Incident with DS and other kids outside of school - who to speak to?l

[GarlandaChynoweth]

Yesterday DS1 (12) was at the park with some younger friends when he was approached by three other children he went to primary school with (he goes to a different secondary school to them). One of them repeatedly pushed him to the ground and kicked a football hard at the back of his head, encouraged by the other two, whilst all verbally abused him. They told him that if he 'snitched' they would find him and beat him up. DS came home very upset and told us what had happened. Today he has a flare up of a health condition exacerbated by anxiety.

I am friendly with the parent of one of the children (not the main offender) and we have spoken to her about the incident. She was mortified and sent her DS to apologise, my DS refused to see him.

My question is about the other two. As the incident happened at the weekend, directed at a child they are not at school with, I presume it's not the job of their school to deal with. But I don't know their parents either although with a bit of digging around I would be able to get contact details.

Is it better to contact school or parents?

Nothing good comes from telling the parents - I'd say you've had an extremely lucky response from the parent you contacted.
Schools - both of them - or police.

Police - it's assault. Don't engage with the parents.

I work at a school and would expect you to contact the police. The school would then be made aware too.

That sounds awful However I can't see what is had to do with school. It happened on a weekend & it's not boys from the same school. I would think it's more down to local PCSO or you find out who parents are yourself. Hope he's OK.

Police will find out the addresses of the suspects by contacting their schools so schools will know anyhow. Schools are (or at least should be) very hot on offences committed by their pupils out of school hours.

Police and their school. Hope your son is OK.

Both schools and police

Police every time

Police first and they will contact the school. There's no point contacting the school first if it happened at the weekend.

Agree with previous posters. The police need to be told and they will contact the school if you go to school first they will direct you to police.

So sorry . Good he told you though . Police .

You need to contact the police.

Both schools and the police

Your poor son. Please do report to the police.

Thanks all, I contacted the school first who were extremely helpful and concerned and were going to talk to the two DC in question and telephone their parents to let them know that a complaint had been made. They also suggested I may wish to take it to the police (as so many of you have said).

DS is feeling ok now after being poorly for most of the day. I'm just relieved he doesn't go to school with these kids.

I agree - police. You'll show your boy that this is serious and he doesn't deserve it. You'll also be helping the bully boys in the long term- they need to understand how serious this is and stop - perhaps they need youth offender workers to help them, put them in touch with counselors or youth groups or mentors or social workers etc- they clearly have some issues that they need to sort out. Hopefully they will think twice before doing this again to another child too.

I'm so sorry your son has been through this. It makes me so scared of by baby boy growing up. . I remember my brother being punched as a teen too and feeling so sad and angry for him.

I would also consider suggesting to your boy that he calls childlike or another helpline to talk it through privately- or perhaps school can link him to counselling - he will have lots of emotions to process about this attack