Any last minute advice. Meeting with Head re bullying today.

[Yesthatscorrect]

Won't go into lots of detail but our primary age son has been subjected to vicious physical and verbal bullying since the beginning of term. It started off gradually then increased to daily kicking including to the Head, punching in stomach, calling him cruel names, inciting others to also punch him.

Teacher is minimising it, hasn't followed their anti bullying plan by investigating it, telling him to stop telling tales.

I have a log of every incident and my mother who is a former teacher is accompanying me.

Anything else I should say?

@Yesthatscorrect

No it happens in the internal playground. My relative works there and she has seen it.

Did she not step in to do anything about it?

Also make sure in the log that any action they promise is time bound with an end date on so you can escalate if nothing is done

Just a thought, if they are heading into a mid-term break over Halloween, you might want to schedule a follow up meeting for perhaps 2 weeks after they return to school in November? That way you can be on top of the situation and take further measures if you feel they are necessary and if the school isn't living up to to their side of the deal.

If your child has been assaulted (where he has had actual bodily harm done to him) then that should be reported to the police.

Maybe, if the meeting isn't going the way you expect or if you don't have a follow up meeting agreed, you could mention that any further physical contact that the bully has with your son that you will not let the matter slide and you will be reporting it to the police and it will become a police matter and not something that can be kept within the 4 walls of the school any more.

Lots of good advice here already
Sit and listen. Don't fill any silences unless you really have to. Make notes. Wait for them to speak first. Look them in the eye
Refer to your notes and quote them back
Out nerve them basically
They want you to be complacent and to agree with them, don't
Your poor child, this makes me sick that they minimise a child's distress
Please let us know how you get on

My relative who works there is in the kitchens and can't leave so she reported the incident to the outside supervisors. I won't mention her name in case it gets her into trouble.

The boys are 6. Really good point about police involvement if necessary and not filling silences. I will make sure we schedule a follow up meeting and email them a list of point discussed and action points. So glad I posted.

A huge new element of safeguarding is 'peer on peer abuse'. This is what is happening here and they cannot disregard accusations of it or they are breaking with the legislation in the 'Keeping children safe in education' act.

I would mention the words peer on peer abuse and be ready to withdraw your son from school if they don't act on this.

Do not at any point apologise. Assert yourself by referring back to their policy; have them explain in the context of specific incidents where it has not been enacted.

Eg

He was punched at lunchtime in the playground at 12:45.

Where were the MDS?
Do the MDS know how to use school systems to escalate to the appropriate Senior Leader
Was an incident report filed
Show me how this works

He was slapped in the dining room at 12:36

Which staff were on duty
Was an incident report filed
Do staff know how to...
May I see the incident report

Etc
Etc

You acknowledge from incident reports that there have been X occasions when DS was assaulted

What consequence would this incur
Have the consequences been delivered
If so, why are the incidents still happening?

Good luck. I hope things change quickly.

@Yesthatscorrect

My relative who works there is in the kitchens and can't leave so she reported the incident to the outside supervisors. I won't mention her name in case it gets her into trouble.

The boys are 6. Really good point about police involvement if necessary and not filling silences. I will make sure we schedule a follow up meeting and email them a list of point discussed and action points. So glad I posted.

If the boys are only aged 6 the police can't do anything, it's for school to deal with. Boys of that age can be very physical and the school need to sort this out. The way you first wrote I thought the boys were older. Hope the meeting goes well.

If they are 6 police won’t get involved

How awful, I hope your meeting goes well and you feel productive actions follow.

Use the words duty of care to your son and safeguarding. Do not discuss the bullys behaviour only ensuring your sons safety. If you do not feel happy with the meeting I would ask if there is a governor with responsibility for safe guarding that you can meet with.

I think at that age I would be telling them that playground supervision is inadequate if this can happen without staff noticing.

My son was a similar age and school were initially very reluctant to label the behaviour as anything beyond 'rough play'. I printed out a definition of bullying that I referred to when I was meeting with ds's teacher so I could relate incidents to it.

I'd be prepared to move schools if you have no confidence in how the school are dealing with it - he's so young and really school should be able to nip this in the bud.

I would also be very angry about him being told not to tell tales. Definitely raise that.

This is a bit triggering for me I think! Definitely one of the most stressful things I've had to deal with as a parent.

Take your own minutes of the meeting and send them to the school.
At 6 this won't be a police matter. The issue here is inadequate supervision.

Is there a reason mumsnet is encouraging such a heavy handed approach that isnt set out in this thread? You may find the HT is really amenable and willing to work with you as a family. Threats of minutes, governors and ofsted are all a bit extreme when the HT hasn't even had the opportunity to investigate.

Did she not step in to do anything about it?

Not the point. At all.

"Is there a reason mumsnet is encouraging such a heavy handed approach that isnt set out in this thread? You may find the HT is really amenable and willing to work with you as a family. Threats of minutes, governors and ofsted are all a bit extreme when the HT hasn't even had the opportunity to investigate."

I take minutes of all meetings. As a parent of a child with sen, I quickly learned the importance of this.

@Underhisi

"Is there a reason mumsnet is encouraging such a heavy handed approach that isnt set out in this thread? You may find the HT is really amenable and willing to work with you as a family. Threats of minutes, governors and ofsted are all a bit extreme when the HT hasn't even had the opportunity to investigate."

I take minutes of all meetings. As a parent of a child with sen, I quickly learned the importance of this.

Except minutes are only one persons ‘accurate record’ and another may have a totally different account. They don't stand up to scrutiny.

I’d email the minutes to the HT afterwards so they see your paper trail and get to work.

@MarieIVanArkleStinks

Did she not step in to do anything about it?

Not the point. At all.

Why not when she'd witnessed one child hurting another? It absolutely is the point and when the word safeguarding gets bandied about that is one instance where someone should have acted straight away.

I'd suggest that following the meeting send the head an email/letter, along the lines of ' at our meeting today we discussed' a' (incident or concern), you agreed to do 'b' and I agreed to do 'c', ' for each item you discuss, as appropriate.

My advice is pay a lot of heed to how you manage your relationship with the teacher/ht. this was crucial in my situation, as the HT was renowned for dismissing bullying concerns.

• Keep calm. Don’t be combatitive
• present only facts that you know, not gossip or your opinion (this was the hardest bit for me)
• Use a lot of ‘collaborative’ language - how are we going to solve this? What do we need to do?
• Document it all and send in a summary - keep it factual and non-emotional
• Get a ‘daily escalation process’ agreed - for example, it was agreed that I to be put through to the HT if I called after school to report incidents on the walk home.
• Don’t ask or demand actions relating to the bully - keep the focus on how your child will be kept safe and any steps that need to happen.
• set dates for review and keep to them.
• try and keep your emotions out of it.

Best of luck, it’s a shit situation to be in.

Why not when she'd witnessed one child hurting another? It absolutely is the point and when the word safeguarding gets bandied about that is one instance where someone should have acted straight away.

The point is that the school has a duty of care to that child. Rugsweeping a serious issue by suggesting that it's the victim 'telling tales' illustrates a serious, fundamental and general problem in the way they address it.

This would be the case regardless of whether other staff had intervened on one occasion or not. It's an aside from the bigger issue.

Lots of good advice here.
Agree with everyone who has said to not to focus on the bully and their behavioral issues during the meeting. Another child’s issues are not your problem. The focus is on what the school is actually doing to keep YOUR child safe. How they deal with others is not your business at all and you’re not here to discuss that. Make it clear you have no sympathy for the issues they have to solve, your sympathy is reserved for your child who been suffering from abuse as a result of lack of safeguarding when in their care.

As others have also said, take notes. You are going to need a paper trail if it will become necessary to escalate the issue. Email them after the meeting a report of what has been said.

Be firm. Look them in the eye. Let them know that you will hold them responsible for not keeping your son safe and you’re ready to take legal action if necessary.

Good luck.