12yo DS getting bullied and school not doing anything

Absolutely get him the bag and the haircut.

ds who is in year 10 now says that the bullies at his school will say things like ‘that’s such a nice bag’ so that the teachers can’t tell them off for saying something mean but the other kids know it’s not meant nicely.

I feel sorry for your son and the school sound like they're not stepping up to deal with this.

I would be having meetings and asking lots of awkward questions like 'how are you going to ensure his safety while he's in your care? What are you doing to investigate/ gather evidence? ' . Keep pushing back, keep asking what they're going to do, don't let them off the hook if they effectively say 'nothing' . Write minutes, circulate to everyone, if they don't take action, escalate to the Trust if the school is part of one, and /or governors.

I agree that the backpack was simply inviting trouble though. Yes, that shouldn't be the case - but it is, that's the world we live in. I imagine you'd get teased for that in primary school, let alone secondary!

Equating kids 'expressing themselves' with the battle for women's rights is nuts. Women did not come through that unscathed. They were injured, assaulted and died.No need to turn the poor kid's difficult school experience into some kind of political struggle ffs, he's got enough problems already! Focus should be on how to get him through the next few years with minimum trauma, not on making him feel like he has to stand out to make mum proud.

Changing his bag doesn't mean changing 'who he is' - lots of hyperbole here. Its a bag. Not his entire personality.

I hope it gets better.

Anyone dares hurt my boy and I'd go Hunger Games on their sorry little backsides.

How, when you don’t know who they even are?

It’s nice isn’t it, to think that your love for your son can transcend practicalities like the identifies of the bullies and actually getting to the bullies and what ‘going Hunger Games’ actually would look like. Because assuming you’re not going to resort to violence, being confronted with an angry mum isn’t going to strike fear into the hearts of your average teenager. It would make them laugh.

Slightly different but my daughter is an adult now and she has learning disabilities and we don't let her use the backpacks she likes - she is obsessed with Scribble and Hello Kitty type stuff with teddy bears and the like.

For all the anti bullying rhetoric, you still have the practical issue of ensuring your child safe. Flamboyant back packs and hairstyles will attract the wrong sort of attention and you cannot realistically expect school to manage every interaction he has - even if they pick up a few bullies, it sounds like it's part of a wider problem at his school.

Has he ever watched Glee? I think it deals with bullying of sensitive kids well.

Sorry but the school sound rubbish. The bullying should be stamped out. Of course he can use any bag he likes and be however he wants to be and the kids bullying need to learn how to behave. If I was the parent of a child treating your son badly I’d be appalled and would address it.

Kids can be absolutely evil at that age, it makes my blood boil and I'm genuinely sorry your boy is having this experience.

I wish I had sage words of advice, I'm totally against the idea of your son trying to conform to some idea of what's "normal" when he sounds fantastic just the way he is. It would take an incredibly strong and confident 11 year old to do their own thing and go against the group. In the ideal world he'd do his hair in a style he likes, sling his backpack over his shoulder and strut right past anybody and everybody with a snide word to say and live his best life.

If it were my kid, I'd let them know just how proud they make me, that I wished I were more like them at that age and that I think they're absolutely perfect just as they are. But then I'd let them decide if they want to change their hair or get a black bag. Not everyone can stand up to the pressure, it's a lot to ask of a kid.

But then I have a psychotic streak. Anyone dares hurt my boy and I'd go Hunger Games on their sorry little backsides.

Whether or not the OP’s son is gay, she has stated how other pupils are labelling him as gay and that they are doing so in a pejorative way.
We have tried to explain to our son that it’s not that being gay is something to be ashamed of, it’s the fact the kids were saying he was gay in a way designed to shame and isolate him and inferring that it’s something to be ashamed. He understood that it was the intention behind what they said that was bullying, not the labelling of someone’s sexuality, incorrectly or otherwise.

I agree that they absolutely should and the schools response here isn’t good. But I do think we also have to be realistic about what the school can actually do. One child being unpleasant (even very unpleasant) is much more straightforward to address than multiple children across different year groups and even with a very proactive school it can become firefighting very quickly. So for example, the locker push - a really proactive school might look on CCTV, find the culprit and sanction them. Great, that’s Fridays incident dealt with. But then there’s a different child and a different incident on Monday, and for the rest of the week. The parent is constantly calling the school, the child becomes embarrassed and angry, the perpetrators know they can carry on with abundance because it was just a shove / push / silly name on one occasion.

They will also back one another up and claim things didn’t happen.

Not easy at all, and the poor lad doesn’t have any friends from primary with him either. Hopefully it will blow over.

The junior school were very much not on it. They treated it like they were two people who didn’t get on and that they needed to be seaparated at all costs when the kid in question wouldn’t leave my son alone, sought him out, was physically intimidating and abusive to my son - my son was not triggering this. He was just trying to be at school. I won’t derail this post but they didn’t respond fast enough or in the right way and my son had 2 years of misery to the point I was set to remove. That only ended because I moved my son out of this kid’s orbit into an independent.
There has been some homophobia at the secondary and that isn’t my issue - because kids are kids and make mistakes and discriminate. The difference is how a school responds - and in this case, the school took meaningful and supportive action. I would also say this is exactly the same for my daughter who went to a different state secondary and that school also handled the unpleasantness she experienced in a far more responsive and humane way too.

It's incredibly naive to think human behaviour, particularly during adolescence, has changed much in a thousand years never mind just 40.

Incidentally I haven't seen that the OP stated her son's sexuality. Suggesting homophobia might well be your interpretation of the bag and the way the boy has expressed himself.

@Volpini but unless I have misunderstood, despite the school being on it, you still felt you had to send your son to an independent school to prevent further incidents.

This is where I think we have to be realistic about what the school can actually do, and I do think some people can be very naive about this.

Forget boxing - get him signed up to Krav Maga if he wants to. Much more useful for a bullied kid than boxing.

Email the school (then you have evidence) FAO the Headteacher, detail everything that’s happened and ask what is being done. If you don’t get anywhere then email the chair of governors; they are legally bound to do something and see how the school has dealt with it.
Your poor son @DarkDusk ☹️ Yes, I do agree with others that the bag probably wasn’t the best idea but irrespective, what your son is dealing with is disgusting and the perpetrators need to be punished.

@Volpini- I STRONGLY AGREE!

I’m pretty horrified by the almost uniform response is that this child is supposed to hide who he is and this school is failing him.
i sadly live in a fairly unenlightened place and both my kids experienced bullying and social isolation in primary school and unfortunately I caught on too late that the school was completely ineffective.
By the time my son left, the relationship with school had completely broken down as they were so completely hopeless about a kid who was being violent to my son. Unfortunately they were destined to go to the same secondary so my son is now in an independent secondary in a different town. It has caused enormous financial stress to do this and I’m not really comfortable with the idea of an independent but in our case we didn’t have any other option other than to send him off for another 5 years of the same. (Sure as eggs are eggs, the kid who bullied him for 3 years laid into some other kid on day 1 and broke his glasses. Felt kind of vindicated.)
My son did experience some homophobia in week 2 of secondary and this did extend beyond year 7. The difference here was that - we raised it with the school and they had multiple assemblies, spoke to the kids in question and took it really seriously. They were on it straight away and stamped it out. No one told my son to tone it down.. he’s not going to school in hot pants FFS.
OP I feel for you. Your issue here is that the school leadership is weak. Can you explore an alternative setting? Meantime, I’d be all over that leadership like a rash and keep pushing until they take some action. We also sent our son to kick boxing a year ago, which he loves.
Sending you so much love - it’s absolutely depressing and miserable to watch your kids endure this. My older child is now in year 12 and I can say that things settled down for her towards the end of year 8, beginning of year 9.

1. How are you going to find out who ‘the other kids’ are? It sounds like it’s a lot of them, spread across at least three year groups.
2. Once you’ve found them, how will you get their parents numbers?
3. What do you think their parents will do? The biggest problem with bullying of this nature is that when it’s this widespread no one person feels they are doing anything wrong or feeling any sort of disquiet about their behaviour. If you imagine a room that’s been trashed and you leave a coffee cup on the side, do you feel that you’re responsible and ashamed of your behaviour? You probably wouldn’t. If someone asked you ‘did you trash that room?’ you’d say no. It’s that sort of thing.

The last thing I want to do is condone homophobia but it’s an unfortunate truth that young people have always been hostile towards the one who is ‘different.’ This may not even necessarily be rooted in homophobia but more hostility to what can be seen as attention seeking - and it is, even if that’s not the conscious intention it is there somewhere.

I think we all learn to stay true to ourselves but which part of ourselves to reveal at any one time is a skill we learn as we grow up. The world does not need our unabashed unrestrained character unleashed upon it all of the time!

The head teacher needs to be contacted and have a good look at hate crimes and the safe guarding policy ASAP. Good luck to you op your son sounds fab btw 👏

@DarkDusk- god it's awful they all look like chavvy road men ( even the none chavvy ones) if someone dares to stand out they're ridiculed!
What happened to all the goths/casuals/hippies etc etc - they all look so bloody boring.
Hats off to anyone that dares to stand out in 2026!

The school are being crap. My kids' school would absolutely speak to the children involved. The no evidence argument is bullshit. I would keep complaining until they do something.

The bag though, it's babyish for secondary. I don't know any boys or girls who would use a bag like that at secondary. And I have to be honest I'm all for flying beneath the radar at secondary. No kid really wants to stand out. It's asking for trouble from arseholes

And sad that school would rather pretend it's not happening than nip it in the bud.

Have they tried to get evidence ? Other children must have seen it happening to your ds surely. You need to ask your ds to give some names of children who were nearby when it happened.
Do they not have CCTV for the shoving incident ?

I agree that perhaps this is a bit extreme but nothing else is being done!

it's funny if this was in the work place someone would have more protection but when it's children nobody wants to stop it.
Sorry your son is getting this shit.