kitchen scissors from home into the school would be treated VERY seriously, irrespective of what the intention was of having them.

I don’t know how much this is a gendered problem, it sounds like general poor behaviour policies or poor implementation of them. Unfortunately it’s not uncommon for children to lash out at other children (whatever the gender), and I’ve seen this a lot in early years with children who struggle to regulate in the school environment. The difference is how the schools deal with it.

Not normal at all. 2 things to do differently-
1)you need to advocate for your daughter, go to the school, email follow up, ask about how behaviour policy is applied, ask about safeguarding, go to the governors.
2) your daughter needs to stand up for herself- if its happened a few tines, shes obviously a target known not to retaliate- you need to change this before secondary school. Get her to push child away/ make a massive deal a out these boys putting hands on her. Unfortunately this is needed to determine others!

I'm sorry but you should have moved or done something when she was grabbed round the neck and pinned against a wall. It's absolutely horrific but you just seem a bit like "well what can I do?"

This isn't normal. My kids are in a single entry school on a rough estate in one of the most deprived towns in the country. This would absolutely NOT be acceptable. A year R hit a Yr 5 the other day and got a half day internal suspension. Those boys would be absolutely suspended at our school as a minimum.