To want the school to keep DS safe

[GenedlGymreig]

DS is in year 1 and a generally very happy and sporty boy. Unfortunately there a 4 boys in his class who physically assault him on a fairly regular basis. On a roughly weekly basis he will tell us that one of them punched him in the face and made him cry. It seems the 4 boys are not working in a team but each have their own behaviour problems.

One of them, boy A, was clearly bullying DS and eventually we managed to persuade the school to talk to his parents which seems to have stopped the physical assaults. Boy A has carried on being verbally mean however.

Boy B is cleverer and is careful to only assault DS when the observant teacher is not working. (The teachers are often part time.) He seems to have a personal grudge against DS. My guess is that it is because DS is very good at sport and he wants to be the best.

Boy C’s mother was overheard recently lamenting that the school won’t help her get a certificate of special needs for her son. Boy C appears to assault lots of children and gets sent to the head regularly.

Boy D attacks DS less frequently and it doesn’t seem to be personal. He also punches DS in the face and makes him cry.

I would just like DS to be able to go to school without fear of being attacked. Every day I pick him up I have to ask if he has been attacked that day,

I can see the problem is hard for the school. I have a meeting today
with one of the class teachers but I can't work out what I can say to them. But AIBU to want them to do something to keep DS safe?

YANBU. This is disgraceful, no child should have to put up with this at school. You should ask for a meeting and kick up shit. Tell them they sort this now or your son won't return to the school.

Why does no one seem to know the age of criminal responsibility is ten in the UK, the police have no remit with a five year old being hit by another five year old in the playground.

Do you have a DP/DH? Mums are dismissed too often as emotional or over protective by some school teachers.
I went in with DH to see the deputy head. It was like night and day in how seriously they took it, all because my DH was there. Insulting that it has to be that way, but play them at their own game.

Also print off their anti-bullying statement from the website or request a copy. Then work through the escalation procedures, line by line during the meeting. They know that this ends up with the governors and will spring into action.

Everything goes nuclear on MN school threads. By page 2 we'll have someone saying go to Ofsted

Rightly fucking so. Why should children go to school and be assaulted on a regular basis?

There are two things to consider - one is the school, who sound ineffective at best. Get in there and get demanding. You can stay calm and stick to the facts but you need to insist that this is sorted out now.
The second is helping your son to form more healthy friendships at school. Lots of 5yo boys (including my own) need to have things spelt out to them. I’m not victim blaming, my point is he needs to befriend the nicer kids and to do that he needs to know how to play in a way that’s fun for everyone not just him. If he spends his time asking for kids to race him and winning/gloating about it every time the more mature kids will just stop engaging with him. It’s not fun for them to play like that. The less mature kids are likely to get frustrated and possibly lash out.

@Isadora2007
Ah and a woman/man who speaks out of turn to their abisive partner and gets a wee punch in the face is to blame because they are "contributing to the situation"?

Rightly fucking so. Why should children go to school and be assaulted on a regular basis?
Except I haven't said it's ok to be assaulted. In fact, I've given the OP loads of advice on how to move forward and on raising official complaints.

Unfortunately on MN there's always people who seem to dish out 'go to ofsted' as advice thinking going nuclear makes them scary. It doesn't. Ofsted will want to know what you've done to resolve it and will ask what dialogue you've had with school. Going to Ofsted when you've mentioned something in passing to the class teacher, are only just meeting with ghe clsss teacher and no senior staff have been involved is just silly.

There is absolutely a time and a place for going to governors, LA, Ofsted. That time is after you've met with people in school to resolve it first.

I would move him, my son had a similar experience from a group of boys, It destroyed his confidence, At his new school he is like a new kid, hes so happy and has so many friends!!

MaisyPops

OP has had a sit down meeting with the class teacher and nothing has improved. She is now having to have a second meeting. This is not good enough. There should have been some improvement from the last meeting.

Timeisslippingaway - ridiculous, no one would say that but it would be fair to say that as her partner was already deemed as abusive that she had some choice in the matter as oppose to someone randomly getting attacked in the street, would it not ?

Social problems may make it harder for her to resolve that problem than others but to suggest she is completely at the mercy of bad luck at that moment is incorrect.

If I play with fire I will get burnt. However I'm very very "lucky" that I was taught not to play with fire. It's bad luck to be born to parents who don't teach you not to play with fire, that you had no choice over. But it's NOT bad luck to get burnt when you do play with fire.

I've got to get off Mumsnet today It's bad luck that my Dad was an argumentative little shit that loves a debate because it means i am one too. 🙄

Isadora Bullying behaviour can begin in pre-school children.

In early childhood classrooms, aggression and bullying-related behaviors emerge and develop in relatively well-defined ways. Young children (ages 2–4) may begin using aggressive or early bullying behaviors to defend their possessions, territory, and friendships. Older children (ages 4–6) begin to use aggressive and bullying-related behaviors to threaten or intimidate other children.

These aggressive and early bullying behaviors develop systematically depending on the response of the target. For example, if a targeted child cries, submits, and yields the toy, the aggressive child is likely to select and target the same child again, and the bullying behaviors will continue. Sometimes, the submission of the targeted child may become rewarding in and of itself, and the aggressive child may smile and take pleasure in hurting another child on purpose. Allowed to continue, these behaviors may lead to full-blown bullying—hurtful behavior that is done repeatedly and deliberately to a selected, less powerful, and vulnerable peer.

preventingbullying.promoteprevent.org/3-how-does-early-bullying-develop

In addition, bullying is not always due to home influences or environmental factors. Psychologists have identified that some children are characterised by "callous and unemotional traits" which are highly hereditary and often lead to sociopathic behaviour in adulthood. Sociopaths are believed to occur in about one percent of the adult male population. While this sub-group of "difficult" children is small, it is important to be aware of their existence, because they need to be handled differently.

www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/callous-unemotional-traits-in-children

And yet you somehow agree there now capable of being bullies and assaulting others? Ridiculous.

40 years experience in teaching proved it can happen. You're the one who is ridiculous.

You need to start making formal complaints. This will give school evidence to prove boys being physical need additional support to protect your son. Friends child got a sen statement finally when other parents complained lots about her child's behaviour

Probably irrelevant now but I was trying to say that

School were shit, then good, then appalling.

Fenwickdream

You ar e not very good at being argumentative.
This is not some random attack in the street, it's an on going problem involving the same children.
The rest of your post is random and ridiculous. Who said anything about "bad luck" what age you going in about.

Get your child involved in
Martial arts classes teach children important lessons about self-defense, confidence, respect and discipline Two well-known styles are karate and taekwondo. ... The main difference is karate focuses on traditional self-defense maneuvers, while taekwondo often focuses on competition skills.
That way he will be able to stand up for himself.
These children are bullies and I would not depend on the school to secure my child's safety.
The first time he fights back and hits the kid so hard, trust me the bullying will stop.
I feel that school's are too soft on bullies by allowing this kind of behaviour to continue for too long.
Your job is to protect your child at all cost. You do not send him to school to be a punch bag for some bully.

Timeisslippingaway - you did.

Because if you are "victimless" then you are just dealing with an incredible case of bad luck arnt you?

The woman who got hit staying with a violent man? Terrible luck

The child who gets punched in the face by the children who persistently bully and assault him that he just happened to be voluntarily competing in a race with? Terrible luck.

I've got a really sporty Son who would play any moment, anytime with anyone.(yr1)
He's also a bit of a show off over his abilities because as a toddler and pre school we gushed and we gushed about how superior and great he was ( he really was) But then we started to see HIM gushing about how great he was and seeking that verbal praise a little too much. 🙈

Anyway, we're working on it. He's still really competitive but he gets that he's good at say football but the kid he beats might be amazing at something else.

What else helped was taking him down the park to play with older kids and our footballing (older) neighbours. Nothing like an older kid to teach an only child / oldest child that he / she is not the Don after all. Some of these days playing with the neighbours at football led to lots of stomping back / allegations / threats of giving up / tears etc. I reinforced them all with the same message - get back out there, start again, say sorry and play by their rules, they're older than you, they won't put up with your nonsense.

He's very competitive but as a previous poster said I think he's matured and would leave your racing with attitude games after a while for a game of more organised and civilised "it" organised by the girls or maturer boys.

Can you take him to the park and get him to join in sports with some kids? Watch the interactions he has. How he handles losing and winning?

Fenwick No child ever deserves to be hit even if they were the most annoying cocky kid going, Children from a young age need to be taught to keep their hands to themselves!!

Yes I know that! We all do. Same sporty child of mines never hurt a fly and regularly gets bitten and duffed up by his numerous growing cousins without hitting back.

But she can't control those other children! She can't stop them.
He wouldn't be racing with them if they were seriously hurting him. They're not "assaulting" him. They're striking out in playground scuffles.

My child's come home saying this and that now and then. By all accounts there's a special needs child that walks them all a lot too. But I've taught him to walk away, brush it off etc. There's a difference in a child he is cowering in a corner and being targeted to a child consistently going back for more.

And you can't control that man that's hitting your daughter either.

My guess is that the other boys saw your son getting bullied and the bully getting away with it. So they now think he's fair game. The only answer is to break the cycle. I second the Karate club suggestion. And to move schools if you can.

Fenwick I dont think you do know that, You focus on the victim needing to change instead of focusing on the bully, Down playing what they are doing minimising it.
Hurting another child is totally unacceptable the victim shouldnt have to adapt to the bully the bully should stop hurting the victim, fullstop!

And yes I totally agree Jaxhog!

Yes, there should have been an improvement.

It still doesn't mean going to ofsted (a very popular piece of advice on MN) is the appropriate response.

That's the thing on here sometimes, the second you point out that going to the LA/Ofsted isn't thr most appropriate course of action, suddenly you're deemed to excusing awful behaviour and saying the school is faultless when that's not the case.

A school can be in the wrong. A school may need to raise their game. A teacher could have made a mistake. A situation might need dealing with better. There could have been a massive oversight from a school. A member of staff could hace been wholly unprofessional. Whatever the situation, there are ways of dealing with it that are more likely to get a resolution and there's ways that are excessively confrontational or simply unlikely to help. Ofsted would laugh if people called up for half the stuff people claim you should call them for on here. Equally, some people like to suggest being arsey and making the threat of ofsted will suddenly give them clout and make the school scared. Oftsed will firstly ask how you've dealt with issues in school.

Issues should be raised with the most appropriate member of staff, escalated through the correct channels and then formal complaints should be made. Contact with agencies beyond the school usually is appropriate after those stages. There will be some exceptions, but that's a general overview.

School should be dealing with this, but they can only deal with what they know about.

DS needs to know he should tell his teacher and you whenever one of the other boys has hurt him. If you are asking him if he has been hurt every day, you are giving him the expectation that this will happen, and leave yourself open to being accused of putting words in your child's mouth. At that age, children often assume adults know what is happening to them when they don't.

Arrange a meeting with the class teacher. Ask if the head or deputy head can also attend. School will probably be assuming the issue with child A is resolved as they haven't heard anything different, and they may not have put together all the incidents, if they have happened over a period of time and been dealt with by different staff.

Keep a record of incidents. Report them into school in writing. Short, sweet and factual. Don't try to rationalise why the children are acting as they are - that is for their parents to do.

Ask at the meeting what you can do to help prevent your child becoming a victim so often. Teach him how to respond assertively but not aggressively to incidents. If there are two or more classes in the year-group, ask if your child can be moved.

If nothing changes after the meeting, request a copy of the complaints procedure and follow it.

Consider putting your child on the waiting list for another school. By the time he gets offered a place, you will know whether the issue is resolving and can decide then whether or not to move him.

Fenwickdream
I did not once day anything about bad luck. This has nothing to do with bloody luck.

I understand now though that you are on the side of the bully because you are one of those parents.

"I've got a really sporty Son who would play any moment, anytime with anyone.(yr1)
He's also a bit of a show off over his abilities because as a toddler and pre school we gushed and we gushed about how superior and great he was (he reallywas)"

^ Haha, says it all.

I'm quite gobsmacked OP that you say this has been going on for months, so you've continued to take your 5/6 year old to a school where he'll possibly be assaulted each day!?

I'm sorry but what it wrong with you? If you were repetitively assaulted in your workplace I can guarantee you wouldn't continue to go in. You'd involve the police and expect your employer to protect you, not go in every day wondering if this is they day you'll be punched.

I have a 5 year old DS and there's no way on earth I'd be continually taking him to be assaulted and then just 'having a word' with the class teacher. I'd be kicking up holy hell or removing him from school.