Does telling school about bullying make things worse?

[BullyingQ]

In your experience can/do schools do anything constructive that actually helps when you report bullying? I know of people (not at same school) where they say things got worse for their child after they reported things and perhaps it would have been better to just help the child at home instead. Ds really doesn't want things to be said to school and I kind of understand to be honest. Feel incredibly torn over what to do. Ds is not in a year where it would be easy or possible to move schools and I hope it's not at that point anyway - they have friends at school but there's also an underlying unpleasantness towards them from a few children. What can I expect the school to realistically do when the children involved are fundamentally little shits who are unlikely to change over night (yes, I know they are children but they are teenagers old enough to know better and we all know plenty of aggressive men so know that many continue their bullying ways into adulthood). Apparently Ds is an 'easy target'.

I think it depends on the age of the child whether school can help. For younger children i.e. primary age, yes I think that involving the school can be massively helpful. Teachers still have quite a bit of influence at that age, so do parents, and often it can be resolved fairly easily.

Once you’re talking age 10+, I don’t think going to the school to actually ask for help with bullying is ever really helpful, and most of the time does make things worse. There are some things school could do for example if all bully’s are in one class then they could move your child to a different class, if lunch breaks are staggered then they could put your child & the bully’s on different ones, so it could be that the school could help keep them apart but that’s about all I would rely on them to do. The reality is that at that age if you get involved it just looks like he has ran to his mum, and his mum has ran to the teachers, it will only make things worse and almost gives them extra ammunition to torment him with. It is a horrendous thing to go through I really feel for both of you!

Thanks. Age 13/14 so yes, that's my worry. How on earth do you deal with this then? Ds is quite resilient but how much should he be expected to cope with? If we don't report then it's just accepting that it continues but if we report then it just adds to reasons to target him.

I'm astonished to read the above posts. If you don't tell the school about the bullying they can't try and help. And what message does that send to your child? Just put up with it? Never mind eh?

Absolutely tell the school. And keep telling the school until something is done. Make it as inconvenient for the bullies as possible for them to continue. They won't stop if you ignore it and doing nothing is terrible for your teens mental health. Imagine waking up knowing you have to face that again every day and noone will help you - not even your parents!?

Depends on the school - some then blame the bullied child ( happened to me at my secondary even when it got physical) - others continue to ignore no matter how often raised (DS primary school) - other try and goes underground a bit ( DD1 primary) or nip it in the bud completely ( DD1 secondary when it was under last head) or some it's clearly not worth involving school because they've basically said this and proved it with other kids ( same secondary under new head for DD2).

It may depend what it is - physical injury/assault I'd contact - same with theft ( though phone theft of DD2 friend during an exam was met with a shrug and don't bring into school recently) - would try school and then considered police.

More nebulous stuff comments/excluding possible teach them to deal with it and make sure they do outside activities with other people so they know it's not them. On-line bullying - again depends on situation and school DD2 secondary refuses to get involved at all and now openly state this.

You could try approaching head of year of form tutor but stress you want it kept confidential and see what they can suggest - at least give you a feel to how helpful the school is likely to be.

In my experience it definitely made things worse. But the school and teachers were pretty ineffective and handled things very badly.

The offenders can also be sneaky and devious and do things just under the radar i.e. just far enough away from any school cameras, just out of ear shot of a busy teacher or on the way home from school on social media etc. They can also spread lies about kids and encourage others to avoid the kid being bullied and they fall inline to avoid being the next target.

I guess it depends what is happening and how bad it is.

It is a really difficult situation. In an ideal world yes you’d be able to tell the school and they would be able to immediately resolve it.

In reality, 13/14yo old’s who are going to bully are not going to be deterred in the slightest by a teacher, and it gives them the added ammunition of then “mummy’s boy”, “grass” and the like. There’s also the consideration that at 14 years old depending on the school, there could well be times when no teachers are present and it leaves him vulnerable at those times- lunch breaks, bus before/after school, online/social media.

He shouldn’t have to put up with it and it’s incredibly difficult, you can work on this at home, potentially look elsewhere to see if there is another school, or it may be worth speaking to the school to see if it’s possible to just keep them apart as in diff classes/breaks if that is possible.

I would speak to your son about it, support him either way and let him have final decision on whether to involve the school or not. There is a risk to reporting it that it just makes things much worse and it is ultimately your son who will have to live with those consequences so it needs to be his decision really.

I really feel for him (and you), kids can be evil and it’s so difficult to know what to do.

Hasn't made it worse but hasn't made it better either

I agree with you in an ideal
world we have to protect our YP.

I think OP wants to involve the school in this instance but is thinking twice about doing so as her DC is trying to discourage her from doing this.

They have perhaps seen how things have played out and the repercussions of the school handling other scenarios badly after other parents reported something to school in the past. The rougher kids in DD’s old school went round saying snitchers get stitches etc.

At Secondary it's easy to help during lessons with changes of bands, classes or seats to physically avoid each other but harder to deal with during unstructured time, teachers can be told to keep an eye when on duty and to keep them separate if possible but that's difficult to do stealthily, or one of them, and it normally ends up the victim, going to a quiet/safe space but they then misses out on other aspects of the school day like the canteen.

Leaving and arriving at school can be done via separate doors, and leaving lessons a 2 mins pass can be given to allow the victim to move around the school - but they have to actually get a move on to their next lesson not just stand outside their friends classes waiting for them.

Thanks for the understanding posts. How incredibly depressing that many don't think it helps much.

I think you need to be really firm with the school that you won’t be accepting this and they are failing in their duty of care towards your son. Follow up with head of year etc regularly to report any changes or further bullying. IMHO the worst thing you can do is not report it.

I could have written your post. DS is in the same position and won't make a formal complaint.

However, we've spoken to school informally and asked for some little measures to be put in place e.g. ensuring that DS doesn't have to sit next to his tormentors in any lessons, and if it does happen, then he can just drop the head of year a note and she'll get it changed. Same for any trips - make sure that the random groups they are assigned to aren't completely random so he's protected that way.

It's not ideal, I'd much rather the kids involved get sanctioned and change behaviour. But one of his friends did make a formal complaint and nothing changed, apart from the kids involved now having another reason to be mean to him, so we're trying to do the best we can as an alternative.

@SmileyHappyPeopleInTheSun "You could try approaching head of year of form tutor but stress you want it kept confidential and see what they can suggest - at least give you a feel to how helpful the school is likely to be."
I think this sort of approach could be a good idea. Schools are made up of lots of moving parts and even teachers who really care can be completely unaware of nasty dynamics among kids. Could you ask your son if there is a teacher he'd like to sit down with to have a conversation about what's going on? Just feeling like there is teacher there who's on his side could make a big difference, even if he doesn't want staff going in all guns blazing.

In my experience all you can do is change schools or withdraw them from school. Schools have no power over kids behaviour and they'll find a way to continue the bullying regardless of what the school do. The parents are in more of a position to stop bad behaviour through punishment and shaming, but the parents are invariably as bad as the bullies.

Bullies are given a great deal of sympathy now 'cos bad home life 🙄 but as far as I'm concerned they should be sent to kids gulag with only basic living provisions and re-education classes until they're deemed fit to re-enter mainstream schooling. Plenty of children have bad home lives and yet don't make the lives of others a complete misery. Bullies should at least be prevented from accessing the social areas within the school and should be sat away from everyone else in class.

This. DS is only 12, but I dealt, in conjunction with some other parents, with a bullying situation, and although it took some effort to make the school actually act decisively to implement their anti-bullying policy, it did work. Plus I think the most important thing is for the bullied child to feel heard, and as though the adults in their life are prepared to act to remove them from harm.

Bullying is a complex social phenomenon about so much more than the behaviour of one to another. Teachers have such little theoretical understanding of the potential factors at play and even less training in practical applications of evidence based approaches to target bullying. So it is often the case of a teacher just trying their best no different to if you asked your mum what to do. The investment in educational psychology and CAMHS into schools is shocking so they're not funded to train teachers enough to understand what causes bullying, how to prevent it and how to respond. This is why interventions are often unhelpful in secondary school because the needs that the bullying behaviour is meeting for the young person aren't addressed.

When it was kicking off with DD age 12 one of her teachers contacted me around that time as DD had missed some online maths homework it was just an over sight. I thanked the teacher for letting me know, apologised and said I would ensure it was done and she thanked me for my support and said she liked DD and asked if everything was ok. So I asked if it was possible to seat DD away from her tormentors (ex best friends). The teacher kindly agreed and said she was totally unaware of the situation and agreed to quietly re-jig the seating plan and move a few people so no one would be any the wiser.

But the ex friends cottoned on quickly and told the whole class the reason everyone was having to move was because X’s mum had complained and been into school causing trouble, I hadn’t I spoke on the phone and exclaimed I was concerned about inflaming the situation so I wanted things handling tactfully. DD denied it but she was absolutely mortified so other kids joined in the nastiness. DD was furious with me and our relationship really declined after that. As her anger was then directed at me.