What should I do?

[SENsupportplease]

Looking for advice from other parents about a situation at my daughter's school. I don't know if i'm out of order or the school are.

Sorry it's so long I don't want to drip feed.

On Friday my daughter (10) was involved in a nasty incident, group name-calling and nastiness to another child, which she then continued after being asked to stop by her class teacher.

When this was reported to us via telephone, we took it very seriously. Told the school we would deal with it, support them dealing with it, and offered our apologies to the student and parents on DD's behalf. They seemed happy with this and thanked us.

Explained to DD the possible consequences of bullying (teacher did not call it this but we did), started restorative justice (recommended by the school) by getting DD to write an apology letter, and removed her pocket money that week. DD seemed genuinely apologetic.

Later that day was the school fair which we attended as a family, before leaving DS and DD to enjoy it with their friends - normal and acceptable behaviour at our primary.

DD saw the other child at the fair and went to apologise, which he accepted. His mum told DD to go away, which upset her. We explained that it is fair enough that the apology isn't accepted and the mum must be very upset for her son.

Then (we had left by this point) DD was watching the orchestra performance with 2 friends and they had their phones out to record another friend performing. The boys mum and grandma surrounded the three girls, grabbed at DD's phone, shouted at them, told them to "piss off," leaned into their faces, and physically pushed my daughter. By this point one of the other girls was inconsolable.

Not sure if it's relevant but the other girls had not been involved with the initial bullying incident that day.

The girls reported it to their class teacher who told them to move away, which they did. When we went to collect DD we saw how upset her friend was, asked what was wrong, which is when the girls told us what happened. We decided to go back up to the school and report it immediately.

On the way up to the school we passed the other family - DD pointed them out to us, which they overheard, and they came up right into our faces. Shouting "it's been three years of this" and "NOT TODAY". I (bearing in mind i had three upset children there) stayed very calm, acknowledged the awful bullying situation but pointed out it was not appropriate for them to have behaved that way. Grandma in particular was very proud of her behaviour and said it was her who was swearing at the girls. We said we were going to let the school deal with it and left.

We went to the school to report this, the head teacher kept saying "well IF this happened" despite me explaining that the adults had admitted it. She also repeatedly said that she didn't see anything. It felt like she didn't believe the children - or us - at all.

At no point did she acknowledge our complaint about the other adults; instead she started telling the girls off for having their phones out. To be clear, their recording policy is that recording is ok but no uploading or sharing to socials. If they have a different policy for children, they have not made it clear to us as parents, on our website, or to the children. The head almost used it as a way to justify the behaviour of the other adults.

My daughter already struggles with feeling like her teachers don't believe her, and this has made it so much worse. She's now also worried about seeing the aggressive adults outside school.

I've made a written formal complaint to school against the parents, and i've raised my concerns about how the school initially dealt with the report. I've also asked if it has been three years worth of bullying / nastiness involving DD, as the first report I've had about this child and DD was on Friday.

School have come back to me today and said there is no method of making a complaint against other parents. They have ignored my other comments.

Am I overreacting?

How would you expect your child's school to handle something like this? And what should I do now?

DD is Au-DHD and has huge SEMH and impulsivity issues. This is NOT an excuse. Just avoiding dripfeed.

I’m not condoning their behaviour, but it sounds like this poor child has been bullied for years and his family have had enough and reacted

I don't think it's reasonable to expect the school to control or manage parent's or grandparent's behaviour. If a staff member saw the adults surround the girls and their subsequent behaviour I imagine they'd ask them to leave school premises. But you can see why they don't want to get into a he said/she said between families that wasn't witnessed by staff. Certainly it's not up to them to deal with the barney on the walk home from school.

The teachers are presumably hosting this fair outside of school time, they're there out of good will and find themselves involved in a dispute between waring families. Sounds like a right headache. It's certainly easier for the staff to cast doubt on the account and hope the tension reduces over the summer holidays. What do you expect them to do with your complaint against the other family? The only power the school holds over adults I could imagine would be preventing them from coming onto school grounds or reporting them to the police. Does either seem proportionate to you in this case?

There wasn’t a barney on the walk home it was very calm and not part of the complaint
I expect the school to investigate and remind the other family that they should not be approaching children, that the school should be the point of reference and they can and will handle issues.

Maybe to include similar in the newsletter.

I don’t see myself as a warring family, I didn’t choose to have any involvement with them.

The other mum of the girl who was inconsolable is hugely angry - her DD has never had involvement with this boy. Let alone three years. I have no knowledge that my DD has been involved for three years and think if this was the case I should have been told sooner.

I don’t think casting doubt is very good for the children’s confidence or trust in their teachers.

And it’s not a he said she said. The family have admitted it, at least to me. Proudly.

I think if my child had been bullied at school for 3 years I may also have lost my temper when I saw the bully (I wouldn't have been proud of it though). Maybe explain to DD that if you choose to bully people, people that care about them may choose to be less than fair to you. Even adults.

The teachers did not go into teaching to manage disputes between adults. If you're not happy with the school's response you can move your child to a different school. I think your anger is misplaced

She hasn’t been doing it three years. She joined in once. The mum only knows DD was involved because she apologised at the fair.

Bear in mind the mum and grandma also attacked 2 girls who have NEVER been involved

Am I angry? I don’t believe that’s the emotion.

I would have imagined there might be other routes to take prior to changing schools? That seems an extreme step two.

Surely the dispute is between the adults and these three girls? And as such someone needs to deal with it? I can deal with it privately if it’s nothing to do with school, it just felt like because it was on school ground and relating to a school based incident, they should be aware and given the chance to deal with it.

I know some years ago when there was a situation between parents in the playground the school took a very firm stance on it and a reminder of appropriate conduct went out in the newsletter. That didn’t involve children directly though.

Did either of the other girls who were filming manage to get footage of the grandma assaulting your daughter? If so I'd be very tempted to pass the footage to the police and let them deal with it. An adult should have the self control not to physically assault a child.

She joined in once.

If that was the case, I'm surprised the school weren't extremely concerned and absolutely baffled by your DD's behaviour.

No one was filming, just took their phones out in order to film - they were stopped before they got the chance. They didn’t even get to watch the performance.

Sorry I don’t understand?

the only report I have ever had of DD involved with this boy was Friday. Not three years worth. Nothing other than Fridays.

DD joined in with a group who were calling him names. This is NOT ok and not condoned, but I don’t understand why the school would be really concerned about DD in particular?

As for being baffled? Sadly DD will join in with group behaviour, good or bad, especially if certain children are instigators. We are working hard on it but it’s one of the challenges of her condition and one of the things she has ELSA support for. That does not excuse her doing it, but I wouldn’t expect the school to be baffled that DD joined in. They were obviously concerned enough to report it to us and at that time I would anticipate they would have told us if it was a pattern.

To clarify it was specifically mum grabbing DD and pushing her away, grandma was the one swearing. I don’t think from what DD described it was assault though.

it was unwanted contact but not violent.

Ok, this makes sense why they weren't baffled if she has form for joining in with bullying.

Maybe not of this particular boy, but in general.

The adults shouldn't have got involved but hopefully this'll really make a difference to your daughter's behaviour going forward.

No, not form for bullying. And bear i mind that is my word not the schools.

Form for joining in with group choices. Stupid naughty stuff. Playing knock and run. Climbing in the school forest. Going in the river.

She does all the wrong things to fit in.

Why are you saying she has form for bullying? Unless the school inform me of that, I don’t believe it is the case.

I don’t think fear of parents attacking her is going to help her to be honest. This weekend her anxiety had totally taken over and her EBSA is worse than I’ve ever seen it.

I don’t think it’s appropriate that parents caused that. From what I gather DD is the only one who has tried to make amends and be kind to this boy since.

Well quite. It’s heartbreaking seeing your child crushed and unhappy, feeling powerless to help them.
They were completely out of order though and I would also have complained but your DD will learn that behaviour has consequences. Seeing angry, upset family members of the boy will probably have a longer lasting impact than writing a letter or any form of restorative justice.

Why are you saying she has form for bullying?

Because you said...

"Sadly DD will join in with group behaviour, good or bad, especially if certain children are instigators."

I didn't realise she joined in everything except bullying.

Sorry, it wasn't clear from your post.

Which brings me back to wondering why the school weren't very concerned/baffled at your DD suddenly displaying such very different behaviour - as in joining in with bullying.

I think you are being disingenuous.

I only know what the school tells me and this is the first time DD joining in with group nastiness (the schools words) has been reported. I've now also told you some of the other group things they have reported to me, which don't tend to negatively affect other children. For all I know there have not been other group bullying incidents. Maybe if there had, she would have joined in. I don't know. I hope not. I have NEVER heard this boys name in a negative context before.

I know that the older she gets the harder things are and the worse her behaviour and SEN is.

Maybe the school should be 'baffled' or 'concerned', but that isn't what they expressed to me, and tbh they never seem to be concerned.

After all, if they aren't concerned about aggressive intimidating behaviour from parents, why be concerned about a child who has joined in with nastiness. Separately, they weren't concerned when DD was self harming, or self hating.

So perhaps I need to challenge them on their lack of concern in the original situation as well?

DD has messed up massively and done this boy wrong but NOT for three years, and she has tried to show her regrets, and did not deserve this.

What about the other girl who wasn't involved at all, DD's best friend? What has she learned? That she can't feel safe at school? There are also children who witnessed it who are being vile about the boys mum and grandma - I don't see how that helps the boy in the least.

I don't think what they did was justified and I won't be changing my view. my question was about what to do next.

It seems I am unreasonable to expect school to have any involvement, in which case it's on me to deal with.

Also i didn't say she joined in 'everything'. please don't add words which change the meaning.

She has a history of joining in with the masses. She wants to fit in. Wants to be liked. Sometimes makes very bad decisions as a result. We are working on it daily.

That doesn't make her a repeated bully.

Why post if you aren't going to listen to anyone OP? i'd be mortified if my child had been calling another child names and engaging in 'nasty' behaviour. I'd be considering my own parenting rather than complaining to the school

You're coming across here as very angry and very defensive. If the school is asked to get in the middle between you and a shouty sweary grandma, can't you see that they'd rather just not. It's not their place and they have no power. Never mind that they certainly have enough else to be doing.

But that isn't what I asked about?

I am mortified, we dealt it as best we felt at the time, the school seemed happy with it, we support the school - but I have asked about the parents behaviour which isn't ok!

And there is nothing wrong with my parenting, I do not condone or demonstrate name-calling or nastiness. However, please, if you have advice on how I can parent better, how I could have dealt with the phone call and DD better, I would appreciate it.

I haven't asked for advice about DD's behaviour. And tbh other than the person who said the next step is to move schools, no-one has given me advice about what I should do now. This is what I posted:

Am I overreacting?

How would you expect your child's school to handle something like this?

And what should I do now?