Aggressive and violent child at school. What can I do if school are brushing it under the carpet?

[Ducied]

Hi,

I would really like some advice from anyone who has had a similar experience, or works in school/LEA/is a school governor or similar.

My son (reception age) attends a very highly regarded primary school. It is rated as one of the top UK primaries.

There is a violent and aggressive boy in his class, who has sought out my child for the entire school year and subjected him to being hit/pushed/shoved on a regular basis. Sometimes it happens almost every day, and sometimes it scales off then a very aggressive and serious incident will occur a week later.

Examples of serious incidents are head injuries, head stamped on, attempted strangulation, blows to the eye, hits in the face with hard objects.

I have spoken to the class teacher about 10 times over the year. Each time he insists my son is sometimes provoking (we had NO behavioural issues before at nursery - not a single incident). He then deflects from what I am saying by bringing up issues with my son, for example, my son's phonics work (or similar). These 'issues' with my son are only brought up after I have called a meeting to discuss my son's safety.

While I know this will sound unreasonable to some, my experience so far says the school are trying to give me the message that if I kick up a fuss about this, they will deflect by attacking my son.

My son's report came home 2 weeks ago. It says he is 'outstanding' in all 3 areas of the EYFS.

I am worried about next year when this boy will be bigger and stronger. I worry something serious might happen one day. The incidents happen at playtime, and the school are clearly not watching them closely enough.

When I bring up my concerns, they seem to nod their heads and not do anything to address the behaviour. If they are doing anything, it is not working.

What would you do next?

[clam]

"Bully .... this seems to be a very dirty word in schools. .... they don't like the term."

Not true - what is more likely is, that they get frustrated with is the number of people who use the term too readily, for a one-off simple disagreement between two pupils, for instance (not the case for the OP, though). This could lead to cases of "real" bullying possibly being missed.

[Spartans]

impossible for this level of violence to go unnoticed for a year, and quite frankly it is a joke to suggest it.

Yes. However I am saying to you it goes noticed but swept under the carpet. The schools report low level incidents to show there were dealt with. Anything about low level is hidden. Sorry you don't want to hear it, it's a fact.

I had a meeting at dds secondary that she goes to in September as her bully will be going there too. Imagine my surprise when the learning manager had to ask me details about the police incident because dds current school (where the bully also attends) has told them nothing about this. Even though the police explicitly told them they had to. The new school don't even know he currently has 1-2-1 supervision. I gave the new school a copy of the file we kept and are very annoyed they had no knowledge of what's been going on and so did not have a plan in place.

Schools across the country are failing kids. You may not have seen it, but plenty have.

[MissClaudette]

Frankly, I would have escalated to every single kind of authority the second the teacher passed this kind of action off as typical boy behaviour!! What an absolute JOKE. doesn't even cut it. I would have been FURIOUS. Fucking livid.

I really hope you get some kind of solution out of this, because this kind of behaviour cannot be condoned or encouraged, and some of these posts are utterly shocking. Some people should be ashamed of themselves. Sometimes there really is no "two sides", it's just someone being shitty and someone being the victim. In this case it's poor Ducied's little one!

[dollius]

You need to see the head teacher about how the school intends to keep your child safe.

If the response is ultimately unsatisfactory, you should make a complaint to Ofsted and use the phrase "safeguarding issue". In many cases this will trigger an unannounced inspection of the school and records of how these incidents have been handled will be examined.

If the school is deemed to have fallen short of expectations in the way it handles bullying, the head may well be removed and the school will go into special measures. Depends how seriously ofsted views this. However safeguarding pupils welfare is pretty high on the priority list these days.

This is what the deputy head of a London comp told me. Cannot know that this procedure would apply everywhere or in all types of case, but worth mentioning the word safeguarding to the head and see if that elicits some more constructive action from the school.

[Sallyhasleftthebuilding]

No one wants to label their own child as a victim of bullying, no one wants to accuse a child of being a bully. Low level incidents that are not being dealt with esculate ... bit more bit more .. these add up to children not wanting to go to school ... crying til 3am ... bed wetting ... illness ... stress worry and eventually mental health issues, confidence issues .. educational issues ... a child can be destroyed by bullying ... low level or not.

[dollius]

Also, I can well believe the class teacher wants to sweep this under the carpet. When my son was pushed over and jumped on by a boy nearly twice his weight and later attacked with a tennis racquet by the same boy, the teacher was more concerned that I not tell other parents about it as the boy had behavioural issues and he didn't want him to be stigmatised.

[chocbacktochoc]

you don't know if the school is in any way involved with the boy and his family so I would not make too many assumptions here.

if you are unhappy with the way things are handled then complain. do it the official way rather than just talking to the CT.

evey school has a complaints policy and it must be published in their website. find it and do it it that way. usually done in writing.

[Spartans]

agree with clam. The term "bullying" is far too readily bandied about, which is why there is a problem when it really is needing to be dealt with.

Again, apart from at schools, when is it ever acceptable for the the people charged with other peoples welfare is it ok to say 'well it doesn get taken serious because some people falsely claim bullying when it's not'

Because you apply this conversation to the police, hospitals etc and there would be hell to pay of they used that excuse.

If the police said it to a dv victim or their family? And they followed it up with 'in my experience , it's not usually one sided.....what did she do to provoke him?'

This would (quite rightly) an outcry. But it's seems to be ok when applying it to bullying.

[BabyGanoush]

Send a letter to head mentioning they are failing in their duty of care towards your son.

No long emotional letter, but short and to the point.

These incidents hsppened:1,2,3 (facts, not emotions), and you feel your child is not safe in the classroom.

Ask them what they will do about it (ball firmly in their court) and say you rxpect to hear from him soon about this serious concern.

Send a copy of the letter to the governors.

Take it from there.

[clam]

It's not an excuse, but the police take it very seriously when there are false allegations of rape, for instance, partly because it can make it harder for "real" victims to come forward and know they'll be taken seriously.

[Spartans]

clam you have said


*"Bully .... this seems to be a very dirty word in schools. .... they don't like the term."

Not true - what is more likely is, that they get frustrated with is the number of people who use the term too readily, for a one-off simple disagreement between two pupils, for instance (not the case for the OP, though). This could lead to cases of "real" bullying possibly being missed.

If a police officer said that about a dv victim ther wor be hell on. The school dos missed this one because some people cry wolf? It's a ridiculous statement

And camel you agreed with clam and said the term was bandied about too much! You did not say 'it means aomethin different to different people'

If you thought iteant different to different people you would have said that not 'ther term bullying Far too readily bandied about'

If both of you think that bullying can be missed by other people over using it the term 'bullying', at least stand by what you think and tackle those people claiming bullyin when it isn't.

[clam]

No, someone said schools don't like the term bullying. I said that is not true, any decent school will deal with it head on, but they might get exasperated if people keep calling run-of-the-mill fallings out between kids 'bullying,' - as police will deal firmly with people making false accusations (of any kind, not only rape).

[Spartans]

clam it's my experience that schools do not like the term. They wouldn't term my dd being assaulted twice as bullying their response was 'this could turn into bullying' they just don't want that word used. Suggesting it's down to people misusing it is , imo, wrong and it's no excuse for ignoring instances of bullying.

camel or course more people use it. Because awareness has been raised. In these situations instances go up. Not because it's happening more or people are latching on to it. But because people are aware of what constitutes as bullying and so report it. Looking back there were kids who were bullied at my school but no one thought of it that way. Now the certainly would have. At the time it was 'kids are just mean' that's not ok.

[Spartans]

clam do schools treat false allegations of bullying seriously?

[clam]

Then perhaps you should move your child away from a school that doesn't take it seriously into one of the many that do.

[APlaceOnTheCouch]

I think another issue with the terminology is that schools do tend to have a bullying strategy or protocol. If it's recognised as 'bullying' then they are supposed to follow certain steps. If the word isn't used, then a teacher can ignore the policy and try to manage it outwith the proper structure.

ime we did not use the word bullying at first but in a way this enabled the teacher to dismiss the problem, fail to address the issues, and allow the situation to escalate. I have no doubt if the teacher had addressed it when we first raised it then it would not have escalated to a point where DS was too scared to go to school. When we went to the Deputy Head , she was very quick to label the situation 'bullying'.

I can't help but wonder if we had termed it 'bullying' from the beginning if the response would have been more effective.

[YeOldTrout]

OP: why describe mention of phonics as 'attacking' your son?

OP: do any other children in the year group ever get flagged up for violent behaviour? What does the school do about other rough kids?

[Purplepoodle]

I would be writing a letter to the head teacher stating the FACTS (no hearsay) you have and arrange a meeting then go to governors if no joy.

IF the child is being agressive it needs to be addressed. Unfortunately it's incredibly hard to get funding for children with SN. Getting cover for p,at times and lunch can be worse. My friend has begged her primary to let him stay inside during these periods as has ASD and gets overloaded and very aggressive. They keep saying they havnt got the staff to cover it.

Out of my own experience. There was a little boy is ds reception class who seemed to be hurting lots of children including my ds. Things came to a head when my ds got into a scrap with the little boy. Turs out the little boy did have aggression control problems but a group of boys inc my son had cottoned onto this and were deliberately antagonist the wee boy and trying to blame him for things they were doing.

[Spartans]

clam if you read the thread you will see I did. Only for the school one to decide they didn't want the bully anymore and manage his move into dds new school. Guess what school 1 and 2 were both useless.

Because schools not doing anything is a real problem. It's not the odd school

[Spartans]

The answer to the question 'why is school not doing anything about my child being bullied?' Is answers here.

Because if you don't like the way school is handling it...leave. What a lovely message to give kids. Sometimes people in charge don't do what they should. So to solve it, you must leave your friends.

After dds bully moved to her new school and this school also failed to act, maybe I should have moved her again. Rather than call the police and the get the actual kid causing the problem in trouble. Maybe dd should have shoulders the responsibilty again and moved

[bruffin]

Didnt ýou post about your ds before under a different name?