Should I make an appt to see the Teachers about my daughter and her friends

[bengal38]

My daughter has a best friend at school but has another 3 girls who she is quite close to as well. There have always been issues with my daughter and her best friend against the other 3 girls.

Last week at school my daughter told me and her best friend told her mum that the 3 girls are spreading rumours about them and being nasty to them. They both said that the 3 girls are then going to tell the teachers that they are being nasty to them and spreading rumours about them. A few other children are going up to them saying to them not to be horrible and spread rumours about them.

The Teacher told the Deputy Head Teacher who then said to my daughter and her best friend "the reason why no-one wants to play with you both is because you are both getting a reputation at the school".

After-wards at lunchtime they were both in the queue when the 3 girls were whispering about them to others behind their back and when our girls told the dinner ladies the 3 girls started to fake cry and say it was the other way round which resulted in our 2 girls crying and getting upset as well.

My husband tells me that I shouldn't get involved and that the girls should sort it out themselves and he told my daughter to be nice to everyone. I told him she is being nice to everyone but he told me not to say anything to the Teachers either.

What should I do? My daughters best friend mum says she is going to take her out of the school and put her in another school.

How should I tell the Teachers that it isn't our daughters fault? Also should I tell the Head Teacher about the comment made to the girls from the Deputy Head or would that make things worse?

I would follow up with a formal email asking for a written response and course of action.

In effect your DD is being isolated and bullied.

As I said up thread you don't have any hard facts here and no evidence of what is happening with the situation you allege. Did you enquire about the DH's reported comment and seek clarification?

So what exactly is that suppose to mean ilovesooty?

I do have hard facts and I do have evidence of what is happening with the situation I "allege".

I do not need to seek or enquire about what my DH said. I am not stupid so if you have nothing constructive to say then say nothing.

To be fair you have your daughter and her friends word. Not really evidence. On the other side they have the word of the other girls.

Pretty sure ilovesooty was referring to deputy heads comment and not dear husband.

Thank youfifi that's exactly what I meant about the lack of evidence and fact. The school has to tread carefully on the basis of the limited information they can corroborate. And I did indeed mean the Deputy Head, as it was a point I made originally,though I apologise for not noting that the enquiry had been made. If that comment was made and the OP can prove it she would obviously have grounds for taking the matter further. So far there doesn't seem to be anything here that can be substantiated and I can understand why the OP's husband was seemingly disinclined to take it up with the school. After all, the original query was "How do I tell the teacher it isn't our daughter's fault?". Quite frankly if there is fault there is no way of knowing where it lies.

You need to take it further but ime the dynamics of girls at this age are just difficult and apportioning blame is unhelpful. dd 's teacher insisted she had it in hand to deputy but none of the promises, such as general chats in pshce about friendships, materialised. It also got worse rather than better in year 6, so be warned.

I apologise for misunderstanding what you were trying to say ilovesooty.

Was I right to take it up with the Teacher after school though. As I said I was rather upset and because of that I was rather abrupt with what I was trying to say to her as the Teacher made out she knew nothing about anything.

I am not saying my daughter/best friend are innocent in any way and that they are not 100 per cent angels with this situation but at the moment it seems very 1 sided.

Tomorrow they are taking them all (Year 5s) to the SeaLife Aquarium. I just hope I haven't made things worse for my daughter by speaking to the Teacher in an upset way after school.

Do not get involved, teach your DD how to stand up for herself and to ignore meaness/bullies. Girls this age are a nightmare. Getting involved makes it a million times worse and go on for much longer.
Really trust me on this.

Oh dear dear, I see you already have.
You have taken the word of your DD as gospel (or at least her perception of it - which is going to be skewed). Very silly, you will make it all worse.
I speak as a parent of a child on the other side. The other parent (who was a good friend of mine, though sadly no longer), made my DD1 out to be a nasty bully, there was much more to it, both sided with lots of other girls/stuff going on.
You are doing your DD (and yourself) absolutely no favours at all.

I agree with macdoodle

You need to take a step back and encourage your daughter to develop strategies for dealing with these situations. She is coming to an age when girls need to sort things out themselves and it sounds to me as though parental approaches to the teacher have the capacity to make things worse.

I do try as much as I can to tell my daughter how to stand up for herself and to ignore meaness/bullies but this situation has been on-going since they started in Year 5 and at first I did tell her to ignore them and so did the best friends mum. Then we spoke to the Teacher who said she would sort it out but now it has escalated to this point. I think there does come a time when you do have to speak to the Teachers as well. My main reason for speaking to the Teacher was because of the comment made by the Deputy Head Teacher about daughter/best friend getting a reputation. Nothing as far as I know was said to the other 3 girls as daughter and her best friend have said the same thing. That to me does make it 1 sided.

maybefaraway that could have been my post as that's exactly what I have done.

this age girls are a bloody handful op, sympathies.

do not get into slanging matches with the other mums though. that way lies maddness.

OK get your points. But surely it is very unprofessional of a Deputy Head Teacher to say to 9/10 year old girls that they are getting a reputation - surely I wasn't wrong to bring them up with the Class Teacher. As it stands the Head Teacher/Deputy Head/Teachers are trying to sort out appts to speak to us mums to try to solve the situation.

How could I have made it worse by bringing up a comment made by the Deputy Head Teacher?

Many year 5 girls become absolutely vile to each other.

I would say it is a case of there being fault with the 3 girls and also with your dd and her friend.

They all need a talking to about either keeping away from each other or thinking about treating each other how they would like to be treated.

Your dd and her friend will not be getting a reputation for nothing at all.

Do you know the deputy head said that for sure or is this just your dds report. Seriously leave it.

Daughters Best Friend said the exact same thing to her mum.

the deputy head could have said exactly the same or similar to the other girls and you wouldn't know.

honestly op it's upsetting but really commem at this age and it's virtually impossible for schools to take sides in this 'she said well no she said' situation.

if you friend is going to move her dd to other schools every time she has a rwi with another girl she's going to run out if local schools.

charm offensive here, get them all to yours for a sleepover.

If it's just the account of your daughter and her friend you won't get any further with it. I'd leave it too.

i think you should get involved because people are mis representing your dc by spreading rumours and important people like the head are actually paying heed t the rumous and acting on them, you need to set it straight.

OP have you asked your dd if she wants to be friends with the other three, or if she just wants them all to leave each other alone? If she does want them to be a group of five friends then it can be possible with the right support.

If I were you, I would ask my dd, in the morning before the trip, if she wanted them to all be pals and if so if she would like to invite them all round for pizza and a movie on Friday night. You can confirm the invite with the other parents, and on Friday night praise them all for getting past their troubles and bonding, reminding them how important it is to all be on the same side and looking out for each other instead of starting to divide and attack each other.

The other route is to leave it all to the school, but as you have discovered (and i have too) this does not always work, and hanging out outside school where the usual school anxieties and need to show off are not there, is often more effective.

You could suggest to the school that they put the five of them in the same group for drama activities, science activities, and team building games, to push them into working together. None of them are going to be able to explain the reasons behind the bullying and problems without blame and defensive responses, so I would really try to move straight past the troubles into a positive future.

Buds you might give the senior teacher a littie bit more credit here than to Blame 2 girls entirely for any incident.

the op has her dds side of it.

she would be an absolute test to march into school and demand action against the other girls.

in my experience unless it's a whole gang into one child it's usually 6 and 2 3s in cases like this.

the op needs the facts before she 'sets anybody straight'

to add she won't get any real facts as all the girls will blame each other.

seriously were some posters ever teenage girls?

Oh dear, I dont see any bullying from what you have described and you is e absolutely no proof that the head is "doing anything". But you are very blinkered so go ahead you are doing no one any favours.