To think school have handled this really badly?

[MyballsareSandy]

DD is year 8 and last week a fight broke out in the playground between two girls. One of the girls has had all sorts of problems at school and at home, police involved, social services etc etc. She is very aggressive and most of the year group are very wary of her.

This girl, call her A, started throwing insults at a friend of DD's. Most people walk away from A when this starts, given her history, but this friend didn't, she gave some verbal back and A went ballistic and attacked her. A crowd gathered round, DD said it was horrible but over in a few minutes when a teacher ran out and pulled them apart. DD's friend was hurt and very upset. A was excluded for a few days, DD's friend in seclusion for a day.

Yesterday it came to light that a boy had videoed it all, which he showed to the SMT. A deputy head then hauled every child that was visible on the video out of class - approx 30 of them - had half an hour session, shouting at them saying they had let the school down, they should have broken up the fight, not stood there watching. He went on to say that there would be a note on each of their school records with details of what had gone on and each child had to write a statement saying what they witnessed. He dismissed them all, saying that today he would decide on their punishment which would be seclusion or exclusion for one day.

My first question to DD when she explained all this last night, was "were you all cheering and egging on", as I remember my school days. She said no-one did that, they were all shocked. DD said her heart was racing and she was shaking, wondering what to do and worried about her friend. DD told the deputy head that everyone is scared of A and no-one would have attempted to break it up as she would have turned on them. He refused to accept this, still emphasising they were in the wrong.

Police are involved as the friend's parents have reported A as assaulting their DD when they discovered the school were blaming their DD as much as A.

So I wonder if the over-reaction is to do with the police involvement, ie school need to be seen to be dealing with this. But it seems totally over the top. DD has never been in any trouble before, she hates aggro and is very well regarded at school both academically and with her behaviour. 'm waiting to see what their punishment is before contacting school.

Interested in views, sorry it's so long!

Looks to me like school are covering all the bases and their own arse tbh, as you say, being seen to be dealing with it.
Why on earth would they have wanted students to break it up? Just to end up with potentially more injured students or a possible mass brawl being filmed instead?

Why is it over the top for the kids to be told not to act like sheep?

The head did right...kids need to learn that they MUST think as individuals.

A few minutes in which all of them watched? Could not one of them have run to fetch a member of staff? (In fact, come to think of it, where were the staff?)

Year 8, so the girls are about 12/13?
And the Deputy Head thinks they should have put themselves at risk to break up a fight, in which one of the involved girls is known to be aggressive?
I don't think so!
Maybe if they were older and better able to defend themselves.
Seeing girls fight can be scary. They can be a lot more vicious than boys, and if it's not a common thing, how would the children know how to react? Especially if it's over in a few minutes when they are all still dealing with the shock.

IMO, the deputy head is being VERY unreasonable, and if I was in your position and he attempted to seclude or exclude my daughter, I'd be creating merry hell!

And also, I hope the police involvement this time will lead to girl A getting the help she seems to need.

I would want to know where the supervision was and why my dd was responsible for policing a situation like this when a teacher wasn't present.

It's not ok for the crowd to be punished, and I would hate for my dc to be encouraged to get in the middle of a fight.

Told off for not getting help, maybe, but for not getting involved?

If I saw two people in the street fighting, I would call the police, I wouldn't stand between them.

So long as nobody was cheering on and obviously they will be able to see that, then I can well understand that nobody wanted to be the one to try to break it up and get hurt then or even subsequently bullied by A.

I think it is perfectly reasonable and indeed normal to feel exactly as your dd did.

Have you heard of the bystander effect? Very well known in psychology - basically (and it's a long time since I did it, so I'm probably a bit rusty) the more people there are watching something, the less likely it is that a particular individual will do anything because they think that there are so many others there that somebody else will do it. Tied in with nobody likes to be the one that does something different from the way the crowd is behaving.

(side note - which is why if you are the one being beaten up/in an accident/in any situation where help would be needed, you should always direct your cries for help at individuals rather than the crowd in general, much higher chance of getting help).

I would google the bystander effect and then go and complain about the way the school is handling this. Not least because it's part of a teacher's job to break up fights (unfortunately) whereas there is no such onus on pupils to step in, put themselves at risk and break up a fight.

A few minutes is a long time to watch people fighting. Anyone gawping and not finding help deserves to be punished IMO.

So where those 30 students so shocked that they were unable to utter a word or even walk to find a teacher? Oh please, the school is perfectly right to have taken these steps. Off course the kids will now say they weren't apart of but just standing there and doing nothing they were a part of it. There was an assault and the police should be involved.

YANBU
No way would my Y8 DD2 intervene in a serious physical fight, nor would I expect her to.

Apart from worrying about getting hurt, she'd be petrified of getting in real trouble ('forgetting' her German HW is as naughty as she gets).

I suspect your DHT is fielding a large number of irate phone calls and emails as you type this thread.

Did the head suggest that they should have waded in and stopped it, or just tried to defuse the argument before it got physical?

To be honest, what seems unreasonable is getting the police involved when as you say girl B gave some verbal back.

I don't think teenagers should be encouraged to break up fights - DH used to be a bouncer and he had to do training before he tackled this kind of thing.

The main issue is that there seemed to be no teachers and no one went to get a teacher - perhaps the boy who videoed it should have thought of this - he certainly seemed to keep his head enough to hold a camera steady.

The school should actually question why it has a culture where its pupils don't turn to a teacher for help in such a situation and where teachers were nowhere near this probably very noisy event for a very long time.

It's not the dc's responsibility to break up a fight. They could be injured. They could be given into trouble for being part of a fight.

Yes, ideally someone should have gone to tell a teacher but I don't think a possible suspension or exclusion is an appropriate punishment for not telling a teacher about a fight. It's the school that has a safeguarding responsibility to pupils. It's not a pupil-to-pupil responsibility.

Logistically, it just doesn't make sense either. There's no way the SMT can know that every dc watching is included in the video so basically the punishment is dependent on whether another pupil managed to video you?! I would send an email to school to 'clarify' what dd has said as it can't possibly be correct. (This is the tactic I would use in the email. It's not that I think your dd is wrong iyswim).

Once they have handed out a punishment they will probably be even less likely to back down.

I broke up a fight when I was in 4th year Secondary. I ended up with a broken nose - far worse injury than either of the two girls that were actually fighting.

I would support my daughter if this happened to her and tell the Head/HOY/HOD that if she was punished in any way I would NOT support the punishment and would remove my daughter from school on the day it was to take place.

As zipzap says the bystander effect is a very powerful thing.

Given Y8 girls are at the peak age for conforming to the herd age, no one is going to be seen to intervene or run to the teacher.

At primary someone might, but 12-14 yearold girls, no way.

Thanks all, interesting. I will find out exact details before I wade in as I'm aware we don't always hear the full story, but DD isn't usually far off!

There are a lot of children who were present who haven't been hauled out of class by deputy head. Obviously the kids that were near the boy videoing are unlikely to be seen in it, my DD happened to be directly opposite. He's already been excluded for videoing apparently. I'd be interested to see it.

I'm struggling with what the SMT hope to achieve. I can only see two possible outcomes of this strategy. Either the dc's will run to tell if they see another fight - good outcome.

Or the dc's back away and pretend not to see what's going on because they don't want to be targeted by the fighters/bullies for telling - bad outcome. If the teachers didn't spot the fight with 30 pupils crowded round them, how will they spot future fights if their punishment encourages dc's to move away rather than go for help?

It seems like a knee-jerk reaction that is trying to shift responsibility from the teachers on to the pupils. That's not acceptable. I'm really on your dd's behalf!

The students should not be asked to intervene in fights, and unless the video clearly shows that the bystanders were egging this fight on, I don't agree with the bystanders being punished.

This is not on, the deputy head is clearly trying to shift blame and responsibility to the students. A full on fight and teachers weren't around?

So the boy who videoed it has been excluded for doing so and yet the HT is happy to use his video footage as evidence to punish others!

It's the schools responsibility to protect the other children from A, they were wrong to punish B for standing up for and defending herself and they're wrong to try pin the blame on other students for not intervening. No doubt any student who got involved to protect B would have been wrongly punished too.

A is the schools problem and their responsibility, if they can't have someone shadow her every second so that her violent impulses can be restrained, she shouldn't be there.

overall, he did right, but not in the right way IYSWIM

I watched "kidulthood" a-bloody-gain last week and there is this horrible bullying scene and everyone just watches. he is right to teach them to not just "walk by" tough lesson though, and not fairly handled

you know what though, I feel sorry for girl A (bully)- I bet you her home life is a-fucking-bysmal to be this agressive at 8

she is 8, yet as a tough as a 16 year old. sad

They all should have gone and found a teacher- not just watched.

The head did the right thing.

No they shouldn't be made to break it up, of course your DD was there, she was standing with her friend, when it started.

I broke up a fight outside my DDs high school a couple of years, ago. It was two boys and one was getting his head bounced of a wall, there was a lot of blood. There were a lot of people in the vincinity. I had to leave my car and cross a road to get to them.

From where I was sitting it looked like people were standing watch, obviously some were, but when up close, some where shouting at them to stop and yelling for staff to come.
Others were trying to get past, some of the girls were scared and crying.

Once I had separated them, then other pupils grabbed one of them to hold him back. While I took the other one back into school.

Most children would be too scared to try to separate fighters. I would never expect my DDs to do so.

I had got into the school before a member of staff appeared

Most children wouldn't intervene especially if they are scared on A anyway. As a parent I wouldn't want my child intervening in a fight - they could get hurt or blamed or both.

I broke up a fight in the park between two boys of a similar age 12/13 and it was scary. I wouldn't expect a child to have known how to deal with it.

Teachers cannot be everywhere ... And taking statements is the norm in a situation like this. The DHT did the correct thing- someone should have got a teacher and he is teaching the pupils a valuable lesson, that standing by is the wrong thing. . I would imagine the school realised it had been filmed by it being shown on social media.
I am surprised that the parents got the police involved when their own daughter was mouthing off too ...

I think you're right to ask questions.

I would ask is my daughter to be punished and for what transgression for starters.

If the punishment is for not wading in to separate them, I would respond by asking how they have come to this decision and whether they have consulted the police about it. I would also express concern about how safe this advice is.

If the punishment is for not getting a teacher I think it's fair. Children do have a responsibility to inform an adult when something unsafe is happening.