Need advice around bullying (again)

[Ihatebullies2022]

My 9 year old autistic DS is being bullied and I need to advice to help me prepared for a meeting on Friday. I've posted about it before here:

www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4488163-to-think-SN-is-not-an-excuse-for-bullying?page=2&reply=115326172

Things with that boy have been much better since then and there have been no further problems with him. Unfortunately there is a gang of older boys (12 year olds) who are pretty shitty to everyone but seem to be particularly focused on DS. I have been into school numerous times because of their behaviour but I've finally reached breaking point.

Last week was incident after incident, culminating in one of them threatening to hit DS round the head with a baseball bat. I refuesed to send him back until they have sorted the problem. They said they had, there was plan blah blah blah. DS went back on Monday. More intimidation at the start of school, witnessed by another parent who went to step in and later told me as the school never bothered. In questioning DS about his day he said it had been alright after that, they'd made some homophobic/transphobic comments to him but nothing else beyond the normal.

Eh? What's 'the normal'? He tells me that they call him a name that roughly translates as ugly troll. This is the first I've heard this. When? All the time,, like every time they see him, every single day for months. So much so that all the other children have picked it up and are now using that term 'around' him. It's awful. He is being ostrasized from the whole school community and he's done nothing to any of them.

Well I've had enough. I can't put even a fraction of what's happened here or it won't be an opening post, it'll be a bloody book. Needless to say, I've been in again. The head was very kind, very minimising, agreed it needed to stop, and had fuck all plan to deal with it beyond asking DS why they call him that and is because of the hat he wears to school.

So I've finally done it and put in an official complaint to the board of governors and made it clear that I'm done and if this isn't stopped I will escalate to the School Inspector. The Chairman of the board rang me pretty much straight away, very concerned and said they will have a written plan in place by the end of the week and we are meeting after school on Friday to discuss that plan.

What do I need to making sure is there? I know I want specifics, not wiffly waffly warm words. I want them to stop playing wackamole and deal with the underlying issue. And I want them to stop spinning things to make it sound like DS is somehow responsible. What would you expect?

Anyone? 😢

?

I'm sorry, but in my experience schools never deal effectively with bullying because there are no sanctions strong enough to deter the bullies. We had to withdraw our autistic ds from year 7 after only a term because he was being relentlessly bullied.

Have you considered changing schools? Could you afford online schooling?

Schools are usually reluctant to properly address bullying problems because then they'd have to admit they have a bullying problem! Our solution to our daughter being bullied was ultimately to remove her from the school.

Be very careful of them using wooly phrases like 'try to' 'it would be beneficial "
They mean nothing. Get everything firmed up
Get hard copies of their policies ,go through and highlight where you have concerns
Take someone with you to take notes, do not be intimidated by them and Personally if they refer to me as 'mum' I'd stop them and ask them to call me my proper name unless they want to be referred to as "teacher', it's a lazy sloppy practice.Take control
Personally I'd want to change school but that may not be practical

Same here op. DS7 was strangled,spit at,kicked and punched. To be fair to the school I don't know what they could have done. (Though they certainly never tried)

We pulled him out and he's been home educated ever since. Best thing we ever done. I emit a hollow laugh when I'm asked about how he socialises.

That must be heart breaking to hear @Ihatebullies2022 . I hope you have a strong chair of governors. As a governor our aim would be to seek to manage the complaint and not have it go forward to ofsted (assuming you are in england/wales). There is not alot a governor can do if the head is unwilling sadly. And governors generally don't get involved in the day to day.

As a SEN parent I agree with the above.

I would want to see clear statements... if this happens we will do that.
I would not expect ds to taking any responsibility for sorting this - so no he can stay in the classroom at lunchtime away from the bullies. No he is entitled to his break too. (They might house this for a few days to break a cycle but I suspect its beyond that).
I would expect they to say DS needs to report it each time... that's a difficult one.
I would expect some kind of nurture group to be put in place around him from his own peers and maybe one or two older ones as I'm assuming it's a middle school so he's one of the youngest? That should support him.

Good luck OP.

Thank you everyone, it's very helpful. We're in Sweden so rules are different, but ultimately the law is that schools are supposed to have a zero tolerance policy to this. And unfortunately being in Sweden, home schooling isn't and option as it's not allowed. We also don't really have the option of changing schools. There is another school in the area but when he got assault a police friend said not to change schools as the other one has quite serious problems with bullying.

I've told DS many times to tell the teachers every time something happens. But it is hard for a child with autism. But also, over the last few days, I've started to realise things that make it clear some of the staff don't listen/see him. On Wednesday DH noticed DS was distressed as soon as he got off the bus. Another parent noticed and asked me if he was ok the next day when I saw her. But the 2 staff members on the bus with him noticed nothing? I think they're turning a blind eye and I think he knows it.

I remembered last night one time I picked him up from afterschool club and he was crying. They'd been playing a ball game and he got upset because the other kids weren't follwoing the rules. Typical reaction from a child with autism right? But when I picked him up he was crying because the staff member supervising rolled her eyes and crossly asked what he was crying about this time. And it made him feel like absolute shit. How is that ok when dealing with a problem arising from a child's disability?

This is appalling

I could not send my child into school

I’d have contacted the parents by now or even worse

The staff need training if that's their attitude, so much can be avoided or minimised to help him

So this is where I'm at. Tomorrow I want to see a firm plan on how they will deal with:

• the group directly and actively bulling him
• the wider school community which is indirectly bullying him
• the homophobia
• the transphobia
• the staff attitude to/understanding of DS
• the damage already done to him by allowing things to go unchecked for so long.

Does that sound ok?

I hope todays meeting has gone ok @Ihatebullies2022.

It sounds like staff all need training in ASD and how to support!

It seemed to go well. The Head does genuinely care and the Chair of Governors has 3 kids of his own at the school, so he doesn't want a bullying atmosphere either.

They had a plan and it seemed to cover all the points I listed. The Head admitted that they have noticed a change in tone around the school in general around how kids talk ato each other and the language they use so they have started to taking steps to address it. She said they've arranged for an outside agency that works within school to promote kindness and address bullying to come in and work with everyone.

There will be closer supervision around the cloak rooms and toilets etc.

All of the parents of the individuals have been called in and will be spoken to.

She agreed with me that some of the staff appear to forget that DS has autism. Most of the time you'd never guess. And she accepts that sometimes it means they don't handle situations between him and other kids well, especially around how they talk to him and their understanding of him. All of the staff will be having training on this.

DS will share a TA with another child at playtimes. The other child has a fulltime 1to1 TA but his parents are made up at this suggestion as DS is the only kid who speaks to theirs and seems to actually like him. Their DS doesn't need to be watched as closely when he's with DS so they are more than happy for DS to share at playtime.

The school have just got extra funding for SEN support from a charity because of their good work with kids with SEN. So they have just employed a full time specialist and DS will have a lesson with them each week. Not decided yet if that will be one to one or a nurtur group, as was mentioned by a PP.

DS will have direct contact with the school counsellor to help him get over what has happened.

They were exceptionally nice and seemed genuinely sad that they had failed him and he was suffering. I felt like crying I was so overwelmed with what they were saying. But the proof, as always, is in the pudding.

First day back after The Plan was decided. Nothing has changed. FFS.

I'm sorry to hear that @Ihatebullies2022 , can you tell us what happened ?

Sure, school rule is that snowball throwing/fights are only allowed on the enclosed 'football' pitch. DS went to play there, they arrived and started throwing. He joined in but then realised they were throwing lumps of ice and it hurt. Tried to leave but they blocked the exit and continued to pound him. He eventually got away and they followed him off pitch and continued to pound him. Nobody else around. No supervision. The plan was increase supervision of this group and DS having a named indivdual who would always be in his vicinity at breaks. He didn't see that individual at all that day.

I accept that this could be down to DS's perspective and they could have just been kids being kids. But they knwo DS is struggling and they said there would be closer supervision and support for DS.

Also one of them spend their time in the lunch queue referring to DS as 'she' which upsets him. He kept correcting him and saying he was a 'he' but the kid kept doing it.

Same kid as school finnished and they're putting computers away doing exactly the same. Deliberately misgendering DS and belittling him.

Again the plan was more supervision in the hallways and smaller spaces to address this specific behaviour. So why is it still happening?

I'm now keeping a diary of every single incident. Because if escaling to the governors hasn't fixed it then it's going to the school inspectors. I'm done with trying to not be 'that parent'. I'm going full on 'that parent'. The law is zero tolerance to bullying and absolutely zero tolerance to bulling around protected characteristics.

4 more incidents of low level, shitty behaviour today. Like blocking him from entering the building, so he panics as he thinks he's going to be late to class. Same old, same old, never any staff anywhere to be seen. Increased supervision in corridors non-existent. Didn't see hide nor hair of the staff member who's supposed to be his contact person at playtimes.

I'm writing it all down and we have a weekly review of 'the plan' on Thursday. They may be surprised to find out that 'the plan' won't work if you don't actually impliment it.

Bullying is never low level @Ihatebullies2022 , it has an impact every single time
Take a trusted friend with you , ask to see the minutes of the last meeting before you see them
Did they put anything in writing ? Be that parent, ask them why it wasn't implemented, where was the named person?they are failing miserably in their duty of care,

You're right, it impacts every time. I was just trying to differentiate between the slow, drip, drip type and the immediate 'in danger' type. Clumsy language.

I asked for a copy of the plan and she gave me a copy of some of it but said I couldn't have the other bit. I assume that part had info relating to how they planned to deal with the other children. But I had my DD on the phone at the time as she's a teacher herself and she made notes.

On a positive, DS said that absolutely nothing happened today. So that's a first.

I actually fucking despair today. I can't withdraw my child from school as it's not allowed here so I have to keep sending him into a situation which is bad.

Today he was pushed over in the gym hall, landed on his elbow which is hurting and swollen. One of the bully group 'Micheal' did it. DS asks why he did it. Micheal gets angry and threatens to beat up DS. DS goes to teacher on other side of hall and tells him.

Teacher goes to talk to Micheal and then takes both of them into a side room to face to face talk about it. Teacher tells DS that Micheal didn't do it, Micheal is a good kid and teacher knows this.

DS is very upset when get gets home.

Teacher then rings me to tell me about the incident. He says Micheal didn't do it. I asked how he knows. He saw it happen. So what did happen? He may have been knocked by Micheal accidentally or by someone else, he doesn't know but Micheal didn't push him. Seriously! He saw it and say absolutely what didn't happen but can't say what did happen? So he didn't see it did he?

He also said that DS admitted to him that Micheal hadn't done it. I asked DS this and he said he told the teacher it might not have been Micheal because the teacher was adamant that it didn't happen and he felt intimidated standing in the room in front of the teacher and Micheal.

FFS. Back in to see the headteacher tomorrow.

You're being gaslighted by the school and I don't use that term lightly.

Are you allowed to keep your ds off school due to severe anxiety until this is resolved? Can you get a doctor's letter? Do you have access to a complaints procedure further up the chain? Do you have an MP? What would happen if you refused to take him in?

Lastly, could you legally be allowed to send him to an online school? There are international ones.