to wonder about bystanders ( eg during assault on school girl in Ashford)

[whatchaos]

to wonder about the ethics of being a bystander, and wonder what the bystanders were doing during the appalling assault in Ashford (Surrey) when a schoolgirl was beaten up, the awful video shows a grown woman encouraging primary aged kids to get involved...but there are any number of bystanders including a man in a car, the school principal (at the end) and any number of other school kids including much older looking boys. Wondering if anyone here would have tried to intervene to stop the fight or encouraged their children to intervene in cases like this?

www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/girl-10-among-five-arrested-29158603

I don’t understand what more people expect the teachers to do at the moment of the fight ? It’s not like they are trained in riot control.

The school should have dealt with reports of bullying if there were any in the past though.

I really don't understand this. Why on earth would MPs be wading in without knowing anything of the circumstances or why the staff behaved as they did?

I work with very challenging teens. We deal with violence every day, although thankfully not usually from the parents too. One of my colleagues has been hospitalised this term.

We are trained to "share our calm". And it works, running into that situation shouting and arm waving could have made things so much worse and that's before taking into account the possibility of more adults becoming involved and the possibility of weapons being present.

The staff should be getting commended, not condemned. The MPs and others should be supporting them, not least because who on earth's going to take on that school after seeing this? Not so much the attack, but the lack of support for staff working in incredibly difficult circumstances.

@earsup
Definitely and they shoud be made to comply with the law like anyone else including what we saw re the woman training the girls on how to fight.

@WhatTrophy.. That's interesting re sharing calm however by the time they arrived another few punches bad landed.

Re the victim not wanting the school she had been through trauma and should have been persuaded to go back to safety.

Because this is the standing us teachers have in society nowadays.
Responsible for everything and expected to sort it all out.

I was born on the road. We didn't settle properly for many years. I'd not get involved in a traveller fight unless it was MY fight. I've got involved in other fights, some including large violent men and a lot of blood... I'd stil not involve my self in a traveller fight unless I knew all the people and the site involved. I once watched my mam pull an axe (and mean it) on a group of 15 people trying too intervene. Some fights you can wade into, some you can't. Travellers, like my mam frequently did, can escalate like youre in a prison riot, from nowhere.

My mum was in IKEA yesterday and a woman fell down the stairs. There were loads of bystanders and some eejit even started filming it (no doubt for social media) Well, they stopped that pretty quick when some burly bloke stood in front of them and told them to ‘fuck off, turn off the camera and have some respect’. I honestly loathe those sorts of rubber neckers. They’re the sort who say on TikTok that they were ‘blessed’ to have been able to help and phone an ambulance when they did nothing of the sort because they were filming.

Rant over.

Exactly this, going into the situation calmly would have been very difficult, when your instinct would have been to be running up shouting. I thought they did an excellent job of calming the situation without getting themselves injured or involved physically and without fuelling the fight further. They did the right thing.

OK, so if they'd rushed on more quickly, started grabbing or trying to seperate the girls, do you think the woman would have still called them off or do you think more people, including adults would have waded in leading to a mass brawl, likely including more children?

Remember these staff will have seen fights involving traveller families before, something I suspect most people who think they know better how the situation should have been dealt with, haven't.

Agree.

I sent the article to my colleague and she replied with, “you wait, our contracts will change and under professional duties will be a clause that we must step into physical conflict”.

Why are we tip toeing around a certain group of people? What realistically needs to happen? If they feel they can behave anyway they like then the behaviour gets worse and worse. Eventually those people think they are untouchable. It reminds me of the Rotherham scandel where no one wanted to intervene and young girls were passed around like pieces of meat.

Agree chippy.

I didn't say fhF what trophy

Chippy the way that woman was training children already gives us the idea of behaviour of people we walk amongst... Two tier society not adhering to the law of the land Because of culture??

Hard to believe the teachers are getting shit over this, they're not the problem and sprinting into a baying crowd where the mum and others is encouraging others to kick the girls head in, is likely to esculate the situation. Walking in "bringing the calm" as another poster put it, showing no threat but getting the victim away and standing ibetween which they did, is the best way to handle this.

I am not always the greatest fan of teachers but what on earth were they expected to do. Look at who was causing the issues - not the people you expected to intervene. Where were the police? Why did these people think they could behaviour like this with clearly no consequences.

That is what you need to fix first. Zero tolerance perhaps?

It's not a problem with people 'these days', it's a survival instinct. It is very well researched and studied.

It feels like two different social problems are getting mixed up here: anti-black racism, and the behaviour of a certain group who operate outside the mainstream culture. Anti-racism campaigners are following their script by blaming those in authority, but they've got it badly wrong in this case.

I also think people are assuming racism against the back girl, which it could well be, but might not be.

Travellers also suffer from racism and in some circles stories are circulating that the white friend of the black girl had been targeting in of the traveller girls for weeks. There were two girl victims, but the online videos have focused on the back girl.

Obviously none of that justifies the actions of the mob and there is definitely a problem with the lawlessness of some traveller communities, but this might not be what people are assuming.

Auto correct had a field day there. Sorry!

I'm confused by the criticism of the teachers and head. Their job is not to police behaviour outside the school. Their job is to teach. It's the job of the parents to rear children who behave acceptably. And of the police to step in if they don't.

The problem is that kids who bully in school aren't held accountable IN school, so act like this OUTSIDE of school and the police to bugger all about it meaning the nasty little shits get away with it. So if it is something that involves pupils from the school then the teachers do need to get their shit together and punish these violent idiots. If it were me and a group of colleagues kicking the shit out of someone from work (or ANYONE for that matter, work colleague or not) we decided to disliked we would be sacked and in front of a judge before you could blink.

I don't give a fuck if they are kids. "They're just kids" flies out the window if they are adult enough to kick the utter crap out of someone (or to steal or rape/assault deal drugs and whatever else happens in schools that the teachers and police seemingly can't be bothered to tackle). It's about time bullying, assault, EVERYTHING that's against the was taken as seriously in schools as it is in workplaces, in the street and in the rest of the fucking country. Schools and the kids in them shouldn't be immune to law.

Is it even confirmed that the assailants were pupils at the school?.

@Simonjt that's awful.