to refuse to send our DD in a school trip with the girl that bullied her?

[ineedaholiday2]

HI all,

Our daughter was bullied by a couple of other girls in her class last year. She has been in therapy since we found out, having very low self esteem and even entertaining suicidal thoughts. The headteacher spoke with the other girls back then and and while things have gotten better, they are nowhere close to be ‘friends’. Our daughter is still in therapy, battling depression and anxiety on a daily basis.

Now their class are going on the final school trip for a week without parents, and their teachers have put our daughter in the same room as one of the girls who bullied her. We think this is extremely irresponsible, and couldn’t believe it when they told us. Their reasoning is that there haven’t been any issues between We will not let her go on this trip if they don’t change her room, even though we have already payed around £300 for it and she will be heartbroken to have to stay while the whole class goes away. The whole thing just seems so unfair to her and insensitive from the adults.

Please tell me if there is anything we can do to protest if they dont’ change their minds, anything at all we can do. This is a primary state school.

Thanks in advance

i'd also like to add i like cingolimama's letter. the other letter is very good but my concern is that if you are harsh they will read it and it will just get their backs up. do not back down - at all - but you may get further with an approach that doesn't go in at first all guns blazing. you want to be seen as reasonable and asking for something that will ensure the safety of your child. (in fact maybe put that in)

i'd also put something in the letter about how you want it to be a positive experience for D and that this approach gives the best chance of that. and that you want the very best for your daughter. good luck.

PLEASE don’t name the bully in your letter as the child’s parents can request to see it as it has information about that child

Please put JK or PT etc so they can’t share it

ALSO include any other girls who she may wish to avoid

AppleKatie, this is a much improved version.

I wish you were my script editor. Sorry don't wish to highjack thread.

GreenTulips
That’s interesting. Thanks for the heads up.

What @AppleKatie said! ^

Thanks for the compliments!

Seriously OP it’s words like ‘safeguard’ ‘duty’ ‘disappointing’ ‘complaint’ and ‘refund’ that talk to school leaders also offering the blindingly obvious solution of making it all go away (from their POV) with a quick switch.

But even assuming they move dd to another room, that will not automatically protect her from the bullies at all.
By year six residential trips are supervised in a very relaxed way. There will be plenty of opportunities for them to bully her, and this time with a captive audience as dd can’t even go home. I would have zero, less than zero confidence in the teachers monitoring this situation given they have been useless so far.

I am all for fighting your demons, learning resilience, school trip challenges and all the rest, but your dd has suicidal thoughts op.

Along with what sounds to me like severe anxiety and depression. She has no mental health support there, no parental support and a bunch of teachers that couldn’t care less.

If that is not a recipe for disaster I don’t know what is.

There is no way on god earth a child of mine would be going. Press for the refund and back out now. There will be many more school trips in the future when she is better. The money would be better spent helping her to get better op, not putting her into harms way.

Wellbuggerme

Do you always speak so harshly?
I sincerely hope that they do resolve it, that she is able to go and has a great time. That's not making light of the issues, which, having been through myself at a similar age, understand. I don't see any need to be so rude to someone trying to be kind and say something nice.

I really like Applekatie's letter. I think that it's really well worded.

Ask them who will take responsibility should your DD come to serious harm, either physically or mentally as a result of their decision to insist she is left for several hours at a time in the unsupervised company of a child who has previously been found to have caused her significant harm.

I wouldn't send DD at all. Even if the school told you that they had changed rooms, I wouldn't trust them to actually do it.

How f ridiculous! Your poor daughter - board of governers should be on school website but if not ring the school.

YADNBU!!! I'd fight them tooth and nail, be strong!!! Appalling...

Have you thought the problem may be that no girl will swap?

The trouble is, it's not as easy as 'just swap them round a bit'.

Year 6 girls usually team up in pairs & want to share with a bff, & staff will usually let two friends share as they'll both be happy, have a mate if homesick, etc.

That means you then have to put them in 4s & sometimes those groups are obvious, & sometimes you have 'well Anna & Bobbi will have to go in with Charlotte & Dima, they're the only two pairs left'. (Or indeed 'we can't possibly put Anna in with Emily, she'll be foul to her. Charlotte & Dima won't stand for her crap')

& sometimes you have one less than ideal room made up of 4 kids none of whom would necessarily have chosen each other.

& then it's a couple of weeks until the trip, & all the kids are buzzing & looking forward to sharing, & suddenly a teacher who did the rooming is finding out that your dd & bully have bad blood the teacher didn't know about.

About all you can do then as a teacher is choose a nice kind foursome with sensible parents, & tell them 'you two are in with {OP's dd} & you two are in with {bully}.

The girls won't like it. They will go home & moan. Their parents will phone up & complain furiously. & as a teacher, you really can't exactly tell the girls or their parents 'yeah, we've broken up your happy little friendship group BECAUSE you're nice kids who will be kind & suck it up'. Nor can you obviously pass on confidential information about the bullying.

Yes, it's shit. It was my dd 2 years ago (we got it sorted - mostly because one of the other mums is a good friend of mine, who had a quiet chat with her nice dd & got her & her mates to swap round & include mine) - but honestly at this point, appeasing you will piss off several other people.

Your best bet is to be the one who will get the most mediaeval on their arses at this point! Definitely talk about 'safeguarding' & 'duty of care' a lot.

Bloody useless of the school not to spot this much, much earlier.

As a teacher I think this is unbelievable.
I like your email but I think you need to drop the 'safeguarding' word in there too. It makes headteachers panic. Say it is a safeguarding issue and he might sit up and take notice a bit more. Worth a try.
I feel for you though, trying to give her the opportunity and having it ruined. I'm so sad there are schools/headteachers out there like this.

Sorry I missed Applekatie's reply. That is perfect.

pissing off other people is not the OPs concern though is it? I bet the bully is also not at all unpopular.

fwiw my DS is one of those "nice kids" who ends up in with (his words) "the really annoying boys" because he's calm and easygoing. It definitely didn't ruin his residential the other week.

The usual deal is you can pick one person you want to be with, and that gets to happen. Everything else is luck of the draw. And not announced to the kids in advance, so in a sense you are lucky there that you have found out. Teacher can just change it. On a spurious reason if necessary.

honestly at this point, appeasing you will piss off several other people.

Who cares who is appeased and who is pissed off?

This is about keeping a child safe from further significant harm. That trumps pissed off parents any day.

You say ' one of the girls' who bullied her. If she has been split up from her cronies she is unlikely to turn on your dd especially if the other girls in the dormitory are decent. In my experience on a y6 trip the children are very closely supervised. Teacher sits outside open door til everyone is asleep.
You say 'just swap' but that means finding someone to swap with! To put it bluntly the other child's happiness is no less important than yur dd's
Has your dd been put with a friend in the dorm?

I agree with you both, Ihatemyselef & Goldmandra.

Which is why I said OP needs to make it clear this is a safeguarding concern - which obviously trumps pissing off other people.

But it's relatively unlikely the school are just thinking 'well we could do a swap, no problemo, but let's just leave OP's dd stuck with a bully for the lolz.'

They will sadly be under pressure from whoever they'd try to move: 'But it's Farida & Georgia & Harriet & Iza's last trip together before they go to different secondaries! Why should they swap just because X & Y don't get on?!'

Because the other kids & parents may well not know about the extent of the bullying, or the impact on OP's dd, & they shouldn't, obviously, know.

School are handling it really badly, & need to get their big pants on & sort it, but there'll definitely be push back.

It's also likely that bully is disliked & no one else wants to share with her, & would object just as OP has.

You're better off with a Queen Bee type bully who can swank over her room of acolytes at the other end of the corridor...

To put it bluntly the other child's happiness is no less important than yur dd's

DD was bullied, she didn’t sleep or eat for six months, she climbed in our bed more often than not, she didn’t have any motivation or happiness. Even at home it continued.

She was strangled, held down and had grass put in her mouth, hit and kicked, called names, a group of horrible bitches!

I hate them.

I don’t care for their happiness.

If you think this is ok, you need a head wobble.

There will be plenty of opportunities for them to bully her
If they are intent on doing so and it is insidious then yes. But where teachers are present, where there are witnesses, where there is separation eg workshops etc then there is less opportunity.
In other words, you don't make it easy for them.
The OP's DD can and should deliberately avoid them - on the coach, in lines, dining rooms etc That srategy is taken away from her with the room share. Nor should she have to bow out and be isolated.
It is not unreasonable to expect the school to make reasonable adjustments to protect her mental health.

Never mind the trip, I think DD needs to have a fresh start at a new school.

Read most of this thread
Op I would not let her go. I HAVE EXPERIENCE WITH MY OWN DD.

Arrange a few sleepovers with her friends during summer or days out.
Even she in a different room they will still be there on the same trip and will make her anxious
My dd y11 was physically assaulted by a girl at her school
School handled it very badly
She was suspended for a week and let back in class with my dd to I sent an email that they said in the meeting this would not happen.
They where to go on a trip and school would not give me an answer if the other girl was going so I got my dd to stay at home even though she missed a great event i had to put her safety first as the school would not give me an anwser.