Really disappointed in DS's Yr 6 teacher...

[usernamesarenotimportant]

I'm probably going to get a lot of YABU but that's ok. I just want to rant a bit.

It is DS's Birthday so he brought in some sweets like all the kids do. However there is a child who has been really nasty to DS throughout the whole year (violently). To the point that DS had to be educated at home for a month. It's all a very long story. He absolutely didn't want to give this boy a sweet. I assumed he wouldn't have to? His teacher said he wouldn't be allowed to give his sweets out if he wasn't going to give to all the children. My DS said that he wouldn't give the sweets out. I thought that was fair enough. But then his teacher seemed to pester him about how that wasn't really fair as the class had got excited about getting sweets and he had taken that away from them. DS said he would give them the sweets outside of the school gates so she confiscated them and said he won't be and that "considering the year he has had, she is surprised by the way he is deciding to treat somebody" no. no. no. no! that's really unreasonable in my opinion, this isn't some poor little boy who my DS is deciding to exclude, this is the child that violently attacked my son many times throughout the year and couldn't give a shit about it as he kept doing it repeatedly. She also wouldn't let him hand out his part invites in her classroom as he was the only boy not invited... But also wouldn't give him the invites back (they have to give them to the teacher at the start of the day). I'm just absolutely appalled. Is it me, or is this not exactly fair?

So all this happened Friday?
Ask for the sweets back tomorrow (Monday), then do with them as you will.

Maybe teacher could have been more tactful in her comments, but who speaks perfectly every time? Asking her to collude in publicly humiliating the boy is unacceptable.

Yes DS should of got sweets back at the end of the day..however she may simply of forgotten.. I doubt giving sweets out was top of her list lots more may of gone on that day.

I do think you should of thought about this before you went in with invites and sweets..You have said you didn't expect her to condone what you were doing but you have expected it by not pre empting she can't give out to all but one.

My DS was bullied this year..Same year but not same class. So he had a big party but that was 10 friends. I have never heard of class parties in year 6.. I can't think of one since reception.. My Ds in year 1 struggled to get it down to under 20 so did a big party but not whole class.

Despite been bullied I still would not invite every other child except the bully.. I do understand your own feelings towards that boy..I describe my feelings as a Lioness wanting to protect her child. My level of anger was not one I should express to a child. While I have ensured they are not in the same class next year I have discussed how not to spend time been extra nice, laping up any ounce of niceness but how to get through school without creating more problems. I sent my DS to self defence so he was able to stand up for himself..I cannot change the other child and even if he turns out to be the nicest child in the year I doubt I will ever forgive him. I can look at how my DS responds to it.

OP YANBU. I cannot see how people think you are. Your DC said ok, I won't hand out sweets in class. Reasonable answer from him. Teacher should not keep invites at all. Has the teacher any sympathy or understanding for your boy at all? And, you know what, if a child is a violent bully then they should expect to be excluded. I think some of the responses to you on here have been shocking. Your poor boy-has the bravery to get back into school following what sounds like horrifoc bullying and then is told to give a sweet to the bully!

I am amazed at what PP have said OP. They clearly haven't experienced this kind of bullying of their child.

YANBU. It is obvious that children of 11 have their own views and opinions and who they want to invite to parties and who to give sweets to - whether that's in school time or not.

My child went through an awful bullying incident at Junior school and I can't say too much without 'outing' myself. However, my child was basically put in a similar position. Although, the situation was different the principal appears to be the same.

Do we really have to teach our children that it's ok to be bullied and then to make matters worse, you have to offer the bully a sweet/party invite, or the teacher will take these things off you, just so the bully doesn't feel left out?!

I'm with BillSykesDog.

Clearly a potentially inflammatory situation, & had the OP's ds given out the sweets & invitations himself anywhere in or around school it could well have caused everything to kick off again. Had this happened in the playground at 1 minute past end of school, OP would presumably not been happy.

OP, I would also have looked after the stuff for him, then rung/emailed you as the parent (not tried to catch you at end of day, too busy & no privacy) & said 'Given you & ds both prefer not to invite 'Jimmy', when can you [ie. you the parent] retrieve the sweets & invites to hand out outside of school?'

Or maybe she did intend to give them back to you at the end of the day & forgot/got distracted by another parent, or maybe she was checking with a senior colleague for advice because she anticipated that your reaction would be to be aggrieved.

Either way, I think it was absolutely right to stop your ds from handing anything out in or around school.

I wouldn't disagree at all with you not inviting the bully. Fair consequence of his actions. But the teacher cannot allow behaviour which excludes one child to happen on HER watch - what you do privately is your business.

If the bullying is so severe and you had to home school surely you could of moved schools? That would be my course of action had it been as bad as you describe. I agree he could do with self defence classes. They don't tend to hit if they get hit back. If things had cooled down why was your DS wanting to inflame the situation by excluding him he told you if his intentions prior to going to school

Always the victim expected to move - if you look at any anti bullying policy it states this shouldn't happen and the bully should move -

Never seen it in practice -

No they shouldn't have to move but if the school is unable to safe guard the child who is getting physically attacked on several occasions and is being home schooled as a result due to extreme violence, he shouldn't have to step foot back in that school whilst that boy was here. As a parent I would personally move my child to a safer environment. Whilst logging a formal complaint against the school for failure to safeguard.

Two separate things. Bullying is never okay.

It's never okay to exclude one child in a class.

Is everyone nuts? If my child had done that I would ask that he be left out. Its a harsh lesson but one they have to learn.

The bullying has been "dealt with", in that the child doing the bullying now just makes "occasional comments" - the OP's DS is confident and has a class full of close friends.

That sounds like a really, really good outcome, given what the OP described as being the situation.

If the class teacher has been part of that, she deserves to be praised.

Police aren't interested in school incidents Ime. DS was a victim (threatened with knife) and I was fine with it (iyswim?) up until the point when ds refused school HT refused to meet me, school then changed story and began saying they only informed me because they knew my DS would "embellish the story to you", DS has ASD and couldn't embellish a fucking decoration!
They said police were involved, ds wanted to make statement as he was cross school changed story, and when I rang up police had no record of incident. Then they ring 2 days later to say schools story is 'similar' to ds and they dealt with it in house which is what they should do.

DS is out of school now through fear. Other boy is in school being supported. Ds wasn't offered support. I was told if he didn't come in it would be an unauthorised absence

I'll never for the life of me understand why the victim who is already under Camhs for anxiety wouldn't be offered support too.

I wouldn't batter an eyelid if my DS refused this boy a sweet or party invite.

Yanbu not to invite a bully to your child's party and I suppose if he really is close friends with everyone else in the class then fair enough, invite everyone else.

He was also nbu not to want to give the bully a sweet.

However, as so many people have said, the teacher couldn't possibly be expected to allow him to give out invites and sweets to everyone except one child. You should probably have forseen that and either not sent him in with sweets in the first place or told him to give them out after school.

The comment the teacher made about him leaving someone out after the year he has had sounds like a clumsy attempt to reason with him, saying he knows what it's like to feel excluded. I agree that this wasn't he best phrase for her to use, but it was a difficult position to be in. I would just get the sweets and invites back on Monday and give them out in the playground, maybe over a couple of days if you don't catch everyone the first time. Tbh, although I know you're overly invested because of the bullying, this doesn't really sound like a very big deal.

The sheer amount of posters still saying that the OP expects the teacher to condone exclusion proves that no-one really reads threads properly before they start spouting off.

OP has repeated herself until she's blue in the face that she agrees with the teacher and the exclusion can't happen in class.

All she wants is the stuff back and for the teacher to not try and influence her DS's actions outside of school by withholding his property or guilt tripping him in front of the class.

And for the PP's who said they "can't imagine a teacher ever doing that" well not every teacher does their job properly. Some of the teachers in my school were the bullies and you should believe the bullied child's account just like his mother is (go you OP for having faith in him) or else you're just showing him that no-one will believe him and there's no point in telling anyone when you are treated unfairly.

This coming from someone who was physically bullied by a teacher and no-one ever believed me and it hurt far more than any physical pain

I find it hard to understand why the teacher wouldn't have phoned you during the day to explain what happened and to make arrangements with you to pick up the items she had taken. This is what would have happened in my DCs' school.

Maybe the bullying issue earlier was exacerbated by a similar lack of communication. It seems to me from reading many threads featuring bullying that schools do a poor job of communication.

I also think the school was wrong to press you not to involve the police. It's not too late to log the incidents even now.

Usernamesareunimportant Ivan so sorry you have been through this. I am surprised the school did not involve the police, and I feel they may be negligent for not doing so, based on what I understand happened.

Of course it is not unkind to exclude a bully.

I am not sure it is true, or where the relevance is, for saying only unhappy children bully? Do we say only unhappy adults beat other adults up?

U2hastheedge is right.

Sounds like a last 5 minutes of the school day conversation about the sweets. So no chance to phone.

The teacher had no right at all to tell OP's son that she is surprised by the way he is treating the kid that bullied him.

Swap bully for a vicious animal, maybe a dog that has bitten ds once (ignore the fact that the dog would have been put down).

Ds has to walk past the dog every day, would you advice him to not provoke the dog?

I'd agree that it's not just unhappy children

Bullying is about power - it's a game - it's about feeling good by making someone feel bad -

Girl who bullied DD was from a food home had everything she demanded wanted -

She's now lonely in high school!!

When's the party? Will there be time to get the invitations back and get a class-full of friends informed in time?

But you haven't even spoken to the teacher yet. It's all an 11 ye olds point of view of what was said and done. I find it highly unlikely she pestered him to give out sweets- I imagine she stuck them in the drawer and forgot all about them.

See I dont think teachers should always include all the children, if for whatever reason a chikd eants to exclude another chikd then that is there right and may teach the child a less, however if the child has done nothing wrong then its a bit shit but they need to deal with it. The teacher did not need to make ANY passive agressive comments they were extremely childish, and to nptKids have to l give the items back is theft and would report her.learn ifyoure a little shit no one wants to be friends with you and you need to acceptthat.