WIBU to get involved with schools disciplinary process?

[throwawayname00]

Long story short.
Last term in my DS8 and a bunch of boys in his class were involved in some bullying of another child. it was reported and dealt with by the school.

Parents were called, kids were talked to and for the rest of that school term the 'bullying' boys were not allowed to play together. I personally felt that was a bit OTT but went with it.

We've gone back to school this term and DS has come home saying he still isn't allowed to play with the other boys, they are all being kept apart during class times, lunch times and play times.
And this was announced to them all by the teacher in front of the whole class with her saying "XYZ, you still aren't allowed to play together because I still can't trust you"

I'm intending to speak to the teacher at pick up or maybe just email the school directly.
I feel this has been dragged from one term into another by the teacher, i feel they were spoken to by teachers, head teacher and parents. They were kept apart for 2/3 weeks last term and it could have been left there.
And calling them out like that in front of their peer group is awful IMO.

I want to use this thread to check myself before I go in guns blazing.
WIBU to step in at this point?

No, for a one off incident, they won't (inform the next school) So, had the OP's son thrown another child's lunchbox on the floor, obviously it would have gone no further.
Not quite what was described above though, is it.
And if the bullying behaviour continues, particularly in an orchestrated group of 8 children, then being separated from his friends will look like a walk in the park, trust me. And so it damn well should.

@PAFMO where have you got 8 from and stop quoting me i have said my piece and you have said yours we don't agree end of
Let it go and accept people can have other opinions

If you were the parent of the child that was bullied. How would you feel, knowing that the bullies were all back together again?

I think bullying was too strong a word tbh, between these boys the other kids coat was hidden, his lunch box thrown across the hall, he was chased around the playground.

Sounds like bullying to
Me.

In someways the low level bullying is the worse. It eats away at you slowly. I was bullied for years like this. It wasn't nice.

No, for a one off incident, they won't (inform the next school)

You can't possibly know that.

But the vast majority of replies on this thread seem to suggest that he hasn't stopped bullying or that I am egging him on and finding it all utterly hilarious.
It's because your posts have lots of excuses like it was reported 2 weeks after the event, it's his word, running away comment which I assume is suggesting that he asked for it with mixed messages. You haven't specifically said that your son is aware of your point of view on this and hopefully you've taken the same stance as school and told him how serious bullying is.

You were unreasonable to approach the other mum and expect her son to listen to an apology from yours. If someone had upset you but you had to spend time with them because of your job or whatever wouldn't you rather they gave you a wide berth ? It's like the parents of toddlers who think that a child hit by theirs should accept a hug - madness.

Asking the school what he can do to redeem himself is a good idea. Not playing with the other boys who participated in the bullying is a good start.

No, I can't. But in my 28 years of teaching of which the last 7 have been as part of the safeguarding team that looks at the new intake and any incidents and issues that the primary flags up, I'd say it was unlikely.

Apologies. I misread that the "group of other children" involved in the bullying made a total of 8.
So it could be fewer, it could be more.
PS I'll quote your post if I have something to say to you. Last time I looked, that's what the quote function is for. Makes it easier.

Your DS is a bully. Own it.

No, I can't. But in my 28 years of teaching of which the last 7 have been as part of the safeguarding team that looks at the new intake and any incidents and issues that the primary flags up, I'd say it was unlikely.

It's too depressing for me to think about how many years I've been teaching, so I won't.

I have made lots of mistakes in my life, both as a child and an adult, but I have never engaged in cruel or bulling behaviour towards my peers.

From OP's own description, this was not a one off incident but a continuous stream of bullying behaviour from a group of children towards another child who had been singled out.

OP's son has not been tarnished as a bully forever and the action from the school of keeping the bullies separated is not a punishment towards them as much as a method implemented by the school to ensure that his group cannot isolate and bully any other children. This is for the protection of the child they chose to bully, bite, hide clothes, throw lunchboxes, so they can no longer get together and continue this horrible behaviour.

Every child has the right to a safe environment in school to learn in and if OP's son and his gang are making that impossible for other children, OP's son's behaviour needs to be mitigated by the school. Separating the bullies in this way ensures they can't gang up on other children. They may not like the consequences of their actions but if they can't play nicely together and treat their classmates kindly, why should they be allowed to continue going around in the same gang making life incredibly difficult for the other boy?

OP only sees this as ongoing punishment because her son can no longer do whatever he wants in his gang at school. The bullied child's mother probably sees this as a blessing as her child can now go to school without being tormented by a group that have targeted him.

No one thinks that OP's son should live with this forever and the only way he would be branded a bully in secondary is if he continues his bullying behaviour into secondary school. Separating a group of children who, when together, bully others is ensuring that the child(ren) bullied by this group no longer have to worry about going to school.

As someone who was bullied for a large portion of my education, some of the things said and done when I was age 8 and upwards stick with me to this day. I think the school have acted appropriately.

@OopsAnotherOne if you read what I put i never said the school hadn't acted appropriately the Op doesn't actually state if this was ongoing or all one incident but thats beside the point
But The Op does have a right to speak to school and understand what the long term plan is and in fact they should of been having this discussion with her and she should not only be hearing from her son
But people on here have said about being a bully for life another poster has said it will follow him to secondary school etc
I clearly said the OP should speak to the school and find out what the plan is long term and also they would then advise what the plan is and why and also may be seeing better behaviour/ work from all three in other areas as well
But how some grown adults have spoken about an 8 year old child beggars belief
Kids mess up sometimes and all kids will have been horrible at one point or another to another child maybe not as far as bullying but just one comment once can really hurt another child.
At no point did I say the school were wrong but the OP also has a right to know what the long term plan is for her ds and the school should be communicating with them as well
Personally if an 8 year old wanted to apologise I would also accept that as an adult in a situation as part of the learning process of hopefully that child not doing the same again.

The OP does state that there are multiple instances of bullying - hiding clothes, throwing a lunchbox across the floor, one boy bit the victim, they chased the boy, either these all happened in one frenzied attack (unlikely), or it's a sustained, low-level bullying which isolates the poor child in question.

Of course the OP has the right to speak to the school, but she should be in support of their decision rather than being upset that she feels her child is still being "punished", when in actual fact all that is happening is that the gang of boys who are bullying have been separated so they can no longer gang up on other children.

I haven't spoken about the 8 year old badly, so that's irrelevant.

Of course children mess up sometimes and I have never stated otherwise, however if a child decides to bully another child, there must be consequences. OP's son may have "messed up" and now he has consequences which prevent him from messing up again. It wasn't an accident that OP's son did any of these things and 8 year olds are old enough to understand that these actions would have upset the boy. These actions were done to upset the boy they were bullying. OP's son is now being taught that if he and his friends purposely upset people in school, a place where ALL should feel safe, he will not be allowed to play with the group he has been bullying people about.

If OP wants to work with the school to ensure that her child does not go down the path of being the "school bully" (baring in mind a lot of these start when they are very young) then she should have every right to do so, I agree.

With the apology though, I think OP's son should only be able to apologise to the child if the child wants to. I received many disingenuous apologies from my bullies, forced by teachers, in school. They were excruciating as I knew they meant nothing and it tended to just ramp up the bully's behaviour afterwards so they didn't feel they'd "lost".

The point I'm trying to make is that yes, children can and do make mistakes, however this isn't a mistake like knocking over a glass of water, or forgetting to shut the fridge. This "mistake" needs to be nipped in the bud because no matter how sorry for himself OP's child is feeling, there's another 8 year old out there who will have been dreading attending school because of the actions of OP's son and his friends and that is simply unacceptable. The school are right to put into place this plan to stop these boys bullying and OP should work with the school to support this rather than take up the defensive, as she so clearly has been in her previous posts.

Of course they should still be separated, it’s literally been a few weeks broken up by the Christmas holidays! You seem to be trying your hardest to minimise what’s happened and keep drip feeding more information in the hopes people will side with you.

I was bullied for a long time and didn’t tell my mum until I was an adult. It’s had a huge impact on my life even now that I’m middle aged. The victim has shown bravery in telling his mum at all never mind 2 weeks later.

my son was also bullied. It started at a low level and just progressed into physical and verbal abuse. My son became a shadow of himself and I was terrified that he would cause harm to himself as he was suffering so much. Every news story of a young person taking their own life absolutely had me in terror that my son would be one of the news headlines. Like I said, this started as low level bullying and quickly progressed as it wasn’t dealt with by the school.

The school staff clearly see that the group of boys should be separated. They haven’t done this on a whim! They should absolutely be doing things so that the other children can see that bullying is unacceptable and there are consequences!

If my child had bullied someone I would be absolutely mortified and would come down on him like a tonne of bricks. As a side note, had the mothers of my son’s bullies approached me I wouldn’t be happy, they would have seen a very different side of me so just be grateful she’s ignoring you!

@OopsAnotherOne and my comments were not aimed at you , you have answered it perfectly and how many could of
I kind of read the instances were all close together and that the boy originally hid one of the other lunchboxes first and then they did the rest but was reading as the same day hence reported 2 weeks after the incident , but one off is no better
Some others have answered not so nicely exactly how you have put it addresses it fairly and firmly others have not answered so kindly and makes them not much better than a bully in my opinion i

I also wonder if one of the other parents has asked for their child to be kept away from his fellow bullies to try to stop him getting in more trouble

I'm nothing but respectful in debate and disagreement to those who afford me the same courtesy 🙂
I think we are on the same page, but coming at it from different angles. I was just trying to make the point that from the OP's description, while it could have been over the course of 1 lunchtime, it did sound like something that took place at the very least over a few days. They didn't specify though so we can only guess really.
I think the crux of the matter is one of two options:

1. OP did not teach her child right from wrong (unlikely)
2. OP did teach her child right from wrong and the child knows what he is doing is wrong

As number 2 is more likely, firm correction of the behaviour is needed to nip it in the bud before it blossoms. Whether OP's son is the ringleader or just copying the other boys to seem cool and fit in, he will know that his behaviour is mean as I'm sure (I hope) OP will have taught him not to be unkind to people.

At the end of all this I'm just thinking how glad I am to be long out of school and away from all of the playground bickering and bullying that used to go on - I don't know how we all coped looking back! For many of us it was akin to a warzone some days 😂

It's interesting that you think the language around the child and mother have been too much. The majority has been factual.

Ops son is at present a bully and op has provided no evidence of that changing.

Op is an ineffective parent.

Op is a victim blamer.

Op has minimised the bullying and shown some harassment behaviour herself.

All factually reported in her own words. I'm not going to pussyfoot around it, the facts are there and to be quite frank the research shows that the effect of bullying on young children has a huge effect on their cognitive development so no, op and her son do not get to benefit from everyone else following social rules when she disregards them herself.

Yes this. DFriend’s child was involved in bullying one child with another child. She nipped it in the bud with punishment at home to match school, but also asked school to keep her DC away from the second bully. The second bully’s parent had minimised the issues and didn’t give her DC any consequences. DF didn’t want her DC to continue this friendship, and the school were supportive of this.

Where has the OP said he hid a lunchbox first? I haven't read that anywhere?

The "only" thing I can see her state was that the bullies hid the victims clothes and that they threw this lunchbox, but he threw Theirs as well (but didn't state he threw it first)

Yes, in one of her many apologist posts, the OP says that. That "reports" (presumably from the group of children involved in the bullying) claim that their victim did it first.

I have just reread all of her posts and cannot see reference to any lunch box even being hidden, let alone victim doing it first. Only thrown

Maybe I'm being blind

Only querying as I there have been a few posts on here saying op saying things she hasn't.... this was just one

Sorry, my reply is maybe unclear, I'm agreeing with you. The bullies hid the coat and threw the lunchbox.

Though she does say that the "reports" claim the victim did it first. She doesn't say where the "reports" originated but it doesn't take a leap to presume they are from her child and the others.