How to deal with low level bullying in primary school

[chocolateorangebuttons]

My DS seems to have become a target of low level bullying. A shove here, a nasty comment there, knocking his books off the table, obvious whispering about him. None of it absolutely awful but relentless - think something like this everyday.

It is really starting to effect him and his self esteem and how he feels about school. Any suggestions on how to deal with this from parents or teachers.

@Bearnecessity

Teacher here, I suggest calling it right out to Head and teacher....exactly as you have explained. Names of children doing active involvement of parents of children doing it. Followed by school support being put in place and encourage your child to establish positive friendships within the class.

Excellent advice

@chocolateorangebuttons

Cross post *@Seashor*. Good to know that this would be taken seriously.

If it isn’t taken seriously, there’s a big problem at your school.

Call the headteacher straight away. You should expect him / her to be keeping you in the loop with what’s happening from the start.

Don’t speak to the parents about it though, it’s happening at school so it needs to be dealt with at school.

Hello OP I so sorry to read this your poor DS.
I could have written your post at Christmas. I just wanted to send a message from the other side as we were in this exact situation pretty much and then half a term later it is totally in the past.
My DS is absolutely thriving and loving everything about school - even getting along pretty well with the ringleader /troublemaker .
You have had excellent advice here.
I felt awful for not addressing it earlier but the good thing was once I spoke to the class teacher and made the head aware it was resolved quite fast.
Keeping a diary helped me to be specific and I got DS a daily journal which helped us to have some good conversations about it all too.

Good luck hope you can get it sorted out.

That isn’t low level. Meeting with school is needed.

Oh! Advice from a friend, her son was older than my daughter.

When she had the meeting with the teacher she asked her son if he wanted to be present. He went to the meeting. It can validate the child and let them know you have their back

Please speak to the school, I had the same thing with my daughter recently and spoke to the class teacher.

I then emailed the school with the head copied in outlining what had happened, stating that I was not going above the teacher and I was happy for her to deal with the situation, but at this point I would like the head teacher to be aware and to log my concerns in writing.

It was dealt with immediately and effectively.

Tell the teacher and they will sort it out. It isn’t low level if it happens every single day. Not sure why you haven’t mentioned it to a teacher already, it’s usually nipped in the bud very quickly.

Thanks for the comments everyone - really helpful. I do feel bad I haven't dealt with it before as I don't think I appreciated how bad it was.
Have asked the teacher to call me this week.