What does it take for exclusion?

It's almost impossible to PEX now because it costs a school c.£10k per permanently excluded pupil - which is not money in easy supply with tight school budgets! It also has to be justified at a panel with governors, and parents have a right of appeal - if the governors don't feel it's a watertight case they'll overturn it. The perpetrator's SEN needs often seem to take precedence over any victims too - it's almost impossible to PEX a student with SEN needs, even for significant assault. There's also generally not the pastoral staff to really deal with low level bullying, which then escalates. Crap situation all round - it's not that most schools don't care, but their hands are tied

What was the outcome. Chair of governors. Ofsted?

I'd just go straight to the police. And mean it.

Oh and get back onto the police. Ask for an update. Ask them what they are doing, by email. Put everything in writing. Look at their complaints policy and follow it.

I work within a LA that works on PEXs and the processes to ensure they are lawful. We did have a recent bullying PEX but the video went viral on Facebook and it was horrific, victim was being strangled so it is also a police matter.

Generally PEXs are hard to evidence and we get a shocking amount through which actually I'm 100% behind why school have PEXed but their paperwork and processes to that point have been poor so the PEX has not stood up on challenge. If there is the slightest hint of heading to exclusions, the paper trail for schools is critical and too many just aren't good at that support before

Yes, escalate within the school. Complaints procedure. Governors. Keep being a pain in the arse. Keep going into school and asking for meetings. You need to be a pain in the arse that they want to go away.

ETA ask for a copy of your child’s file. Ask them what their procedures are for requesting a copy of their papers. Pay the admin fee. Review their bullying policy online and quote it back to them!

Complaints procedure for the school. Unacceptable..

This is (I think) what my friend is getting too. Apparently it needs to be proved that it is sustained and systemic attack/hate crime to get noticed.

Ex teacher

temporary exclusions (what used to be called suspensions) are reasonably common and are usually for physical assaults, drugs in school, bringing a knife into school, racism, homophobia, setting fire to things etc.

many councils now have a policy of trying managed moves (ie moving the kid to a new school in hope of a fresh start) and other such things rather than permanent exclusion.

Id report that to the police
Schools can, do and should PEX for severe incidents

This, if they are secondary school age report to the police. That will spur the school into action.

ETA just saw you involved the police. What are the ages? You may need to move your child.

Oh absolutely. My son attends the same school and says most days the bully looks like the cat that’s got the cream. Luckily he is 11 but looks about 14/15, plays rugby and can be quite intimidating looking so he has never had to deal with this child, apparently they run like hell when he appears. (Which is what gave the bully the opportunity, my friends daughter had been with my son all lunchtime, his bell went for his class to start and as soon as he was indoors, my friends daughter was launched on)

@ToffeePennie That kid is dangerous most would shit themselves if their actions caused another kid to lose consciousness but to carry on with the attack id say was unusual .

For the grace of God the attack victim didn't die.

The problem is due to the massive increase in SEN, and lack of specialist schools, PRU’s are being used to support them. All PRU’s are over max capacity. So where do the excluded kids go! There’s also a lot of politics behind the scenes between school and LA. I know our local mainstream with 1.5k kids hasn’t done an exclusion since 2018, because there is literally no where for them to go

My son had an awful year last year, due to one child being repeatedly violent towards him. He had previously been violent to a number of other children too, and very little was done about it, at most he lost lunch time.

This year, we’ve been told that if the children bring in any toys from home it’s an automatic stage 4 disciplinary, which means suspension.

So, toys are worse than being punched and kicked, apparently.

Then I'd suggest you request an urgent meeting with the head teacher and the chair of governors. If you get no joy from that then contact the fair access team at your local authority. The problem you'll have now will be that the school are unable to issue a permanent exclusion retrospectively, they also can't convert a suspension into a permanent exclusion, so any 'past' incidents can't result in a permanent exclusion now. If this is a state school then they should be able to coordinate a managed move for the child doing the bullying as they would be classed as 'at risk of exclusion' , that could also involve the other child being 'directed off site' ... If it's an independent school then unfortunately they aren't bound by the DfE code for permanent exclusions .