Wits end with school

[autumnvibes1]

This isn't a AIBU but posting here for traffic.

I posted a few weeks ago about an issue that happened at my DS school between my DS and another boy in his class. This boy touched my DS inappropriately in the toilets and the matter was not dealt with well at all. Teacher did not call us, when i messaged her to ask her what happened and how it had been dealt with she ignored my questions. Me and DS dad requested a meeting with the Head he agreed the teacher should have rung us and that she didn't handle the situation correctly. He said it would be put into place that our DS would not be alone in the toilets with this boy anymore in class time. Also it would be relayed to DS class teacher that she should communicate effectively with us in future.
We thought matter would be dealt with better. Tonight my DS has come home and told us this boy pushed him over today at lunch time. DS told the Teaching assistant in his class who was on duty. The TA removed my DS from playing with his other friend to put him to play with a group of people he didn't know.
I don't understand why DS was removed from playing with his friend he was playing with and the boy who pushed him over wasn't taken away from my DS/ the situation. Especially after incidents that had happened before. The toilet incident was one of many but this was the most significant.
Nothing was told to us today and the head mentioned things would be mentioned more to us now to put us at ease with how matters are dealt with regarding this child. We didn't think anything else would happen as we had confidence the behaviours of this child would be dealt with.
This other child has also behaved similar to this with one other child that we know of.
I just don't know where to go from here because i feel like our concerns have fallen on deaf ears and the behaviour management is poor from the class teacher.
What would you do in this situation?

@Moonface123

OP, I can understand your concerns and frustration. It would be interesting to see the replies had the victim been female. Most of the replies on here are excusing the the teachers brhaviour, no concern re the wellbeing or safe guarding of OPs son. This is a typical reflection of society, and then we wonder why we have a ticking timebomb of young men.

Thank you. I agree with what you've said

He's probably not singling out your son- he's probably got some behaviour issues in general but the school will be trying to manage these as best they can- it's unreasonable for them to be expected to tell every parent of every little incident that occurs amongst 5 year olds.

I'd add that I wish I'd gone in a lot sooner (two years) about this child.
The tweet you posted a screenshot of would be going into my letter to the governors in your case...

As much as 4-5 year olds push and shove one another, they can also be very silly in the toilet regarding penises and bodily functions. Some might not be aware it’s inappropriate to touch others.
It doesn’t sound like you trust the school or like the hm or teacher. No point in staying.
Or if you stay you’ll have to realize it will be a tough year for you.

Re: the tweet. There's nothing wrong with it, it's an amusing anecdote. He's a person as well as a teacher – he's allowed to post tweets under his own name. If it was from the school account and named little Henry in 3Y as the child, that would be different.

I would check with the TA what exactly happened in the playground before you go in all guns blazing, as you only have the account of a five-year-old to go by. At that age things don't always happen as translated. If teachers reported every little incident of playground shoving at that age, pick-up would take hours. I'm not saying that to minimise how you're feeling, I'm just saying get the fact established.

It also sounds like the school have taken steps over the behaviour of this other child and acted correctly by talking to their parents about the toilet incident. How they deal with him is none of your business though. Like Lennybenny, I thought you were talking about teens but the fact it's very young children who are still learning boundaries means the school's approach probably isn't going to be censuring this child for bad behaviour, but rather making sure going forward he knows it's not appropriate. That's how primary schools deal with this kind of thing at this age. So you could move your child, but chances are if the same scenario the response would be the same.

@Iamnotthe1

There's lots to unpack here.

The initial toilet incident should have been communicated better, which the school have acknowledged, and it's good that you've flagged this to them. It should have been recorded in the school's internal records as a cause for concern, not least because sexualised behaviour from a young child can be an indicator of that child being abused themselves outside of school. However, you wouldn't be made aware of any cause for concern form or any action taken on that as that information is confidential and relates to a child other than your own. As such, I'm not sure how you've decided that no safeguarding report/discussion/referral took place.

Regarding the pushing, it is very common for 5 year old child to lose all sense of physical boundaries during unstructured time such as playtime or lunchtime. This may be something the school is working on with them (for example, every year we have to introduce a no contact without asking rule into Y1 in the first term so the concept of boundaries can be reinforced). This physical contact will happen so frequently that it is absolutely not something that would prompt a call home.

The headteacher's tweet is neither here nor there. No, school staff do not need to have fully locked down profiles (although many choose to if they want to be on social media). Equally, their tweets don't have to be policed to a much higher degree than every other non-teaching member of the community.

I'd recommend moving your child. Not because the school or you are necessarily doing anything wrong now but because the relationship has broken down completely. For a vary of reasons - twitter, covid, communication - you've come to the conclusion that you cannot trust this school. Whether those reasons are independently valid or not is irrelevant: you do not trust them so you can't send your child into their care for the majority of the next six years. Doing so will only bring more unhappiness.

Thank you.

So they use brooks traffic light system and the teacher told me she marked it as green. Under green it says to just reinforce appropriate behavior and not to refer to safeguarding policy of the school. She moved the other child to another class for 15 mins because he reached the bottom of the behaviour chart.
When I wanted to discuss with the head he wasnt aware of the incident so the class teacher had not Informed anyone eg safeguarding lead

@EdenFlower

He's probably not singling out your son- he's probably got some behaviour issues in general but the school will be trying to manage these as best they can- it's unreasonable for them to be expected to tell every parent of every little incident that occurs amongst 5 year olds.

Inappropriate touching is not 'a little thing that happens between 5 year olds'. 🙄

OP. I think that tweet is inappropriate for a Head. If I saw that from my child's Head I wouldn't think it was funny and would tell him why and ask him to delete it.

Like pp have said, put it all in writing. Everything that has happened so far, inc your request for better communication. You also need to telll them (verbally, followed up in writing) that your DS should not be removed from his play friends when he was the one pushed because he will be less likely to tell an adult the next time.

It sounds as though this child has serious things going on in his life. But at the end of the day the school is failing in its safeguarding duties to your child.

Good luck OP

@EdenFlower

There's nothing inappropriate about the Head Teacher's tweet- it's a funny anecdote and doesn't mention his school, name any children or anything else. Teacher's have loads of stories like this to tell, there are books you can buy of this sort of funny anecdotes written by teachers.

It’s easy enough to find out his school though. He is Tweeting under his real name.

OP. I think that tweet is inappropriate for a Head. If I saw that from my child's Head I wouldn't think it was funny and would tell him why and ask him to delete it.

It's his private account not affiliated to the school, she would have no right to tell him to remove it. It wouldn't even occur to me to go trawling the social media accounts of my daughter's teachers and frankly it's creepy doing that.

For context, a boy two years old than my DD asked her in the bushes to pull down her knickers and show her if she was a boy or a girl.

No one cared.

This was the final straw after a whole list of other issues from another parent etc at that school. The school wanted results. They wanted issues swept under the carpet ASAP. They lied constantly about my DDs happiness there.

We moved schools. We complained. They all had each other’s backs. They didn’t accept anything and are carrying on as they were.

Our new school are amazing and honest and supportive in every way.

I know this is Gloucester but this is nation wide same policy

www.gloucestershire.gov.uk/media/2108772/peer-on-peer-leaflet-for-staff-v4.pdf

The teacher LEGALLY has to
Listen and reassure the young
person that they will be
supported and kept safe
Make a written record
as soon as possible,
stating only the facts
Tell your Designated
Safeguarding Lead immediately
Where appropriate, take action yourself:
 If the young person is in immediate
danger or at risk of harm, make a
referral to children’s social care
 If an offence has been committed,
report it to the police (even if the
alleged perpetrator is under 10 –
the age of criminal responsibility)
Find out whether the victim and alleged
perpetrator share classes, premises or
transport, and consider how best to deal with

I would refer to this but you MUST have a paper trail.

Did the teacher make a written record? Did the teacher report it to the DSL? Did the teacher report to the police?

I would write a formal written complaint as I previously state asking these questions

Date: Time: Name of your son and dob: Name of other student: Incident Reported to:

Details of what your son said.

WHAT ACTION DID THE SCHOOL TAKE? As detailed above?

Did they contact the police? The DSL? Where is the written disclosure? Was a log made immediately of subsequently?

State the teacher was Mr / Ms ...... and they did not inform you.

Your child said this on arriving home............

You did this................

Copies to Chair of Governor, Head, Head of LA, Head of MAT, Ofsted

Leave the tweets for now.

Peer on peer abuse changed in 2021 -and this is LAW. The school has to comply. End of.

I'd be really concerned about this and it's made worse now because you can't trust the school to act appropriately. I don't have school age children yet but can he move classes to get away from the other boy? If not I'd consider moving him before it escalates. Obviously it might not but what if it does and you can't trust the school?

I remember the toilet thread and there were issues with how that situation was dealt with. If you aren't happy with how that situation was dealt with still then there are formal channels to go though and you would be well within your rights to follow them.

It does sound like now you're seeking to find things to be annoyed at and that's likely to muddy the waters. I'd not expect to hear each time infant aged children have pushed in the playground, and your response to the tweet, combined with your opinion over how the head runs the school sounds either like you've already decided the school isn't capable of safeguarding children, or you're looking for things to complain about because you don't like the head.

If you've got substantial concerns that school isn't safeguarding your child then you need to remove your child from school and put a formal complaint in.
If you're just annoyed because you're not getting every detail of the school day then you need to step back, raise the issues that matter and back off on the others otherwise you're going to be endlessly irritated for the next few years.

@LolaSmiles

I remember the toilet thread and there were issues with how that situation was dealt with. If you aren't happy with how that situation was dealt with still then there are formal channels to go though and you would be well within your rights to follow them.

It does sound like now you're seeking to find things to be annoyed at and that's likely to muddy the waters. I'd not expect to hear each time infant aged children have pushed in the playground, and your response to the tweet, combined with your opinion over how the head runs the school sounds either like you've already decided the school isn't capable of safeguarding children, or you're looking for things to complain about because you don't like the head.

If you've got substantial concerns that school isn't safeguarding your child then you need to remove your child from school and put a formal complaint in.
If you're just annoyed because you're not getting every detail of the school day then you need to step back, raise the issues that matter and back off on the others otherwise you're going to be endlessly irritated for the next few years.

Thing is this new incident is me looking for things. Its a pattern of repeat behaviours from the same child towards my child

Isnt*

You say they Used the Brook Traffic light system.

That is for sexualised behaviour assesment. Rarely is one child touching another as a one off, deemed sexualised behviour, esecially in a 5 year old. Presumably no one else witnessed it and is assessed on what your child said happened.

Take your child away from the school if you have lost your faith in them.

Is moving so possibility
Reason I ask is that it really seems this school is not the school for you. It’s the start of eduction and you are thoroughly displeased.

Then you need to keep the focus on the main thing OP because at the moment it sounds like you're coming up with a long list of assorted things that you consider to be awful on everything from serious incidents and safeguarding to whether you like what the head tweets and the fact you think he's clinging to an old ofsfed.

Either you move your child schools because you have substantial concerns and don't trust that the head or school have the capability or willingness to resolve the situation, or you focus on the main thing and ask for a meeting to discuss how the school will be responding to the situation with your DC and the other student.

Tbh I think everyone saying the OP is overreacting would think differently if it was there child. Of course take out the toilet incident it’s boys pushing- but you can’t take away the toilet incident. I’d be inclined to look at other schools they sound very lax! Your son is only just 5, I’d move him.

@Moonface123

OP, I can understand your concerns and frustration. It would be interesting to see the replies had the victim been female. Most of the replies on here are excusing the the teachers brhaviour, no concern re the wellbeing or safe guarding of OPs son. This is a typical reflection of society, and then we wonder why we have a ticking timebomb of young men.

If the victim had been female, so would the perpetrator, as it happened in the school toilets, so nothing to do with boys/young men.

That tweet is not appropriate. It's a story you may relay in private to close friends but not to have laugh about on SM.
There is a fine line you shouldn't cross
There is a problem with an innocent child being removed from a situation rather than the incident being dealt with
I'd put everything in writing and ask whether they are recording these
But bear in mind you will not and should not be privvy to any information about the other child
Keep everything you refer to to your child's wellbeing

The more I read your responses, the more I think you should just move your child. This is the start of his education and if you're already this disillusioned with the school, nothing they say or do is going to improve matters. You've lost your trust in it. But be aware a new school might respond in the same way, because the primary approach really is changing behaviours rather than censuring and how they deal with other children re: safeguarding is confidential, not shared at pick-up to appease other parents.

@Loudestcat14

OP. I think that tweet is inappropriate for a Head. If I saw that from my child's Head I wouldn't think it was funny and would tell him why and ask him to delete it.

It's his private account not affiliated to the school, she would have no right to tell him to remove it. It wouldn't even occur to me to go trawling the social media accounts of my daughter's teachers and frankly it's creepy doing that.

I'm not saying she should tell him or that she had a right to. I am saying I would. Who said anything about trawling through social media accounts? Plus, schools have social media policies as it has the potential to badly reflect on the schools

@OnlyFoolsnMothers

Tbh I think everyone saying the OP is overreacting would think differently if it was there child. Of course take out the toilet incident it’s boys pushing- but you can’t take away the toilet incident. I’d be inclined to look at other schools they sound very lax! Your son is only just 5, I’d move him.

I wouldn't think differently at all. I'd be bloody furious in the same way, but if it were my DD I would trust that the school had taken the necessary steps and I would be happy that the other child's parents had been spoken to, which is what happened. At five, I wouldn't see it as sexual assault, which I think OP has, but very inappropriate behaviour that needed to be stopped. The school confirming the children would never be allowed in the toilet block together would reassure me.

With playground shoving there is always two sides.