To ask the school what they are going to do about this

[mumoffourgs]

I'm after opinions on what I should, if anything be doing about this, as am aware that my life experiences may be clouding my judgement on it.

Yesterday on pickup I was told that my 7 year old daughter was told to remove her pants and show her bum, by a group of boys in her class. This was after they had stolen some of her things and refused to give them back. There are a number of witnesses and I was told it was being dealt with at SLT but with no further information.

I'm really angry at this, but can't tell if I'm being OTT about it because of their age. I would hope that these boys don't understand the full implications of what they'd said, but equally schools these days give so much information on bodily autonomy and pshe that I assume they knew it was inappropriate. I want to email the school to ask what further action they are taking and have written a fairly strongly worded email, but don't want to blow anything out of proportion.

AIBU to think it's a fairly serious incident?

The boys perhaps don;t understand how serious this is, but adults certainly do. and your DD needs to know YOU protected her.

I'd make an immediate written complaint to the HT requesting an urgent interview and a full explanation. You need to know which boys were involved, which adult intervened and what the adult said to your DD.

Its quite likely you daughter has not been the only victim; the coercion aspect suggests practise and planning by boys working together :-(

Of course they did. It was a group activity and they knew she was unwilling; that's why they had to force her into it by taking her belongings and threats.

This wasn't mere childish curiosity of the " I'll show you mine if you show me yours" kind. It has a really nasty whiff of acting out adult porn they've watched.

Those saying contact the police, no crime has been committed as they are 7 years old and the age of criminal responsibility in this country is 10.

The boys are below the age of criminal responsibility. but its possible one or more of them have been criminally exposed to sexual behaviours at home and are acting it out at school. The school can;t investigate that; it's a police issue.

Don’t tell me to calm down. I’m perfectly calm. These boys need to understand unequivocally just how wrong their actions were. Ten years on and they would be arrested. I think YOU need to understand how sexual violence starts and the dangers of VAWG.

Exactly. I completely agree. The boys themselves could also need safeguarding; that’s why escalation is so crucial.

My child's the same age and absolutely knows this is wrong! They are taught the pants rule before this even if their parents don't discuss things with them.
At my children's school the parents would be informed and the kids involved would have consequences.I was informed that my child had kissed another pupil 🤷‍♀️

Hi OP, I hope your daughter is ok. I'm a Year 2 teacher and PSHE Lead. Year 3 boys know exactly what they are doing and will have been taught the PANTS rule from Reception...and continually every year since.

Have you heard of the Brook Traffic Light system for 'grading' safeguarding issues in young people? It's very clear and will help you to work out where in the scale an incident sits. I've linked it below... if you scroll to page 7 and 8 you'll see the actual traffic lighting for primary ages. Use this when you talk to the school...you can see that for 5 year olds this would warrant an Amber (and would need documenting as such) but for 7 year olds it's much more serious and would be a Red...this is because at 7/8 children should know that this is COMPLETELY unacceptable, and might also be an indicator of safeguarding concerns in them too.

www.enhertsccg.nhs.uk/sites/default/files/Sexual-Behaviours-Traffic-Light-Tool.pdf

I wouldn’t do anything.

you are offloading onto the school.

the kids who took part will have been given a good old telling off

highly likely it was only one child’s idea and the others just went along with it

your email will change not a single thing but will make you feel better, so for that reason you can do it

YANBU. They are sexually abusing and bullying your child and that is a huge safeguarding issue for the school. I would email the head using those words and consider copying in the governors depending on the response.

Terrible

👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

Not sure if someone else has already mentioned this - but definitely mention how they are going to deal with this under safeguarding legislation - 'peer on peer abuse'. This is part of KCSIE (keep children safe in education) and all schools are required to follow it. This should ensure that they take you and your concerns seriously.

I am well aware, and if you see my post, you’d know that.

Take your Anglo Saxon parenting and teaching methods elsewhere. Being ‘harsh’ on them will not deal with the root cause at all will it.

And if we believe that this is not innocent, then what the he’ll do you think these kids are being exposed to, in order to do this.

Dear god - thank goodness people
like you aren’t directly responsible for investigating and dealing with thing s like this.

Then how does this marry wirh dealing with them harshly?!

It doesn’t does it.

Helpful post. It's good that it's taken very seriously by schools. As it should be

not sure what your problem is and I will leave this thread after this post, but yes the boys need to be dealt with properly which means checking they themselves are not exposed to bullying / sexual violence AND being made aware - as if they aren't already - how serious this situation is.

I know of a local incident where a current yr 11 girl accused a boy she was at primary school with of assaulting her when they were in year 3. it was a playground game but in 'her lived experience' (her words) it was assault and this went all over our local town via the teens SM accounts.

Every boy involved in this OP incident could have something similar happen in their future. Little kids grow up, they develop language and awareness around what happened to them and rightly or wrongly these experiences can be brought into the public domain. It could affect their entire lives. Deal with them as harshly as possible to protect them and STOP them growing up into men who think they can assault women.

Glad you are escalting it with the school OP, don't be fobbed off.

At 7 they knew exactly what they were doing. It was bullying and humiliation of your poor dd. At the very least.

And if any of the boys involved are in any way a little fuzzy about how serious this is, its a damn good time for it to be hammered home to them. Hard.

I also don't get this whole, parents cannot know what punishment they are getting/how they are being dealt with. Why not?
If my ds was found to be involved in something like this, I would absolutely have no problem with the parents of his victim knowing how he was being dealt with. In fact I'd want them to know so she can be reassured it WAS being dealt with and firmly by both the school and his parents.

Then the word you’re looking for is robustly!

Not harshly.

Two completely different things and ones that allows for the user notion of the boat themselves being somehow coerced or victims of sexual abuse and premature exposure.

Two completely different things and ones that allows for possibility of the boys themselves being somehow coerced and/or victims of sexual abuse and premature exposure

You don’t deal with them harshly if you want to deal with it effectively!