FFS why will they never punish the bully

[maypole1]

news/article-2091080/Mothers-fury-school-suggests-ginger-son-taught-isolation-stop-bullies-taunts-hair.html

I don't care we're the artical Is from what I want to know why is it that schools always was to punsish the victim and never tackle the bully ffs

When my son was being bullied I was told we he need to thin about what he brings to the table of he starts liking the mainstream maybe they other children won't bully him

For gods sake

What message dose this send out to the bully's I feel every sad for the boy and the bully's never getting the message that bullying is wrong

What are the consequences for schools who do exclude children?

It's certainly much easier to deny that there is bullying, and "let them sort it out for themselves". I think it's lazy, personally; possibly just naive in some individual's cases. But certainly a conspiracy of silence within a school.

marriedinwhite - read my earlier posts; it is not the teachers who don't have any perception of the effects of bullying; we have just had our hands tied in regards to what we can do about it......(in fact just like so much of teaching these days, buts that's another thread )

cricketballs, I never hear teachers saying that though, I just hear excuses about some children not have the right support at home. I would run campaigns if I could for teaching staff but I would have to hear them speaking up for the compliant majority rather than making excuses about diverse intakes, etc., etc..

In my case I feel the head was sacred of the bully's parents they were argressive

because we are not supposed to be saying anything!

There is a lot of truth though about what you said (not that it is an excuse, but maybe knowledge so that the general public can understand the reality)

I have worked in a couple of schools where the support from home is a joke e.g. we are only there to take the kids off their hands when they want us to/that's the environment that they family was raised in and has no aspirations to break free etc and therefore parental support is unavailable.

In terms of consequences for schools - OFSTED! Also the LA will have a bad OFSTED if it is seen that their schools exclude and therefore even more pressure is put on to not exclude.

I was put in isolation due to bullying. I ended up with school refusal as well due to the stress. People don't like to upset the bullies because they're perceived as being stronger and more powerful. I think it's some kind of subconscious reaction that people have. People despise victims and see them as being weak.

Teachers are often not that good at tackling bullying because they don't know how. It isn't taught during training. That doesn't mean that they don't care, or don't want to tackle it, but they are usually restricted in their actions by school policies and lack the support of their managers.
What marriedinwhite said does not ring true with my experience of teachers - the opposite is quite often true.

I think there is a shift at the moment towards making targets of bullies accept some of the blame, which makes me very angry. Children should be free to choose their own activities, interests and friends without being forced to consider the dreaded "fitting in" above all else.

We are to blame though. I should have nutted the bullies in the face instead of remaining quiet and just putting up with it. I'm raising my redheaded little boy to stand up for himself and would never hesitate to advise him to use his karate skills on anybody who was physically attacking him.

It's a shit world out there and you are targeted for not 'fitting in'. The earlier you learn to fight back, the better imo.

"In terms of consequences for schools - OFSTED!" What do OFSTED do? Is there a particular section of an ofsted report that mentions exclusions and a school would get a low mark for that section or something?

hidden, we are abso-fucking-lutely not to blame. Most of the time, if you nut a bully in the face, you're the one that gets in all the trouble, either because the senior team at the school/college are too shit-scared of the bully's family to do much, or just because it's easier. Not only that, you'd get worse punishment because "you should know better".

Bullied kids don't headbutt people because they know this all too well, and because they tend to have a moral compass. Why should someone be punished for having a moral compass and trying to follow the rules?

I'm speaking not only from personal experience, but from years of seeing the vile hate campaigns against each other that late-teenage boys waged.

It is a bit worrying if the tide is turning in favour of the bully.

I don't think schools ever do anything effective to stop bullying, at best they remove the victim from the bully's reach (leaving some other poor child to be the next in line) and at worst they simply deny bullying is happening. When you get right down to it though, there isn't anything they can do that will have an effect. The bully doesn't care if they get a few days suspension, it's a holiday. If the bully's parents give a flying fuck it's a miracle.
My two eldest both went through it, with one of them he finally snapped after about four years of hell and punched his tormentor right on the point of the chin, caught him with a lucky blow and knocked him out, and got expelled - he still has the little black dots "tattooed" on the back of his neck and arms where this little bastard had poked him with specially sharpened pencils in every lesson they shared for four years and my second son, I removed from school and homeschooled after he ran into traffic one day to escape and narrowly missed being killed :(
I don't have the answer to stopping the bullying in the first place, but by God I wish schools would just acknowledge that children can be little twats and incredibly cruel to each other, and DO pick on each other, for anything they can think of, and act accordingly, instead of this nambypamby "oh shake hands and be friends dear" and "it will be fine, really, they're just high spirited" crap they spout now.

I am so sorry to hear that, PomBear.

Every school reports exclusion rates to Govs, Ofsted and LA, it is seen as an indicator of school performance. High rates of exclusion immediately expose the school and therefore teachers to questions about effective behaviour management and teaching and learning

This is why schools fear OFSTED in terms of exclusion rates; if there is a section on the report that is not favourable. then it downgrades the whole report and don't forget, satisfactory no longer means that, it now means it has got to improve.

If you think about how many times on mumsnet a poster mentions sending their child to a school that is deemed less than 'good' and there are screams of "don't send them there it will be a nightmare" without actually reading a report just going on the judgement and there is your answer why schools run scared of not bowing to OFSTED's inspection criteria

Sigh, this brought back a lot of memories.

My dad took me out of the school due to two years of bullying and put me in a different one, where I still got bullied. I actually gained a few friends at that school though, as opposed to the first where I had none.

The new school decided to move me out of the top class for maths because I was being picked on - they put me in the bottom class and without being mean it was the most frustrating experience ever. The work was too easy, I wasn't being taught everything I needed to know for my GCSE and the other kids were nice but all commented on how I shouldn't be in the bottom group. I don't get why they couldn't move the aggressors into the bottom class instead, but I guess it makes them look better if they demote one pupil instead of three.

They also did something similar to the practice mentioned in the article, giving me the option of going to the class for 'vulnerable' children i.e. the scary ones with behavioural problems. In all fairness it was quiet in there and I got a lot of coursework and revision done, and I only went in a few times by choice because there were certain times when I could tell trouble was brewing and I should stay away from class. Because I also got targeted at break times, I ate my lunch in there for a while until the teacher told me off and made me stop taking my lunch there.

As a few of you have mentioned, the teachers did have this wonderful way of making me feel like it was all my fault. My other half has a good theory - schools are more about moulding children into their future roles in society and establishing hierarchy early on. Consider this - I'm in my final year of university and the girl who stole my dinner money and spat on me at school now beats up old ladies and steals cars. It's hard to recall everything that I went through, it still hurts quite a bit. But towards my last few years at school I learned how to deal with such people a lot better - the insults don't hurt as much and you get better at talking your way out of situations and making people aware that they can't get to you so easily.

However, I still can't believe that schools are still no better at handling bullying. Talking stuff through (restorative justice) never worked for me, the kids would look daggers at me the whole time and the bullying carried right on afterwards. No-one ever got expelled, even the boy who ripped a fire extinguisher off a wall and beat a girl with it. Oh wait, one boy got expelled for dealing drugs, but I guess the police/media/OFSTED are more likely to look down on that sort of thing. Both schools I went to seemed to have victimised French teachers, always being reduced to tears, locked in cupboards and the like.

Many people support the notion of bringing back the cane, but I imagine that if it ever did happen, a lot of the kids wouldn't give a toss and/or would retaliate. Ho hum.

As a parent I see good behaviour management as schools acknowledging poor behaviour, disruption and bullying and excluding the bully to safeguard the majority.

As a parent, I do not understand why teachers who are supposed to be caring professionals understand this. This is one of the reasons why I have very little respect for teachers.

As a parent and a member of society I would respect teachers a great deal more if I heard them challenging this particular part of the OFSTED framework.

The tide has gone too far and needs to turn back in favour of the compliant majority and a decent society. The situation is stark raving bonkers.

Mr Gove, Mr Gove, Mr Gove, Mr Gove - if your research assistants monitor this to google your name - you need to read, you need to inwardly digest and start delivering.

Have you read Cricketball's posts Married? I know many, many teachers...all of whom are caring professionals. They care deeply and are hugely frustrated that their hands are tied, but they are. I worked in a school with huge social problems, and the anger felt at the lack of power on the ground was palpable, in many respects. If there is to be change, blaming policy on the teachers forced to implement it isn't going to be the way to do it.

It's sad you say you have no respect for teachers, there must be thousands in the country...have you met them all?!