Primary school safeguarding

[UndercoverMam]

Hi, I'm not sure if I'm being unreasonable with my expectations or not. I feel like I'm not but am prepared to be corrected. I have name changed for privacy.

In November last year my year 1 daughter (6) was touched up her skirt, on her pants, by a boy in her class while they were sat on the carpet. The boy apparently laughed at her while he did this.

She spoke to us about it the following weekend so we emailed the head who asked us in for a chat and she listened to my daughter explain what had happened. She thanks her for explaining it and told our daughter she believed her and would deal with it. The head then told us she would write up what hd been said and get us to sign a copy.

We haven't heard anything from her since but assumed she was dealing with it appropriately. However, our daughter is still expected to work with this boy and although we requested he be kept away from her, he isn't. He has also since punched and kicked her in the stomach at playtime.

As a side note but we think probably related, our daughter has struggled with going into school on a morning since around the time this happened. (We only just linked the two things in our heads this week) she will kick and scream and point blank refuse to go in and most days has to be picked up and carried in crying
I feel so bad because I wouldn't want to go to work every day with someone who touched me like that.

I don't know what we should be doing. Should they be keeping him away? What do I need to ask the head? Will there be a file? Or should there be?

Anyone?

I would ask for meeting with Head asap- you def need to follow up why you haven't received the letter. Your poor child shouldn't have to be carried into school upset.

Plus bump for someone else with better advice/knowledge!

Initially it seems as if the head did everything right.
So it is puzzling that they didn't follow up.

I would ask for a meeting with the head.
Ask what has happened with what your daughter reported.
Listen to what they say.

Then outline your daughters distress, and also that there have been further incidents (the punching at playtime.)

Ask how they plan to safeguard your daughter in future, to keep her safe from this boy who she is scared of.

The ead will not be able to tell you what action has been taken with the boy, other than in how it pertains to your daughter.
It is certainly not good that they have not put in place some separation for your dd.

Can you look at section 5 of Keeping Chikdren Safe in Education.

I dont have enough knoweledge of what should happen with the boy specifically.

I do think its fair to say that hasnt been a clear action plan of support for your daughter sincd it happened. I would ask for a meeting with the head and ask for their plan of suppport and suggest it could include play therapy.

Read up on the school policies on bullying and safeguarding as well, so you know what to expect. They should be on the school website. Make sure you know who the designated safeguarding lead is and contact them if it is not the head. It might also be worth looking a the complaints policy as well.

I think you need another meeting ASAP with the head and ask what they are doing to safeguard your daughter. You want a plan that includes constant monitoring of the boy when he’s near your daughter or for the boy to removed elsewhere. You might also ask for some kind of plan to help reintroduce your DD to the school as a safe place since she is now scared of school and not wanting to attend (but I’m not sure what this would look like). If they are more than one form entry, consider asking for him to be put in the other class.

I would also ask around the other parents to see if this is a bigger issue or just your daughter being targeted. If other children are also at risk you may get better results if you get together with other parents. It will also make it clearer what a good solution could be. Schools can’t talk to you about the violent child, but you can talk to them about him. And you can talk to them about how they intend to keep your children safe.

In the meantime I’d be looking at other schools in the area. From my experience, in reception classes, schools find it nearly impossible to keep other children fully safe from a violent child at that age. They aren’t prepared (or allowed, I think) to exclude and even when they can afford 1:1 supervision (which is difficult, especially with current budgets) there are inevitable lapses that the child takes advantage of. The trouble is you probably know if there is someone violent in the other school until you’ve been there a while too.

please don't ask round other parents, that just paints him as the baddie. He is 6.
It is really easy for parents to gang up on kids like this and it rarely helps.

Fight for your dd.
Don't throw another kid under the bus

@UndercoverMam You need another meeting. Before you go in go onto your school website and find their policies section. There should be a Child Protection/Safeguarding policy which lists who is the DSL (Designated Safeguard Lead) and all other staff who have safeguarding responsibilities. You want a meeting with either the DSL or a deputy.

Firstly, your poor DD shouldn't be working with this child and the school should be doing everything they can to ensure your DD feels safe. They need to know about the subsequent incidents and her reaction to school too. Write it in bullet points so you can get everything across and then follow it up with an email something like further to our meeting this morning and go over what was said by you and what was agreed by them. You want a paper trail for this.

The school has a duty of care to your daughter to keep her safe and you feel they are not meeting that standard of care.

Agree about not asking other parents, he is a young child. School will have staff and policies in place to deal with his behaviour.

I don't know about not talking to other parents. I understand the reasoning as to why you would not. If you don't have a casual chat, you will not be able to find out if this problem is only involving your daughter and not anyone else.

Our DD (a similar age to yours) complained about being inappropriately touched over a period of time, but was unable to express in words what had happened and her behaviour changed enough to make us question what was going on. We had flagged it with the school, but her behaviour continued. We ended up talking to some other parents, whose own children reported similar but they didn't want to make a fuss. This was just the tip of what had happened. Turns out these children, including my DD, were victims of CSA.

I understand the not wanting to make a child ostracised, I do, but this is your daughter, and she comes first. No-one else will fight for her.

As for a paper trail, an electronic trail is better. As in, send everything to your email address so it is time-stamped. Every conversation with the head, every concern, everything your DD does or says.

I remember a thread like this from last year.

Has your daughter spoken about what is making her dread school? It may or may not be due to this boy and it may or may not be due to the unwanted sexual touching. plenty of kids get hit; plenty of kids scream and cling at drop off time (we had a year of it). Kids aren’t sexualised at 6 so as horrific as this seems it may not be the cause (but of course it might be).

If she can articulate that being in the same room as this boy is making her feel unsafe then you have a very strong argument to put to the school to take action and the school will be able to involve the boys parents in a more constructive way. You won’t get to know what action was taken as a result of the incident in November but if you can show his overall behaviour has not changed or even worse that he is targeting her (perhaps because she got him in trouble) then they will need to take action.

The head then told us she would write up what hd been said and get us to sign a copy

Email and say you never received the summery you were promised, and that further actions from the boy is causing your daughter new distress. Ask for a meeting.

Thank you for the replies. I'm going to sit down with my daughter tonight and talk about what's making her not want to go out not school. Previously she has said it was because she's scared but hasn't said that again recently. Just that she doesn't want to.

The boy has done things to other girls in the class but I haven't heard of anything like what happened to my daughter. He's kicked a girl in the face and slapped another across the face.

I know kids aren't naturally sexualised at 6 but the way he did it and laughed isn't good. It should throw up possible safeguarding for the boy too surely?

It should throw up possible safeguarding for the boy too surely?

Yes, it should. But for goodness sake don't get drawn into, or start to attempt to bring the discussion round to the boy and what's good for him.

It's tempting, when you are in talks pushing for something for yourself or for your child, to sidetrack to the issues of others, to make yourself seem caring and reasonable or to relieve the tension of any stalemate type situations. But don't do this.

1. If the boy has issues/troubles they will be aware of them and should be dealing with them. 2) It's not your business (even if the fallout affects your DD) and they absolutely shouldn't talk about the other child to you.

Keep everything very much focused on DD. What you want for her and what is best for her. Not him.

When you've had the meeting ask for a summery of it by email. You can send one yourself outlining what you took from the meeting and what you understand will be implemented. In this way no one can contradict what was said or suggested.

I have just had a chat with her about why she doesn't want to go into school. I didn't mention the boy at all just asked generally what's the problem.

She said she "just misses us" but when I asked if that was it she said no and then said the boy in question hits her in the playground and kisses her on the carpet and she doesn't like it. He always sits next to her at carpet time, which I specifically asked them to make sure didn't happen!

I'm going to speak to the head tomorrow and say I won't be sending her into school until they have put things in place to protect my child. It seems like they haven't done anything to help her at all.

The other children in the class are young children too.

I don’t share your faith in a school’s ability to cope with disruptive children. Schools rarely seem to have policies in practice which adequately protect other children from a child who is frequently violent. OP has already found they don’t do what they say they are going to.

If violence is aimed at lots of children OP will be more successful if she coordinates with other parents because schools frequently minimise the impact of a violent child on other children. It is much harder for the school to do this if OP can evidence the extent of the violence by coordinating with the parents of other victims.

I'm going to assume the school has called the police? If not you need to report this to the police. It's a serious incident.

Is it a police matter? I wouldn't have thought so.

It's a serious matter that needs addressing properly and he needs to be kept away but it's not a criminal offence afaik? They are 6.

The head is the designated safeguarding lead btw. Forgot to say that before.

I would have thought Social Services was more important than police. Assault is a crime, and your daughter has been a victim of a crime. But the boy’s age means he isn’t criminally responsible, so I would think Police would refer to social services anyway.

Is there only one class of children her age? I'd be demanding they moved her to another class if there is one. Ideally they would move the boy but I'd be OK with either option. I'd then contact the head again and demand a meeting face to face to say that if my concerns were not dealt with I'd be going to ofsted. I presume they would take a lack of safeguarding seriously. I do appreciate that the boy may well need some sort of safeguarding too but the most important thing for me would be ensuring school is a happy, safe place for my child. She shouldn't ever have to learn this behaviour is acceptable. I have a 6 year old girl and this is upsetting.

I'd email the HT.

Dear HT,

On x date I emailed you to report that .......

We had a meeting on X date. You said ..........

Since then there have been further incidents where boy has done ........

We had requested during the meeting that DD wasn't to be placed with this boy due to the seriousness of the incident.

You said we'd be asked to sign the report which - so far - has not happened. Please send a copy for us to complete this agreed action.

My DD now requires for us to be carried into school due to her anxiety around attending having been both sexually and physically assaulted (see above).

This is not good for her well being and it's very clear school have not and aren't safeguarding her from repeated harm.

Therefore I will be keeping DD at home for safeguarding reasons until another meeting has been held and a clear plan to safeguard her from harm has been written, signed and agreed by all parties,

Should her absence for reasons of being unable to attend school due to illness (poor mental health as her well-being hasn't been protected) is not acceptable by yourself I am more than happy to discuss this with governors, LADO, LA inclusion team.

Xxxxxxxxx

Be firm. Let them know they are not following their duty of care. Don't be wishy washy and ask for them to help. Remind them they have to help.

Not really, unless there are further details they are unlikely to take any actual action against him (well, they can't anyway due to age of criminal responsibility). They might refer to Childrens Services in case there are wider or ongoing concerns.

In terms of action, if there isn't another class to move the child to it is likely a case of careful monitoring/seating change/no unsupervised play for him with other children and ongoing work/support for both children involved.