To not be fobbed off with "data protection" as an excuse?

[KER90]

Have name changed for this just in case it's identifiable.

DS is 6 years old and in Year 1. Last week he was attacked by another child, who is in year 2. He was left with marks around his neck and a mark and lump on his head. DS doesn't know the other child's name, he's not in his class (mixed y1 & y2) and he's not even sure if he is in the other mixed class or the year 2 only class.

DH has been to speak briefly to the head today as he wants to know what the school have done about it as all we were told on the day of the incident was that the other child had "been dealt with". She tried to fob him off with "data protection" as an excuse for not being able to tell us what they have done. Just that it had been "severely dealt with".

Now, I think this is just a vague response in order to avoid admitting they've done sweet FA. Hoping that we go oh okay no worries and just forget about it. It's not giving out personal or identifiable information and as above, we don't even know who the child is. Surely when it comes to safeguarding, they should be able to tell parents what measures they are putting in place to protect their children? The way in which DS was assaulted, is, in my opinion, not the kind of thing you do as a first time offence, it is serious and if I had done that to another adult, I would be arrested and probably jailed. Just because they are under the age of criminal responsibility, it doesn't mean they should do nothing about it. If it's not dealt with now, who knows what that child will go on to do in the future.

"Severely dealt with" is also surely a matter of opinion? They may think it's a severe punishment, but I might not, and vice versa. For example has the child been "told off" or "lost certain privileges" or has he been suspended? Bit of a difference.

We are going back in on Friday for a more formal chat and DH has told the head that he wants answers to his questions and we are not going to let it go until we are satisfied with the response. She seemed very flustered and didn't quite know what to say, which tells me that she knows she can't bullshit her way out of this situation with her usual tactics.

Thankfully, DH is, shall we say, very assertive, but does anyone with inside knowledge of this type of thing have any advice?

The school doesnt necessarily have to provide extra supervision and not doing so doesnt equate to a safeguarding failure

I understand that. My initial post to OP was about focussing on how her child will be safeguarded in the future. Another poster said the school can't afford to safeguard her son, so won't do anything they discuss in the meeting.

The safeguarding OP will hopefully be discussing at the meeting is not about eliminating all risk, it's about eliminating the risk of another serious assault from the original child, and the school being specific about how that will happen.

The onus should be on keeping rule-abiding, well-behaved children safe. If there's no funds to do anything with the children who bite, hit and bully safe, tough. Their parents choose to have them, let them deal with the problem. Schools are wasting far too much money on all this stuff at the expense of children who want to learn and get on in life, and who have parents who want the best for their children and raise them instead of dragging them up.

Such garbage. The school has just as much responsibility for the kids who struggle - and the kids who hit, bite and bully are invariably the ones who need support. You can’t just cast off generations of children because their parents can’t handle them.

I was using an example of what the school MIGHT say and how the OP can probe that further. I was not saying that the school must suggest extra supervision, and not doing so would be a safeguarding failure.

I stated that telling a parent that safeguarding measures were in place (whatever they may be) and then not doing them and having another serious assault WOULD be a safeguarding failure.

God this thread has it all
stroppy op
ridiculous call the police on 6 year olds
disablist wankers

its ok I'm sure the child in question was taken out and shot and dawn

as per the behaviour policy

What a stupid comment.

Bollocks to abused children then eh?

it's a cop out catch all excuse we say in my work when we don't know the answer or nothing has been done (don't flame me for that Blush lol)
I see, so because you and your colleagues like to bullshit people, you're judging everyone else by your standards.

I wouldn't be discussing the details of another child with a different child's parents even if Mr 'Assertive' and Mrs 'judge everyone by my own standards' thought they could try to intimidate me into doing so.
Equally as a parent I would be furious if I found out my child was being discussed with other parents.

If you have safeguarding concerns then put them in writing to the head and get a response about how they plan to keep your child safe. If you have grounds for a formal complaint, get the complaints procedure and follow it. If after following those procedures you're still concerned there are substantial safeguarding failures then report to Ofsted.

@bellac11

Although in this theoretical claim, the issue is 'did the school fail to protect my child' and the information about what sanction/intervention took place after the incident regarding the other child is not relevant information for such a claim so would not need to be disclosed

It may do - it all depends whether it meets the disclosure test - being something supportive or against either party's case. It's perfectly possible documentation as to sanction may do that. Also in many cases whether action was taken may be suggestive that a system was not as safe as it could be.

Say, if there was an email after the event from teacher to head that said

"the mother is aggitating for a harsh sanction what should we do?.

Head: well the penultimate time little Johnny assaulted someone we put him in detention for a week but his father was so aggressive about it he scared me, I decided sanction was pointless so we may as well let little Johnny do what he likes. I know he's dangerous but there's nothing we can do. It's easier to just tell the victim's parents its the first time. They'll never find out he's done it before and he's a known sociopath because we can rely on data protection.

That would 100% be disclosable even thought it's after the event and mainly about sanction. That's the joy of disclosure.

I dont think it is disclosable because it doesnt address specifically what the school was or wasnt doing with regard to protection interventions, the sanction is a different thing

I work in the family courts a lot for my job, your user name suggest you work in the courts as well. You would know that the information about previous sanction is likely not relevant, but the information about the head determining to put no further interventions in would be relevant so bits would be redacted out

In fact as you know some information is so bloody redacted its hard to read it at times, police disclosures that are hundreds and hundreds of pages long for example.

It doesn’t matter what you think is acceptable/not acceptable. The school will not tell you how another pupil has been punished because you are not staff and it’s nothing to do with you.

They will share with you the steps taken to keep your child safe/stop this happening again. There’s no point in continuing to argue whether that’s right or wrong because it won’t (and shouldn’t) change. You are not entitled to information about other pupils, only your own.

Please stop erroneously using data protection to bullshit your way out of stuff?! You make life very hard for data professionals who have to legitimately cite this ffs

Data protection is not BS, I am a passionate DP nerd (as it is my job) but even so it is infuriating when organisations use a load of jargon and pass it off as data protection! If taken seriously data protection is actually about protecting people from bad things that happen to them as a result of the processing of their personal data, things like discrimination, exclusion and exploitation. This is even more important with children's personal data.

Great user name 😁

😂😂 I wanted to be Clem, but someone already had it 🤨

@Goldenbear I was using OP’s own language ‘at my work we use DP to bullshit our way out of stuff’. I too am a data nerd!

ReluctantCourier, yes, I know as a fellow dat

Oops- as a fellow data nerd, I wholeheartedly agree with you!