AIBU to think school not taking abuse seriously

[Turtleina]

Trigger - peer on peer abuse

My 12yr old (Yr 8) DD has revealed that one of her female classmates has been inappropriately touching her and a number of other girls - examples are putting her hand on the inside of DD’s thigh and moving further up, licking the side of DD’s head and then DD pulled away saying eurgh, did you just lick me? the other girl’s response was to look DD up and down and state that’s not the only place I want to lick you, touching between DD’s legs - explained as a quick rub/touch, putting both hands on another girl’s breasts and saying, oh they’ve grown, and the thing that finally tipped DD and the other 4 girls into reporting the behaviour, pinning DD up against a wall in the changing rooms, with one leg up, her body pressing against DD and ‘moaning’ in DD’s ear (DD too embarrassed to say what the moaning was). This was the second time she had pinned DD like this and when DD told her to get off she wouldn’t and two other girls appeared and had to physically remove her from DD. Other girls have said to the girl’s closer friends is she always like this (re the touching) and they’ve laughed and said yes, she is…so also worrying that she might be doing it to an even larger group who are afraid to speak out.
School have put a plan in place to keep them apart but not really enforcing it, the girl doing this has been spoken with (as have her parents) but her behaviour at school since this happened is concerning in that there doesn’t seem to be any remorse, and she just keeps staring at DD as if she’s angry with her for reporting. School say they don’t assign ‘victim’ and ‘perpetrator’ which I get because I’d assume that something must have happened/be happening to this girl to make her behave this way, however my DD is traumatised, panicky symptoms whenever the girl speaks in class etc and I don’t know what route the school should be taking to deal with the situation. It doesn’t help that the girl is Head Girl, which is seen as a privilege but DD and other girls can’t see why she gets to keep this privilege.
Appreciate this is a bit long winded - would love some advice from any teachers out there as to what the correct procedure for the school to follow is and AIBU to think this should be taken more seriously? (I know there could be things going on behind the scenes that we can’t be told about, which I understand, of course).

Contact the police. Your daughter is being sexually assaulted.

Well that girl is sexually assaulting your daughter so I would call the police.

Yes I agree

Next time, rather than just pull her off, why don't the girls get together and give her a kicking?

Absolutely report this to the police. Your daughter and other children are being repeatedly sexually assaulted.

Even though it’s stopped and was over, I think a couple of weeks? So sort of isolated? School haven’t talked about the police, I believe they’ve spoken to outside bodies but then I can’t understand why the girl appears to be carrying on her life as normal - I was expecting her to be subdued/mortified at having been ‘caught’ and going through whatever social services/child protection steps there might be but outwardly, there’s nothing. I’ve been trying to be compassionate because research seems to suggest girls of that age behaving that way are likely to be being abused themselves but seeing DD’s school life be tipped upside down while the other girl seems unphased by it all is making compassion quite difficult.

Retired secondary school teacher here. Report it to the police.

ETA If the police try to persuade you to leave it in the hands of the school, refuse.

She's Head Girl - what, 17 or 18?

I would still contact the police, not only for your daughter's sake, but because what is wrong with that girl that she thinks that that behavior is acceptable? I would also be concerned that something is going on in her home life that shouldn't be.

Thank you all…so seems like school not dealing with it properly as reading through the copious online policies/guidance for schools it does seem as if they have the option to report it to the police if they think necessary. They’ve had a week to ‘complete their investigations’ …

There are multiple witnesses to this sexual assault. It’s a police matter, take it to them and as PP have said refuse to agree to let the school handle it alone. The girl needs to know this won’t go away and the fact she is displaying anger to your DD means she has no remorse and will continue this behaviour with whomever. Report it, get it on record.

OP says she is 12/13.

@Turtleinaif it was a male on female would they react the same way? The actions are the same, Police matter.

In my experience, a school SLT will absolutely avoid calling in the police unless their hand is forced. As a middle manager, I once informed a depute that if he didn't call the police, then I would. (A pupil had hit one of my teachers.)

That’s what I keep asking myself…I’m pretty certain a boy wouldn’t be dealt with so leniently.

Not if you read some people on here. It’s absolutely a police matter. The school want to bury it so don’t let them. Report it so their incompetence and the girl’s digressions are on record.

Contact the police. you’d do that if this happened on the street or in your home. Schools aren’t magical places where the law doesn’t apply.

However, it is entirely possible that the school are already working with the police (and other agencies) and this is the plan the multi-disciplinary group have come up with. But contacting them and keeping the pressure high might help.

Teachers aren't qualified to investigate sexual assault.

This is shocking. Absolutely go to the police - especially as the school have made it clear that they find this kind of abusive behaviour acceptable.

School say they don’t assign ‘victim’ and ‘perpetrator’

This is also ridiculous. Nobody is asking them to label the abuser in perpetuity, but it's 100% appropriate to blame the guilty person for specific negative behaviours and actions that they've chosen to do.

Why are so many schools so hot on clamping down on children for minor uniform infringements or for brief bouts of mild silliness; yet when it comes to bullying and assault, they prefer to stick their fingers in their ears and gaslight the victim that they're mistaken or that it's somehow their fault?

These are serious sexual assaults and you absolutely need to go to the police.

Sexual assaults by women (whether the victims are other women or on men) are massively under-reported.

Just reflecting on these replies that I’m so grateful for…I honestly wasn’t expecting a unanimous opinion that it’s a police matter. Does anyone have any experience of this with the police - I’m worried that by escalating to outside of school, it may have a further negative impact for DD. At the moment, while stressed and anxious, she is still managing to smile and be outwardly happy as school.

Exactly. Police and social services should have been involved at the start as it’s not an isolated incident and there were witnesses.
OP - ask to see the school safeguarding policy.

I thought I’d come back for any further advice on this as we are at our wits end.
We contacted the police for advice - they considered it to be such a serious issue that they would not relent until they’d taken a statement from our daughter. She gave the statement on a Saturday afternoon, by VC. The officer said that the school would need to be contacted and since we had a meeting scheduled with the headmaster on the Tuesday, I asked if they could refrain from contacting school until after we’d had an opportunity to give the headmaster some advance notice. She said she couldn’t promise but would ask.
We went to meet the headmaster who started the meeting by telling us the school liaison officer had been in (or phoned in, I’m still not sure) and having heard that the school were following advice from local authority, had a risk reduction plan etc, then the police officer was completely satisfied and no further action.
No formal referral has been made to the local authority - when I phoned them, they told me they hadn’t given any formal guidance to the school and if I was unhappy I needed to make a formal complaint to the school, it wasn’t anything to do with them. Since then, they have apparently given full approval to the steps taken by school.
How can this be? We ended up having to move our daughter out of her set into the next set down because of the trauma of having the girl who did this keep staring at her as she walked into lessons or during if she happened to sit in her eye line etc.
We asked to see the school safeguarding policy, got a copy of the local authority policy on this. Both quite clearly state that if a crime may have been committed, police should be called.
We finally got both the headteacher and the DSL to accept that they should have called the police in the first instance. A week later we got a formal letter from the school saying they’d contacted the police (same school liaison officer) who’d told them even if they had contacted him straightaway, nothing different would have happened, he still would have left them to deal with the situation internally.
Our daughter is barely going to school now - she feels like she can’t trust any of the adults there. There have been multiple instances of teachers making mistakes like putting her to mark the girl who did this to her in netball, allowing the girl to move to her table in an English lesson while DD was out of the class, and many similar things. Headteacher’s response to all of these things was that the teachers weren’t intentionally or negligently making mistakes, they were just so focused on getting it right that they accidentally got it wrong.
If you’ve read this far, thank you, and if anyone has any advice as to how to deal with the police, the local authority or the school then I’d be so grateful.

You should be given a copy of any risk assessment that has been made. The school will tell you that they cannot give you any document that mentions the name of the perpetrator, but there should be a document which states what they are doing to make sure that your daughter is safe from harm - not a generic document, but one that specifies her by name. (Schools do use a template for these, but they shouldn't be fobbing you off with one which refers to pupils in general.)

I am furious on your behalf and so sorry for your daughter. Have you spoken to the Governors at the school and taken this above the headteacher? With the greatest respect to the teachers, I don’t care if they had the best of intentions, they are putting your daughter in danger.

I am not normally one to promote a formal complaint but since contacting the police didn't help, it's worth the formal complaint route.