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

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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?

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

They do in future complaints if the school or whoever doesn't state at the time that they disagree with them.

Ah if they're 6 there's no point in involving the police. I had assumed by the description of the behaviour they were 10/11. God I'm so surprised by 6 year olds doing this, that's awful. What is going wrong in these children's homes?!
I hope it's solved soon op. Your poor wee boy

Are they year 1 or year 2, OP? Does mum seem approachable? Hope your meeting goes well!

You should go through the school with issues like this not the parent, that usually ends in disaster

It may sound extreme but when DD was being bullied and the school were ignoring the issue, I refused to send her in until I had a written guarantee from the Head for her physical safety. The LA then got involved as she was incurring such high absence rates, and it got dealt with very promptly.

@BrilloPaddy

It may sound extreme but when DD was being bullied and the school were ignoring the issue, I refused to send her in until I had a written guarantee from the Head for her physical safety. The LA then got involved as she was incurring such high absence rates, and it got dealt with very promptly.

Not extreme at all I deal with absences, you need to do what's best for your child So many times I've wanted to tell parents this I would privately be saluting you

"Does mum seem approachable?"

If parents are approachable then they will work with the school and if they are not then approaching them directly is pointless and could cause more problems. Either way don't approach them.

Ask to see risk assessment for supervision.

No advice, just to say how sorry I am that you and your DS are going through this. Good luck today OP. The power of Mumsnet is behind you

I found our school were quick to blame the bullied child. We were offered a ‘nurture group’ for our child so they were less direct in how they spoke to the bully.
It was all really sad, my concerns were not addressed and blame was put back onto DD from ‘observations’.
We moved DD to another school and she is a different happy child with lots of friends. Funnily enough the bully moved onto a different child when mine left.

I would also look into different schools. I ended up having children at different schools but the logistical nightmare was worth it. If my DS hadn’t been in the upper years I would have moved him too.
Lots of good advice above. Good luck

Hope this isn't too late but I tried everything and nothing happened until I shouted. Being calm and trying to appear balanced did nothing. It was only when they saw actual disparu on my face and then talked to my child (as I had asked them to do, only they would explain what had been happening to them) with us (silently) present, did things start to change.

Good luck. It's just awful for anyone to go through this.

The words you need to remember are safeguarding, governors, local authority and OFSTED.
If you don’t manage to use them then write them into a follow up email.

I work in secondary schools and I’ve seen that some primaries just don’t do enough about this behaviour. It’s a shock to them in secondary when they do tackle it.

It happened to my friends son but they were 10 so she was able to say she could say she was getting the police involved and suddenly they did something. It shouldn’t need her to do that though.

I agree with having a copy of the anti bullying policy. Focus the entire meeting on how the school will keep your child safe. Don't let them make your child feel like he has done something wrong. And I would be extremely angry over the telling tales remark.

Sometimes schools try and do what's easiest for them rather than what's right. I hope you manage to get somewhere with them op

How did it go?

When you send in your minutes of any meeting to someone, they have the right to dispute your minutes.

If they don't, and allow them to go unchallenged, that is implicit acceptance of them.

That is how they will be seen by those looking at them after the event.

@MahMahMahMahCorona

Chair of the board of governors is your next port of call.

We had this insufferable behaviour at an Ofsted Outstanding Village School since last September. I "worked with the teacher" initially and we tried to stamp it out but their hands were tied so we escalated. After a particularly bad incident just after lockdown ended in March this year, headteacher was involved. Head then called me in May after I wrote a clanger of a complaint, yet again, and asked my permission to talk to the parents of the bully. I couldn't believe they hadn't been informed but then again they are cash cows to the school, and one parent is a governor. DC was then punched in the stomach but as nobody "saw" it the school victim blamed - even when I brought this to the chair of the board of governors. DC told his therapist however so therapist gave a witness report.

We moved DC. He's never been happier.

Safeguarding, assault, bullying policy, duty of care, all these buzzwords are supposed to be helpful.

I can absolutely mirror your experience with my DD. The child was in her class in a small faith school and he was a whirlwind. Uncontrollable, violent and comprehensively ignored. He bullied every child. His parents were aware, but not really interested.

One morning I went into reception with DD to request yet another meeting and the parents were in front of me handing over a large bundle of notes for the school fund.

All of a sudden it became absolutely clear that nothing would change as long as that cash flowed. I took DD's hand and walked out with her. She was in a new school by the end of the week.

@AdobeWanKenobi - isn't it outrageous? I am sad to say that I didn't remove DC immediately, we both learned a lot about how to manage conflict, and also how not to treat others throughout the entire academic year (that they were at school) last year.

DC teacher even pulled him aside one day and said "don't tell your mum... but this child has issues. ADHD, and anxiety." Of course it was the first thing DC said to me when they came out of school that day, and when I saw their teacher I said "you might mind yourself when telling DC to keep secrets from me." As I say: teacher said hands were tied because of the cash cow / governor status. Head even called and said "some parents just won't accept that their children need extra support, so we have to work alongside these children in order for the others in their class to learn how to manage them better."

It was all so underhand and victim blaming. Disgusting, really. And the parents? Hands off. They really were in denial / couldn't be bothered to properly parent. Awful awful situation. So glad we are out of it now - DC is so much happier, skips into school, anxiety is massively improved.

I hope your DD has also recovered 😊

It sounds very much like assault to me.
I would report to police with incident number and tell the school you have done that.

Don't do anything verbally.
Copies of minutes of all meetings.
Don't speak to the parents of bully otherwise it could escalate.

Insist on action in twenty four hours otherwise you will not be sending your child to school as they can't be kept safe.

@BrilloPaddy

It may sound extreme but when DD was being bullied and the school were ignoring the issue, I refused to send her in until I had a written guarantee from the Head for her physical safety. The LA then got involved as she was incurring such high absence rates, and it got dealt with very promptly.

I would echo this. It's what we did too. The school consistently went for the easiest options for DD and lots of it bordered on victim blaming. Removing DD from the situation altogether made the problem a whole lot more visible to everyone and forced their hand.

Eventually we removed DD altogether - she's living her best life at a different school now with a very different headteacher and it has shown me that it really was the culture and leadership at her old school that allowed that behaviour to thrive.

I can guarantee that at the school there will be other children who are suffering at the hands of bullies (whether the same child or a different one) whose parents for whatever reason won't or can't advocate for them in the same way. Sometimes I think it's important to shine a light on this for them too and show them that not every person looks the other way.

Record and keep notes. As others have said refer to the policy for safeguarding, don’t minimise call it what it is eg physical assault on John by Piers on Monday 1 st September - where did you log this, what action to did take
Second assault on Wednesday 3 rd September physics assault leading to actual physical injury - what did you do?

Don’t fill any silences
Challenge

Eg Piers - didn’t mean to hurt John ‘how do you know what?’ But the case was John was hurt - how did you ensure it wouldn’t happen again

Not a physics assault (!) goodness knows what they will be - talk about emotional health mental health and feeling safe - peer on peer abuse is not acceptable

@MahMahMahMahCorona happily she came on leaps and bounds from being moved.

I was sad to see your post as DD's incident was several years ago. Part of me had hoped things had changed. I'm glad he's recovered.

Well I kind of feel like I was fobbed off. I made as many notes as I could while talking and she also made notes so we will see how they marry up. Basically the Head tried to minimise what had happened and said he shouldn't be reporting every little thing but she would ensure the bullying policy was followed and a record of our meeting would go on his record.

She asked to see photos of the bruises but he freaked out when I tried to take pictures (he doesn't do photos). I get the feeling she thought he was exaggerating what has been happening.

The teacher was a little better and agreed to have a meeting with the two of them each morning to see how they're getting on and to iron out any differences. He will introduce our son to a lunch supervisor and tell them to report to him if anything happens. He was also on about setting up games for them outside as a team building exercise.

I did mention that his last form teacher had come down hard on bullying last year and told the kids she would not tolerate any level of it and that had really worked. This teacher is not as strict though. He's a different kettle of fish.

I wouldn't think that the outcome there was acceptable from the school.

They have a duty of care to your child.

My advice, see if things improve once they go back after mid-term and if you're not happy, don't let it fester. Go in straight away. Your son needs to know that you will have his back on things like this.

As for photos and your son freaking out when you tried to take them. Explain it that you need to take the photographs, to stop the boys that are hurting him. If you speak plainly and show him the photos as soon as you've taken them so that he understands, that might ease the way there. Then at least you would have evidence of these assaults happening.

Best of luck with it over the coming weeks.