about school response to bullying

[missverstaendnis]

DS15 has been having a hard time at school with online bullying (TIKTOK posts with a picture of him altered) as well as bullying in school during class which consist of constant comments/ mocking/ taking pictures and videos of him.
Derogatory comments are homophobic and racist.
Emails, calls and in person meeting has been had with school and it is all very much 'we let the student decide what support they want'. Problem being that DS struggles to ask for support and will pretty much go into their own shell. He is now struggling to eat and has stomach issues from the anxiety of the constant fear of more incidents and to be exposed to his perpetrators in class.
Incidents (that I know of) have first been reported nearly a year ago but appears weren't recorded so the deputy head was unaware that the most recent incident isn't the first.
What sort of action would you expect a school to take? I am reading through policies and from my understanding any of these sort of incidents should be logged and head teacher should be aware?
School has sign posted to further resources but have also said 'sometimes too much support seems to make the issue bigger than it is'.
We are talking about a quite sensitive, quiet, kind and academic child - he has no history of behavioural issues either - he wouldn't hurt a fly.
I don't think I am 'making an issue bigger' but feel let down by the response and lack of action. The repeated perpetrators were given some lunch time detention and had a chat with the equality team. their phones got confiscated for school hours. Is this appropriate?

Being brutally honest school will never fix this. Once the bullies target it a kid it’s very unlikely they’ll stop. You really need to move him from this abuse situation before it damages his mental health further.

I agree that school will be pretty much useless at this situation.
Is moving school an option for you?

I'm so sorry your son is going through this 😢. It sounds absolutely awful.

I would expect the school to act online with their anti-bullying policy. I would expect that to be zero tolerance. I would expect the head to outline a clear action/response and I would expect them to make it obvious to the child what to do if this continues to happen.

If comments are homophobic and/or racist and your son has a protected characteristic I would expect to hear that they are taking serious measures to discipline those children and I wouldn’t hesitate to ask how it’s being dealt with and to ask them whether you need to report it as a criminal matter.

I would be reading their Ofsted report carefully for any remarks on anti-bullying policies - whether it’s robust or weak - and I would be considering whether to escalate to the board of governors if the head’s response is inadequate.

I would be taking my child to the GP for support with anxiety (and so that it is documented elsewhere than with school).

At the school I work at there would be an investigation involving confiscated phones etc. The school’s police liaison officer would be involved and the parents of the offenders would be called in for a meeting. Sometimes the police factory reset the phones if the posts are very offensive.
A good deal of support would be given to the victim with their parents fully informed by a senior member of staff. If the student agrees to a restoration, that would be arranged with the perpetrators.

thank you - I am getting him counselling (not through school may I add) and will be taking him to the GP to discuss anxiety and stomach issues.
Very good call to inform board of governors if the school's response remains to appear inadequate.
I have looked at Ofsted reports, also surrounding schools have similar issues it seems, but I will also look into moving him to another school for a fresh start if the situations persists.
The school's website is all about celebrating inclusiveness and diversity and anti-bullying.... yet clearly no one around him speaks up when these things happen - maybe as they are afraid to be the next victim?
Not that it matters as all discrimination is wrong, but DS is not flamboyant either, he is just a very tall, stalky self-conscious teen so all this mocking has made him very insecure about his identity whatever his sexual orientation may be.
It's a shame as academically he is doing incredibly well, but his mental health is more important than GCSEs.

this is really helpful - thank you!

I'm in two minds - its being going on so long I would be tempted to move him - except I have seen in my son when the school helped him overcome bullying.....it did wonders for his confidence that he was able to overcome something so huge and made him not as worried about further bullying as he had the skills and confidence to know he could deal with it.
I think I would get him that therapy and ask the therapist if they think they can coach him through things / what the school should be doing etc or if he should move schools.
Sorry what little shitters they are I hope your son can find a positive way through this. I think the school has been terrible to be honest they should have involved their parents and put the children on the racism register. You can report racism to the police you know its a hate crime and will be taken seriously.

A classmate once made a TikTok about DS2. Head of year got involved: TikTok was deleted classmate was made to apologise profusely to DS2.

DS2 was happy with this outcome. It wasn’t an entirely negative TikTok I understand: DS2 just objected to being paraded on someone else’s social media.

So given you poor DS is being bullied I would expect the school to come down on it extremely hard.

Had it have been bullying the school would have confiscated and gone through all the phones of the people involved.

my ds was physically targeted by the school bully last year. One of the staff realised something was wrong and wheedled it out of ds.
They took statements from ds and other boys present (which concurred), called the bully's parents into the school and put him in a last warning. Told any other incident and he would no longer be welcome.

But that's a small independent school and they can expel whoever they like.

At the very least, each incident should be reported and logged, copied to you. Victim should be offered support, bully should have consequences applied. After three racist of homophobic incidents, I'd tell the school & govenors I was calling the police. These are crimes and your child is an entitled to the protection of the law as any adult.

The perpetrator should be suspended, interviewed by police. Once on their system, at least police will know what sort of a person, they are dealing with.

Schools talk a good game when it comes to bullying, but they are hugely reluctant to admit there is an issue, and to deal with it properly. Suspensions and expulsions look bad on oftsed reports etc.

They would rather try mediation, where the bullied student is then also seen as a ' grass' , and their life becomes more difficult than it already was.

As we know, all bullies are cowards and pick on those they see as easy targets. My policy for when my child goes up to comprehensive is report bullying once, but give my child the tools to deal with it themselves, eg: self defence , confidence etc.

From my own terrible experience, physical injuries heal pretty quickly, emotional ones can last a lifetime.

Not that it matters as all discrimination is wrong, but DS is not flamboyant either, he is just a very tall, stalky self-conscious teen so all this mocking has made him very insecure about his identity whatever his sexual orientation may be.

It’s a difficult age, especially boys, they seem to jostle for position. We had a few repeated incidents of homophobia but thankfully school had been called out by Ofsted for being weak and as such came down on the perpetrator quite hard.

School communicated to us exactly what had happened, exactly what they would do and exactly what DS should do if it happens again. Kid was suspended.

That said, it didn’t put an end to them bullying, they moved onto other children. However, one of those children didn’t like that so much and lamped him. Which, if I’m being honest seems to be the better way it gets sorted at secondary. (Jostling for position)

But what I would say is we did a lot of work at home about acceptance, tolerance, LGBTQ+ history and standing up for what you believe in even if it’s hard. We made sure that one bigot wasn’t going to define who he is, was or decides to be. And that actually really helped grow some confidence - which as a teen is generally what you need.

As we know, all bullies are cowards and pick on those they see as easy targets. My policy for when my child goes up to comprehensive is report bullying once, but give my child the tools to deal with it themselves, eg: self defence , confidence etc.

This too. No word of a lie (and I don’t consider myself trampy) but we taught him to hit back and said we’d defend it. As I did with my little brother way back when. It’s not big and it’s not clever but sometimes it sends the message home.