School bullying..AIBU?

[Schoolmumm]

DD is in year 6 at prep, a quiet thoughtful child, who genuinely likes everyone in her class, and has always been friendly with everyone. Without going into too much detail, we discovered dd was being bullied by a group of 3 girls, and it had been going on for some time. What has particularly troubled us, is the devious, abusive way in which they treating her, and how submissive she appeared to have become, purely to please them and try and keep their ‘friendship’.
They have done and said so many things, it would take a few pages to list.. telling her to meet them in various places at break time, then going elsewhere, leaving her wandering the school searching for them alone. Demanding she shared break time snacks under the pretence of giving her some of theirs, then leaving her with nothing. Getting her to do their homework for them in prep, ‘because she is clever’, but then laughing and telling her she is so dumb, when she handed it back. On a week long school trip before the summer holidays, they shared a room, and decided dd was not allowed to use the bathroom until they had all finished, by which time of course, it was always too late. She came home not having washed once the entire week, and seemed reluctant to question this in any way, as being wrong. She became extremely defensive when their behaviour was questioned in any way, and in the end it all came to a head, when she became too humiliated to go to school, because they had been laughing at the clothes she wore, and had humiliated her when they pretended they had decided to wear a ‘theme’ for a class party, which of course wasn’t true. The school became involved, parents were called in, and we have spent the summer trying to build up her confidence. After such a long time of being emotionally abused by these girls, it almost seemed as if she had become completely submissive, not to mention terribly confused. She thought they were her friends, but they were nothing but bullies. We were very close to pulling her out, but the school reassured us they would deal with it all robustly, should anything ever happen again, and year 6 will give dd great opportunities to develop her confidence with things like leadership roles etc etc
Back to school this week, and the leadership roles were announced; Head girl and heads of house for all three girls. Extolling their virtues as good role models for the school, and inviting us all to congratulate them on their success. Nearly every girl was given some kind of role, but our daughter has been completely excluded. If it wasn’t for the events that have happened, it truly would not bother me one jot. But given everything that has happened, we just feel so angry and disappointed. AIBU?

No. Even if that were their intention, it's like picking Boris Johnson for PM because it might teach him something.
You pick people for these sort of roles because they embody the values and have the personal qualities you aspire to dominate your institution, and because they will be effective.
It is also a reward of sorts.
If they really want to teach these girls something, then make them work on the anti-bullying policy and help find ways to teach messages of kindness and inclusion to other children.
Anything else is just wrong.

@Hederex exactly! This is the sort of stupid decision the state school my kids were at would make, on a regular basis, giving the bullies a position of responsibility ergo power and then wonder why it didn’t work out in the long run, creating worse bullies in effect.

The worst things about doing that - well apart from the fact it doesn't work - is that it keeps the bullies at the centre of the whole process. Their development and feelings are shown to be of great importance.
What about the people they've bullied? Do their feelings somehow not count if it's supposedly 'for the greater good'?

This is the kind of rubbish that went on when I was at school in the 80s. Give the pain in the arse kid the best job - ringing the bell, taking the registers to the office etc - whatever it was. To keep them "on side". Angered me then, as a fairly well-behaved child and infuriates me now as someone who works in a school. It is STILL going on
WHEN will schools learn that you give the good jobs to the people that have earnt it?!
Ive never worked as an adult in a place that gives a promotion to the slacker, the person that skips work, answers the boss back, swears at his/her line manager in an appraisal or whatever. Maybe that does happen I dont know. But the school OP are teaching the girls that being a bitch sets you up for the top jobs. Not a lesson that will help most people in life.

Op I have nothing to add apart from how horrified I was to read your post. Hoping you can find a solution for your poor dd soon x

Thank you Zakana, that is exactly what I fear from this. This sense of acceptance within her, and 'normalisation' of behaviour towards her, that is clearly so wrong.
I too experienced the awful depths of an abusive relationship many many years ago, long before my marriage, and although thankfully it was relatively brief, it was long enough to leave some deep and lasting damage. And it is the submissive way in which my daughter has evolved within that friendship, that has really troubled me. She loved her friend, she could do no wrong, she longed to be accepted. And when they treated her badly, she just tried even more! It was her that was the problem, not them. When I had started to question certain things she would casually mention, such as not being able to wear her favorite outfit anymore, because they thought it was ugly, and she had no fashion sense...she would immediately rush to their defense in some way. It became more and more obvious as time went on, that this was no 'friendship', but a very emotionally abusive relationship. It is this I feel the school just do not understand. They dealt with it at the time, by interviewing the girls and calling in the parents. Apparently they were all remorseful, but certain things were said after this, that made it clear a couple of the girls, were not remorseful at all. And this resentment at being called out, was made obvious to my daughter, and to her other friends. And then school broke up, and no more was said. In the meantime, they had decided on leadership roles during the course of the summer, and this was the outcome.

Another vote to find a better school for your daughter.

Some schools are absolutely useless at dealing with bullying for lots of different reasons and will go their own sweet way regardless of what's right, fair or wrong.
Other schools are brilliant and will stamp out bullying at the first hint and keep on doing that.

You have two choices, try and get the school to be reasonable, or move your daughter. I'd suggest the latter as the former is akin to flogging a dead horse and nothing will change.

Galling as it is, you need to forget what's right, fair, appropriate and responsible, just protect your daughter by moving her to a caring environment.

Seriously, you are paying these people to allow your daughter to be psychologically harmed. You are letting her see that she is so worthless that people can treat her like shit and still get rewarded. As her mum you are standing by and condoning all this.

Even if she is going along with it all meekly now, when she has kids of her own she will have a big wtf moment and she will conclude you were complicit in this.

Your poor DD. Like lots of other quiet girls I've been there, done that, got the t shirt. Started at the same sort of age. You need to speak up for her to show her that she needs to speak up herself. She fell into the submissive role because they rewarded her enough times for her to come running back when they had treated her terribly. Its setting her up for a lifetime of putting up with abusive relationships. No one spoke up for me- just put up with it, don't make a fuss etc.
If the school aren't helpful then I'd be tempted to do what someone suggested and go along to their anti bullying workshop and ask some pressing questions there. Of course in the end there will probably be no justice. School aren't likely to back down and were obviously paying lip service to dealing with it robustly. I'd tear them a new one. Politely though.

Pull her out at once OP. I am appalled both at the cruelty your daughter has experienced and the school's actions in rewarding the bullies. What an unbelievable message to send the pupils.

In your shoes I could have no trust in the school after this.

Please don't delay. I am the wrong side of fifty and the bullying I endured at secondary school has had a marked effect on my life.

@CatChant this is it exactly, same here too, it made me like Teflon now, and has obviously filtered down to my kids but at the time, I would have been happy to just not wake up, it was soul destroying, and my self esteem and self worth were lower than low. I can see though how people who are bullied end up being in abusive relationships in adult life and just accept it as their “normal”, it’s heartbreaking. I could easily have slipped the other way and still be harbouring dark memories now, I was just lucky with my choice of second relationship after my first abusive one. OP bought it all flooding back, I physically hurt for all the bullied kids out there, it actually makes me feel sick.

I am disgusted and angry for you, please complain

After reading your update I think you should take her out of school immediately and make sure everyone knows why.

There is an awful side to human nature that the more eager to please and wish to be included someone is the worse they are treated .

You know your dd but maybe try to work with her on this? I know a horrid message to have to impart. Dh very fierce about how he is treated and has drummed into our 2 similar aged girls that if someone is the least unkind to you they are not your friend and you dump them immediately. I thought he was too harsh and literal but actually he is right. Both ours have dumped friends for this. They would rather sit and read in library on their than be treated like that. It makes them more powerful too.

Fuck that shit, and paying for the priviledge. NO
Its just reinforcing to your daughter that she is worth less than these, that her treatment is ok as they are role models and its where she fits in life. They didn't even wait to see if the girls behaviour improved before giving them these roles.
Is she likely to be going to the same secondary as them?

If you are going to let your dd stay at her school - and I can see why you would want to if that is what she wants - then please do look at alternatives for her to make new, good friends. We found karate classes were great when ds was being bullied as the class placed a great emphasis on praise and self esteem. Kids work individually, so you don't need to have friends there already or to be part of the team, but equally you are meeting the same people each week, so have chance to make new friends.

Is your dd due to change school for Y7 or Y9?

I would also make sure the governors/directors are aware of this and include them on any official complaint, laying out what happened, how you raised it etc etc.

Is your daughter staying until common entrance at 13? Given her sensitive nature I’d be considering looking at schools that go from prep-18 with better pastoral care and getting her out immediately!

I moved my gs (grandparent carer) late in the day at primary school. He simply wasn't thriving at his other school and was beginning to stop speaking. Just awful. The problem was staff alongside pupils who had firm favourites in a very small, cliquey village school. He never looked back. His teacher for his last two years - my gs said he was the best teacher he ever had or will ever have. The alternative was a disinterested teacher cruising along to retirement.

I wont say it was without problems because the alternative primary was rougher by far than the previous and my gs certainly had to stand up for himself.

Yes, it is a big move but don't waste any more time. Get out today and look at alternatives. The LEA should help you identify schools with places - ours was good, offered to help but I just went along myself. GS went for a trial morning and simply decided not to leave. You will get a gut feeling when you look round and it really is the best thing for your dd. However, do ensure they will not meet again at the same secondary. I guess this is not the case as she is at a private school but caution here. It really is not such a huge move op, but good luck.

The school knew about their treatment and humiliation of your daugher and still made this decision? It is absolutely disgraceful and what message does it give out to the other children in her class? I second everyone's suggestion of contacting the head and head of year, if there is one, then inform the governors. It is worth looking up the school's behaviour policy and highlighting where the school hasn't followed it - surely it doesn't say 'sanctions for bullying include becoming head girl or a prefect.'

You shouldn't have to disrupt your daughter's education. I would be very concerned how the school can be confident those girls won't abuse their position, assuming it has any privileges and isn't just a photo opportunity for speech day.

I am currently dealing with the fallout of a very serious 'bullying/attack' on my own child and my major concern it will be swept under the carpet but now I know to expect the children involved to be rewarded.

I hope you get a decent answer from the school.

Your poor daughter, this is devastating to read. I too would want to move her elsewhere as the school have shown themselves inept at dealing with bullying.

It might be upsetting for her at first but it would be a fresh start for her. I was bullied relentlessly at school and I was too embarrassed to tell my parents about it so they never had the opportunity to move me. I’m convinced it is why I’m such a socially anxious person now - when I was small I was so confident and friendly but the bullies just gradually wore me down. I tried to blend in and not be noticed to be picked on and I’m having to coax myself back out of that mindset now. If I was back in that situation now and had the choice to move I would take it in a heartbeat!

OP I discovered ds was being bullied badly in y5 - complained several times and nothing really happened, it still continued. It wasn't by friends though, so didn't have that added layer of complication - just the fact that the class had two teachers who weren't communicating about what was happening and it was able to continue.

I finally snapped when I'd reported it yet again and they said they were going to do something - that afternoon the child got a headteacher's award for - amongst other things - being such a nice friendly child to everyone. Ds was gutted - he has always had such respect for those getting the award and it really meant something to him - instead of being a happy child that skipped into school he was dragging himself in and looked really slouched and low - as he was.

I filed a safeguarding complaint that evening - it was the first time that they had to stop and really listen to what was happening rather than dismissing everything as a list of unrelated low level niggles. They finally realised quite the effect it had on ds - and although they never apologised to him for awarding the HT award to somebody who was actively bullying they did say they would monitor their processes to check that in the future they would double check at the last minute as apparently the child had been picked in advance of the day so everything could have been prepared (a certificate and a pencil so not a big amount of prep, think it was earlier in the week to co-incide with their staff meeting).

However by raising it as a safeguarding complaint it did mean that they legally had to deal with it and record it and go through a set of processes which they wouldn't have had to have done if I had made the same complaint but said it was about repeated bullying rather than a failure to safeguard due to repeated bullying. Also means it counts in their stats against them as they get monitored on safeguarding and ofsted get to see so get a picture of what's happening at the school.

So if you do leave your dd at the school, as soon as your dd says anything that could be counted as having been bullied by these girls, make sure that you report it as a safeguarding issue , emphasizing that it is a long term problem that the school said they had previously dealt with and that this obviously isn't the case, and that you were very surprised that these dc were put into a position to increase the bullying of you dd within the year group, as has indeed happened.

Make sure you put in what remedies you would like - mostly as they pertain to your dd, you can't say that they must punish the other girls. However, you can say that you would like to see the girls take responsibility for their actions by apologising publicly for failing to be good role models as they were supposed to be, or that you would like to ensure that they will not remain in a position of power over your dd as they have repeated proved that they say that they are sorry and will stop but don't, I think you can also ask for some reassurance that they will actually be punished and monitored closely to ensure that they don't repeat the behaviour. You'll know the sort of things that would be suitable to suggest in your circumstances.

The other thing to remember is that once the dc are 10 they are of the age of criminal responsibility - if they start to harass your dd any more despite having been told not to, you can also point out to the teachers that if they won't deal with it, then you will be going to the local police to get them to stop the dc from harassing your dd and how will that reflect on the school that they have chosen clearly unsuitable children for the positions of responsibility... But be prepared to go through with this if you mention it.

I would also go in pre-emptively and ask what they are going to do to ensure that this doesn't happen and say that you're worried based on past behaviours that it will, and that you want this putting on record, so they can't fob you off about it in the future.

Good luck and hope that the school's tactic works and not backfires...

YANBU

Girls can be absolutely vile at this age. Have you read Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood? What your daughter has gone through sounds exactly like that.

My experience of private schools is that some children, no matter how badly behaved are never brought to book for their shit behaviour and indeed can seem to be rewarded for it as you have seen. It can have to do with their parents, money and influence they have amongst other things. I saw examples of children destroying property and stealing charity money at school and it was all brushed under the carpet.

I would move your dd. Poor thing

My experience of private schools is that some children, no matter how badly behaved are never brought to book for their shit behaviour and indeed can seem to be rewarded for it as you have seen.

I happens at state schools too!

Boys can also be hideous to each other.

Out of school immediately. This is a decision your daughter doesnt get to make. Bless her