Bullying situation- advice please

[Badonkadonk999]

Dd is in year 7. For the last few months her ‘friends’ have slowly turned on her, being nasty and leaving her out etc. this escalated to being pushed around on two occcasions, and then two girls doing a poll of how many kids hate her, then gleefully presenting her with the result. Yesterday It came to light that she had been hit while one of the girls filmed it on her phone. She was horribly upset last night.

I called the school this morning. I was shocked by what happened when they called me back- they said ‘witnesses’ said my daughter started the incident yesterday. Furthermore her form teacher said that my daughter has seemed ‘out of sorts’ and has started swearing and stuff in a bid to fit in, even calling one of those girls the c word on one occasion. Dd admitted she said the c word because she got upset by their behaviour, but she is furiously adamant that she did not start the incident yesterday. Furthermore, there are WhatsApp messages on her phone where she has asked some of the girls why they hit her and filmed it and they’ve replied ‘I dunno it wasn’t me’ etc which would kind of back up what she has told me.

tonight she is saying she can’t cope with school anymore and she wants to die. I tried catching one of the teachers before they left after school but to no avail.

I don’t know what to do!

Do they have cctv?

Doesn’t sound like it sadly

Ask for a meeting with someone- head of year etc If no joy ask to see the head teacher
Your daughter has made a comment about wanting to die - they need to be more proactive

Head of year won’t see us til mid next week. I don’t want this all hanging til then.

The school have a duty of care. From what you’ve written I wouldn’t wait until mid next week either, can you email the head of year again to request an earlier appointment? If they can see your daughter is trying to fit in they have already acknowledged a problem. Good luck.

DD was badly bullied at school and they literally didn't want to know.

Things soon started happening when I stopped sending her in... once the LA were involved, we were able to negotiate a managed move. I refused to let her attend a school where she wasn't physically safe.

Unfortunately - although it's equally a fair way - schools take witness statements for incidents.

What tends to happen though is where you have a group of friends bullying a sole person the group will all give the same witness statement and so they have to go with what they are told.

I would screenshot those messages and get a copy of the film if it's accessible.

Email to school and say that what they are saying, what dd is saying and what they are having reported to them isn't consistent and you'd like a meeting asap to get to the bottom of it.

Recognise that you are concerned about dds behaviour but as a school will know a change in behaviour actually indicates that dd is telling the truth in some way.

Point out what she said re wanting to die. Tell them her well-being needs safeguarding and they have a duty of care to ensure this happens.

Whenever I've had meetings when ds was bullied and I got "well x said" or "dd is doing x y and z" I've always put the ball in their court and asked why they think that is happening.

This is the path we eventually went down with my ds.

I was told to move him in a meeting about bullying if I didn't trust them.

2 weeks later the bully pulled a knife on him in class.

I spent inordinate amount of time replying to the Las questions about why school didn't do x,y and z with "I think you need to ask them why they didn't act - not me"

Sorry to read about the other shitty bullying incidents here.

I’ll email the head teacher I think to escalate this as the head of year seemed a bit blasé. When I told him about the kids doing a poll about how many kids hate dd he said ‘well I wish I’d known that earlier, I could have stopped this escalating.’ Which pissed me off.

I know of two other kids who had bad experiences with bullying at dd’s school (I’m talking really serious) who just had to leave as it wasn’t dealt with properly.

So things have got worse. There were messages on her phone tonight about getting a kid from an older year to beat her up.

Could you involve the police? Threatening violence, actual assault & filmed.

Sit in school office until seen? Make a fuss, put everything in writing too as evidence.

This must be terrible & very worrying for you all. Good luck getting it sorted.

My daughter was bullied an filmed, recently. She's Y5 and it was Y7 & Y8 girls, who filmed her having a temper outburst, after they wound her up. They filmed her pushing one of the girls.

When we spoke to the school, they made the girls show them their phones, watched the videos and deleted them. As long as she knows at least one name, they should be able to act.

Screenshots. Send them to head of pastoral / safeguarding. Request meeting tomorrow.

lots of support for your DD and try to keep her off her phone and distracted. I think it’s worse to have the drip drip of shitty messages. If you do let her on, be with her and ready to screenshot. ??

the poll sounds really crap. But remind her how many people aren’t on there.