to want to rip the head of my DS's Headmistress off.

[discoverlife]

DH and myself have decided to start Home Educating our DS2 10yo year 6 who is SEN, for a variety of reasons. The main one being persistant bullying because of his problems. We called it bullying the Headmistress called it misunderstandings between DS and others as he see's things in a very black and white way. She thought the kids were just having a laugh, my DS knew they were laughing at him. The bullying also included persistant verbal and physical torment.
The reason for my blazing fury ATM is that now we have told DS2 that he will not be going back there, he has opened up to us about the really bad stuff that was going on (I thought he trusted us) that he was too petrified to tell us for fear of retribution.
It seems that one of the worst verbal abuses was that they spread the word around school that because he is so thick (he's not), he would never get married and would become a peadophile and have sex with babies. I am welling up now remembering the look on his face, he expected me to tell him off about it, how can I repair his self esteem after that?
The physical abuse was general pushing and shoving, (incidents of weeing in his school bag as wel)), but as soon as one had managed to get him to the ground, 5 others would jump up and down on him. God how I tried to get him to tell me what the bruises were from. How is it that these little shits children could gain so much power that Mothers love couldn't help.
I just want to rip the Headmistress head off for being an Ostrich. When we moved to the school she assured us there was no bullying, well in her eyes there isn't as she is too bloody blind to see it.

omg this is awful. you are not being unreasonable. your poor son.
our headmaster is the same . like a feckin ostritch. i don't think he believes bullys exist in his school. personally i think his christian beliefs get in the way of his headmaster decisions. you not on your own.

That is the problem with bullying, the kids are so terrified that they can't tell anybody, and kids with communication difficulties are even more vulnruble (can't spell), DS just can't get past his frustration, when he's worked up to explain. He doesn't physically stutter its as if his brain stutters. BUT this is the crunch, the teachers are supposed to be trained to spot it, how hard could it be, small school, 1 playground divided by age group into 2 by a fence, so that reduces the number that have to be watched at any one time to 42.

I do believe that any letter I send will also be swept under the carpet as I didn't 'see' any of it myself, neither did the teachers 'see' anything. So it comes down to the word of a special needs child. Who would be tongue tied in 2 seconds if he was cross examined. I will write the letters but I don't expect much, and I certainly wouldn't expose Ds to any kind of media attention.

Your poor ds. We faced a similar situation 7 years ago. ds1 has Aspergers syndrome but is polite and well-behaved. I was constantly at the school (andit had a great reputation) but was fobbed off. It got to the stage where I had to carry my 7 yo in, screaming and kicking 'please don't make me go'
The headmaster told me my son didn't like school because 'your home life must be too nice'
One day I read about school phobia, found a link to Home ed and removed my son by 10am that morning. I did make a formal complaint when ds revealed the awful things that had happenend to him (kids knocking opne the toilet door and jeering at him - it had got to the stage where he was too frightenend to use the loo and often soiled himself on the way home). The Governors replied that bullying didn't exist in the school and my son had an active imagination which was to be expected as he had Aspergers. And they said that you can't blame the other children because, after all, my son was 'different'.
I wanted to burn the place down
7 years of home ed (I took my other 2 kids out very quickly after ds1 came out) was pretty fab.
I hope your son recovers quickly and i'm sure his self esteem will improve. After all, you stood up for him against the system and he'll never forget it.

What an awful school experience for your ds and how glad he must be to have a mother like you who is taking his side.

I think you are definitely doing the right thing in reporting this. Can you write detailed notes now, while things are fresh in your head - you never know, you may need to refer to them in a few years time. Also, any good alerting the any local SEN services - not just the school govenors - so they can use this knowledge to help other parents with SEN children avoid this school. Sorry I am not putting that well, as I don't know the names and functions of the services, but if local caseworkers know your story, it might help them help other families.

Well done for taking your son out of that school. He will heel over time. I know how you feel as we went through something similar, but not as severe with DS1 last year. He chose to go to another schol, rather than be home educated, and the atitude at his school is completely different. DH and I are still very angry with his old school and wished we had complained more at the time. The govenors may appear to support the head, but atleast they will know what is going on.

Your poor boy. I would be devestated and very angry about this, too.

I am shocked that the headmistress of the school shrugged off her responsibilities so easily. I think you should let her know exactly what has gone on, even if you are planning on HE. She should be aware of what other children have been able to get away with putting your son through all this time. Don't let the school get away with it.

what kind of (little shit) child makes those type of comments.

You really should take this matter further. Write a log of all incidents (including naming of names, dates, etc) send it to the headmistress and copy to the LEA and demand to know what they are going to do about it and state in no uncertain terms who you blame for having to remove your ds from school.

My son (doesn't have SN) suffered bullying earlier in the year (although not to this extent) as soon as I spoke to his teacher she was told me she would put an end to it and she did - exactly the way it should be.

She reported the matter to the head straight away so he knew what was going on and he and the lads teacher immediately called a meeting with him and his parents and told them his behaviour would not be tolerated. If disciplinary measures they implemented did'nt work their child would be removed from the school.

I really can't understand why a head would deny there is a problem - it is their duty to protect your child.

to your DS - you have shown him you will protect him and this will help the healing process in itself.

Best of luck with the HE.

I have been talking to some other Mums from the school, basically offering school uniform to them. I found out that one of the children is supposed to get 20 hours a week 1-2-1 care, that added to my Ds of 15 hours 1-2-1 make a full time position of 35 hours but no extra staff have been employed. She also thinks that her DS is not getting the actual 1-2-1 either. I wonder how many SEN children there actually are in the school (Head told me they didn't have any before DS) and where the money is going.
I have two feelings here 1) is to turn my back on the whole thing, feeling holier than thou (guilt feelings of what if I don't and another kid gets the same treatment) or 2) go in wading and create havoc with suspicions being cast about financial irregularities, as well as the obvious one of non-existant chilcare.
This kind of thing I leave to DH normally as he can keep his head in arguments.

needmorecoffee the toilet problems happened as well, same thing, he would ask us to get home as fast as possible so he could go to the loo, just thought he was being fussy.Iv'e just asked him, and he says they would stand on the loo's in the next cubicle and throw toilet roll paper at him, plus the banging on doors etc.
None of this type of behaviour should be considered 'something' that the kids have to learn to cope with. (I had the loo incidents as well).

you really must write all this down and send copies to the head, governors, and diocese.

it sounds to me like the head is kidding herself she is running a lovely little church school. she needs to know (or not be allowed to ignore it if it is down on paper in black and white) that these are/were not just "silly little playground jokes". When do jokes become bullying anyway? It's a fine line and most schools don't tolerate "jokes" when it is lots of children laughing at one. It sounds like she thinks "playground jokes" are perfectly acceptable, they're not.

all this so makes me mad.

Your ds will mend in time, do make sure you tell him how brave he was, how nasty these children are and that he doesn't ever have to go back there.

btw i used to work on a toilet tissue brand and most children don't like to go to the toilet at school, certainly not to poo. it's quite a big thing, we did a ton of research on it.

The HT and dep head I work for are very proactive with bullies.
One of the pupils was caught sending nasty notes to another in the school on the bus home. Really spiteful,intimidating and derogatory notes. (Child she sent them to was deaf and has language difficulties.)

Her parents were informed, she was banned from the playground for 2 weeks and they were told in no uncertain terms that if it ever happened again she would be removed from the school. He would have carried out his threat too. She never did again.

It's a shame that bullies are not dealt with in this way in all schools- zero tolerance.

My experience is similar to smartiejake's: my dcs school has a robust policy on dealing with bullying. All the children are told that they have to report any incident of bullying or any occasion where "someone is being hurt or frightened"- and it works. They have been taught this from infant school and because it's been drummed into them consistently, it really does seem to have an effect.

My son had a bit of a problem with his best mate who was getting a bit more boisterous than he (ds) could cope with, other children reported it to his teacher, I spoke with his teacher who joined with the other boy's teacher to work out a plan of action (involving threats of loss of play time). Problem solved.

My point being- it DOESN'T have to be like the OPs experience! There is NO excuse for a school to be run like this! Lots of schools are NOT like this! These days, parents have a right to expect a bit more from their schools- there's enough information out there. Ours is a large junior school in a socially mixed city area and they can manage it. It's all about being proactive, planning ahead, not hiding your head in the sand.

In 3 months of bullying the steps taken had not progressed beyond being sent to another teachers room to work, non of the other childrens families had been informed.
I wish the policy had been more strictly adhered to, those schools sound bliss. The talk of pictures and notes being passed around brings other incidents to mind. Pictures of my son with an erection being passed around, labels of ** willy. (I wonder if the main cause of all this could be going through premature puberty?)
And another natter with another Mum. The children were coming out of the school building into the yard to meet their parents when one of the nasties, went up to a 2 year old and kicked him in the shin. The mother complained to the school and was told that it was nothing to do with them as the incident occured outside the building. The childs mother was very apologetic and punished her son, but the schools attitude is piss poor.

DL - this sounds even more serious - pictures of his erect willy? This is child abuse. Who took them? how? and where are they now?
If the school knew & did nothing about this surely it is a criminal offence?

It wasn't picture of 'his' erect willy. It was drawings of supposedly DS with an erect willy. Crude childish ones with DS's name at the top.

I think you should report the abuse. Quite apart from the bullying (and I am that in such a small school the head didn't have a better idea of what was going on), I think the inappropriate behaviour of these children needs to be addressed. This is not the normal 'rough and tumble' of 10 year olds.

I am doing so as soon as I can calm down. I know full well I should not go into this full of emotion. Though DH will probably handle it all as I am too emotional for my own good at times.

Meanwhile, have you read this blog by a home educator? It is mainly about crafting, but the bits about her children are lovely. hope it cheers you up a bit

On the bright side, his experience of you saving him from that hell is going to be wonderful. A real demonstration that someone loves him and will do things for him - honest, he'll remember that you were there for him as much as he'll remember what went before.

That said, of course, you should be going after the school with blunted meathooks and a detailed anatomical diagram.

you should be going after the school with blunted meathooks and a detailed anatomical diagram.
I like the scenario. We are drafting the letters as we go along now and as we 'de-brief' DS. We do have to make sure he isn't exagerating but there is always a kernal of truth in everything he says.
Tomorrow we are off hunting for books, pencils posters and such like.