Boys at primary school smearing animal poo on my daughter's coat

[GimmeShiraz]

I would be really grateful for some advice with this, as to how to proceed and what I should expect from the school. This happened on Friday lunchtime; apparently the boys did this as some sort of dare. My DD informed the lunchtime supervisor, who I think mismanaged it, by not escalating to the head or informing DD's teacher/TA, and then getting DD to wash it off herself (with bare hands, communal sink which wasn't disinfected afterwards).

I have emailed head, who will be investigating tomorrow. I was wondering what is reasonable to expect. I am trying to remain objective, but there is something particularly horrible about three boys singling out one girl to do this to. It was bird poo, so could have been worse, but still a Salmonella risk. Thanks for reading!

Our lunchtime supervisor would have called on a TA or other member of staff to help deal with it or got your DD and/or helpful other pupil/friend to fetch someone. Yes they are busy (we all are) but your DD shouldn't have had to deal with it herself. I'm a TA.

They're yr 6 so I would expect the school to take this seriously. I've a yr 6 boy and whilst he can be silly and I'm sure egged on my friends to do certain things he shouldn't, I would be horrified if I'd heard he'd done this to a fellow student.

Nasty children.

I don't know what I'd expect in terms of punishment. Thankfully we haven't had to find out as DS is well behaved. But a chat with the parents at the least. I would want to know.

I would not raise it with the class teacher, I would raise it politely with the headteacher and make it VERY clear as to how unhappy you are as to how this was handled.

Absolutely disgusting and definitely should have been punished, especially at their age, they aren’t babies.

I think the midday supervisor dealt with this horribly, there is surely some sort of escalation policy for playtime behaviour that they should have followed. I hate this idea that they are too busy to help your daughter, surely other than the obvious supervisory role, supporting children is a major part of their role?

This is not my usual reaction but I do think you're maybe slightly over reacting to this.
We've all had bird poo on clothing/drop straight on our heads, it's unpleasant but not the end of the world.

Ideally your dd shouldn't have had to wash it off herself but it might have been difficult to think who else was going to do it.
How much of it was there?

Lunchtime supervisors are frequently in situations where there isn't another adult in sight/ colleagues are dealing with first aid or a wee accident or whatever. Yes ideally you send for someone else but that may be more difficult with Covid bubbles.

I think I'd be most concerned about whether this was a pattern of bullying behaviour or not, which would need a discussion with the class teacher.

Totally unacceptable and they clearly knew it was unacceptable, as it was “a dare”.

They need hauling together and reprimanding for their behaviour. If my boys did this, I would want to know about it and I would be furious. They would be punished and also sent to apologise.

We've all had bird poo on clothing/drop straight on our heads, it's unpleasant but not the end of the world.

Eh? A stray bird shit on your coat is not the same as people smearing it, quite deliberately, all over your coat.

How old are the boys and DD?

At year 6 , the boys are old enough for you to report this to the police as assault on your DD.

I'd discuss that with the HT.

The lack of communication between supervisor and teacher is an issue (I know it can happen, it happened to us two weeks ago) but it's not something to just shrug your shoulder about. It's something that needs to be worked on and improved.
It also means that the boys got no consequences for their behaviour.

So you have a girl who was targeted,her coat smeared with bird poop,had to clean her own and was upset. A girl who also became responsible to inform the teacher and her mum.

The boys got their shits and giggles(literally), no consequences and a nice weekend, no angry parents(if they would get angry) etc.

Is it the end of the world? No.
Is it an issue that does needs resolving, especially ensuring the girl is ok /bot bullied and that it won't happen again? Yes.

Not everything has to be end of days scenarios in order to be dealt with.

This isn't bullying. This is a gross and stupid thing that three daft boys have done to your unsuspecting daughter. They should apologise and their parents should be informed. Bullying is a systematic abuse of power, not a one off horrible choice.

Well it could be a one off horrible choice or the culmination of many little incidents that didn't get reported, weren't communicated, were dismissed/ignored. OP's DD will know better .

It wasn't smeared all over" as far as we know.

The fact that it was a "dare" makes it unlikely to be bullying imo, rather Y6 boys being stupid and unfeeling. Yes it needs sanctioning and discussing however.

That is absolutely horrible and Yr 6 is way too old for it to be excused. I'd want to know about it if it was my son who'd done that to someone.

Bullying is a systematic abuse of power, not a one off horrible choice

Some schools choose to treat every instance of the same child having 'something' happen to them or their property as a 'one-off incident' and refuse to join the dots and see a series of occurrences.
Therefore there is no bullying in their school.

I do hope OP's school is not one of those.