To want to anonymously report a 12 year old for stealing

[TheArts]

How can I anonymously report a 12 year old for stealing food and drink from the school canteen? This child has been bullying my child for a year and I would love to get revenge by helping to get this kid caught for stealing from canteen on a daily basis....bottles of drinks, paninis, cakes, etc.
Financially well off family, they own 2 homes and parents are senior professionals, holiday overseas twice yearly, so no poverty as reason for stealing.
But I don't want any come back on my child who has already been bullied by this kid. So how can I report this anonymously, and how can the staff catch them? Obviously if staff are near by monitoring this kid then they won't steal. No CCTV in school canteen.
I know it's happening because my DC and their friends have all told me they see it happen every day, and it's in a 'shocked can't believe they're doing it' way, not in a snitching way.

Why get involved? How do you even know what is happening? Deal with the bullying of your child and stay out of it.

If you want to help your kid, report the bullying rather than the unconnected poor behaviour.

'Financially well off family, they own 2 homes and parents are senior professionals, holiday overseas twice yearly, so no poverty as reason for stealing.'

Well off parents can still abuse their children. Poverty is not the sole reason children are not fed.

This kid is completely well fed!!!

You want revenge from a child? Seriously that is ridiculous

I have reported the bullying 6 times now.
School say until they have evidence of it they can't do anything.
Anyway that's not the point of this thread.

I'm not sure how can be so confident of this without being with the child in their home environment.
There could also be other issues going on. Your motivations concern me (revenge).

I doubt you can do anything as you’ve presumably not been in the canteen daily witnessing this and don’t have any proof. It also seems unlikely a school canteen would be set up in such a way that students can easily steal drinks, cakes and even paninis daily, I’d have thought loads of kids would end up stealing in that case. How do you even steal a hot panini that presumably has to be cooked by the canteen staff and handed to the student? Honestly I’d just stay out of it and focus your energy on reporting the bullying and supporting your child, not trying to get revenge on an actual child for something you likely don’t have all the facts around.

Oh come on you can't possibly know that 🙄

Unless you live with the family you can have absolutely no idea how that child is treated in private

There are also studies showing that there is an association between children witnessing violence at home or being on the recieving end of violence at home and bullying

Now none of this is your problem. But you should be focused on tackling the issue as it impacts your child, instead of trying to "get revenge" on a 12 year old child ffs

I don't think you can report something like this anonymously to the school, especially without any evidence. You could perhaps report it and ask the school to be discrete but as stealing is a serious accusation the school would need evidence. I would imagine the school would know the situation with the bullying? and as such will know you have a hidden agenda against this child and may not take your accusation as genuine

Well, surely any child in the canteen who sees it happening can report it to staff, and then the staff can keep a watch and take appropriate action.

Children dont always steal food and drink because they're hungry or thirsty, there may be other reasons

But in any case the stealing from the school is an issue for the school, your issue is the bullying. Have you asked for a meeting and asked for an action plan of what they are going to do, you need to try to hold them to account

Escalate to the head of year, head teacher, chair of governors or whoever to get the bullying taken seriously. Don't let them fob you off. Ignore the stealing, that's not your problem. (And even if this child was caught, how would that make the bullying feel better?)

I wouldn't do it as revenge.

If you wanted you could tell the school you have been made aware some children are stealing and thought they'd want to know. Then leave it to them. They might not care.

I took the OPs comment that the child is well fed to be a sly dig suggestive that the child is overweight. Either way, deal with the bullying first OP.

My sister is a teacher. She has talked about kids stealing food before. They absolutely would not get in trouble for it, the school would assume some sort if problem at home.

She said it happens much more than you would think

How do you know they aren't already aware and trying to work with this child?
Parents of other children won't know the outcomes for confidentiality purposes.
If there is bullying, work with the school and your child on how this can be minimised?
Exclusion etc isn't always the answer and bullying is notoriously hard to tackle especially when there are home issues or send - this coming from a school social worker.

Why would you do it anonymously unless you knew it was a bad idea. Deep down you know it's not as simplistic as you are making out. Children don't steal for no reason. But I get you want justice for your child, relating to the bullying. They are separate events though. And whilst it's difficult to be objective when your child is a victim, there will be reasons this child is acting the way he is..both the bullying and the stealing. Go to the Head, go to the Governers. Express your concerns over the child. But don't make him out to be a monster, for goodness sake.

Having worked in schools myself you are not going to get the outcome you are looking for. Stealing from the school canteen happens daily in a majority of schools.
Instead of concentrating on trying to get revenge you need to be concentrating your efforts on stopping the bullying and working with the school to get that resolved for your child as quickly as possible.

You sound like you have the maturity of the children themselves. Find something better to do with your time.

In that case could there be an (undiagnosed) condition such as Prader-Willi sydrome, which?
Also, overweight doesn't mean well fed nutritionally.

Weird to want 'revenge' on a child, whatever the circs. An actual child.

Are you sure you’re not the 12 year old OP? Wanting anonymous ‘revenge’ on a 12 year old for stealing, which you have never witnessed is very childish. How would it be anonymous anyway? And they’d no it was an adult reporting it and probably put it down as being the silly ‘he said she said’ complaint that it is. Keep working on the bullying stuff though, don’t be afraid to push back with that.

1. Nothing good will come of this
2. You personally haven’t even seen this happening. You’re relying on secondhand evidence.

Wanting revenge on a 12 year old child is a red flag for abusive behaviour.

At best, it is deeply unpleasant and counterproductive.