To expect my son to be safe at school?

[LadyVic]

DS12 has been bullied at school for the last few months. 3 weeks ago he was attacked by 3 in his year group that left him with a concussion, bruises and cuts. Police were called and action against the three lads was taken by the school, and since then it has settled. Today I have been called by the school to collect DS as he "Was jumped on by 3 older students and has been hurt" How can I get the school to see they have a problem with bullying and violence and how to I get them to keep my DS form being hurt?

Make a complaint

That sounds absolutely horrible. Is there any possibility of changing schools? Not fair that your son needs to be the one to move, but this school obviously isn’t a good environment for him and I think you’re right not to trust the administration (or students!) there. ☹️

Make sure you call the police again. Is it the same children?

That sounds awful. Have you involved police with today's incident as well as the previous incident?

Can you escalate with the board of governors? Your local MP/ councillor may be able to help deal with the school too.

Request a meeting with the Head and head of year.
Explain that you will be calling the police in again. Then don't talk and see what they say.

Lay out the facts and let them respond. Ask open questions about how they are going to prevent it happening again etc

Move him

Involve the police again. Even if you decide to move your DS to another school.

I have made a formal complaint, and I have requested another meeting with the head.
DS doesnt know who it was who jumped him as it was from behind. But I will still update them with what has happened today.

Moving him isnt really an option at this stage. I have heard that the next nearest school is alot worse!

Your poor, poor son.

yes, contact the police again. And the Head but also the Governors. It is their responsibility along with the SLT to put effective anti-bullying policies in place. Foryour son, this should include very close monitoring of his safety during all times when he might be at risk, alongside helping him develop strong friendships with people who walk with him between classes etc so he is less likely to be attacked. he also needs counselling to help him see this is not his fault, he doesn't deserve to be jumped on, he is likeable and worthy and deserving of respect, warmth and fun friendship.

Should go without saying that the bullies themselves need to be given some rigorous counselling to get to the root of why they bully, why they picked on him specifically and if they can't reform, they need to be suspended from mainstream school.

My word, your poor, poor son.

I'd remove him from school until they could assure me he would be safe.

Make sure your formal complaint is about their repeated failure to safeguard your son from bullying and list out your minimum expectations of the actions they should be taking to protect your son - actionable things that curtail the bullies getting near him rather than require your ds needing to miss out on things.

Sadly, it seems that there are formal obligations on schools to follow up and deal with safeguarding complaints, that get caught up in Ofsted reviews, which there aren't if you just make a complaint about bullying - crazy when it shouldn't take a grain of sense to capture all this sort of complaint and deal with them equally... But there are differences and it means that bad schools can get away with ignoring complaints that don't mention safeguarding.

Worth copying in the school's head of safeguarding and governor responsible for safeguarding too. Remember because of expectations of personal privacy you won't have the right to know about any punishments given to the kids - hence the need to think of your requests in terms of what can be done in terms of your son...

Any progress OP? I hope your son has been ok since