School not informing of incident

[msannabella]

Hi,
Just wanted to find out if AIBU from those with more experience of school matters.

My 5 year old ds has just started primary 1 (in Scotland so no reception class) He has been in 3 weeks and on Friday evening he told me about an incident in school where a primary 3 boy shut him in the toilets and wouldn't let ds leave unless he knew the password. The boy threw wrappers and things from the bin on ds and when ds tried to get out his fingers were trapped in the door. He told the supervisors and got taken to office to ice fingers.

My AIBU is that I would have expected to be told about this, I'm not expecting phone calls or anything stupid, I know they are busy and it's not a big injury, but a note or something mentioned at pick up would have been good. (We even spoke to his teacher and she didn't mention anything) Ds has been subdued and I think it scared him a bit.

Am I still in nursery mode where something like this would have been told to me, should I speak to the teacher to find out more about the incident or should I let it lie because it wasn't deliberately aimed at ds, he just happened to be the boy it happened to and assume the school has dealt with it?

Sorry if it's too long!

msannabella - I hope your son is ok and that this incident hasn't negatively impacted on his experience of school.

I too wouldn't say this was bullying per se - and I speak as someone who was bullied really quite severely right through primary and secondary. I now work in education and whilst this incident is obviously not acceptable I can't help thinking that crying 'bully' a) doesn't help this particular situation and b) devalues the experience of both those who are bullied and are bullies.

These are little children we're talking about, a single incident can be sorted - it doesn't help to label a child as a bully at this stage.

Of course it is bullying. And of course you should have been told. Don't go in all guns blazing though. You need to be calm, cooperative but your son's advocate. At a school they have all the children to think of. You are the only person your son has to fight his corner.

Sounds exactly like bullying to me.

At our school that is the kind of incident that would be mentioned in a staff meeting as a cause for concern and the parents would either have been informed over the phone or at pick up.

Bullying in many school policies is deliberate, repeated actions intended to upset someone.

This incident, however nasty, is not bullying. Saying it is a nasty incident vs bullying doesn't minimise that.

I agree with other posters, assuming they weren't tied up with another parent at the end of the day then I'd have thought they'd let you know about his fingers.

Maybe give school a call, hear what they have to say but do it in a reasonable way rather than 'you failed to tell me my son is being bullied!' way

Hope you get answers today.

Hope you get answers today.

I can't believe the number of people who say this is not bullying. No wonder so many schools ignore blatant bullying. It is, and it should not pass unmentioned.

Make a fuss, get into that school now. I know (from experience) you might be thinking "what if I am over reacting" "what if I got the wrong story". Don't worry, you don't want this to become the norm. This school will be for the next 7 years, all day long. Nothing worse then sending a child or going to a place where you hate it because of these types of incidences. Its not trivialising bullying, because all bullying is simply wrong.

Too many schools would be happy to just let things pass. If they had taken it seriously you would have been told about it, because it would have been upsetting.

Thank you to everyone for the perspectives. Have spoken to teacher this afternoon and I just calmly asked her to shed light on what happened. She was quite taken aback since the incident hadn't been reported to her from the office and she was really apologetic. It turns out it was actually a primary 7 pupil who did it so I believe he should definitely know better! The head of early years is involved and they are taking it really seriously. I'm glad I didn't leave it especially since he was so much older! Thanks for the advice.