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).

Make a formal complaint. Schools are supposed to be making a greater effort to deal with peer-on-peer abuse and they aren't. Presumably they have informed staff of the abuse, so staff need to be more vigilant. Your DD shouldn't be moved out of her set due to suffering from abuse: that's totally unacceptable and they need to move the other child, not her.

Personally I would ask to see all communication regarding your daughter. There should be evidence of them telling staff and reinforcing the issue each time.

I would also ask to speak to the teacher concerned each time there is an issue like the girl moving to her table. This allows you to reinforce the importance of keeping them apart and also allows you to ascertain whether or not staff have actually been told to keep them apart.

I would always start every conversation from the point of view of "how are you safeguarding my child and ensuring that she is safe at school?"

I'm a teacher btw. I can't imagine my school responding in the way your DD's has.

It doesn't sound as though the school is doing as it should, as per this link.

https://educationinspection.blog.gov.uk/2019/10/04/what-is-peer-on-peer-abuse/

This seems particularly relevant from p. 123 on. Also, the case study on pay 132.

We’ve seen a redacted version of the risk reduction plan…they didn’t do a separate one for each child. It talks about making sure they’re not in small groups together, not left alone together etc. but I just can’t get my head around how they thought it was ok to leave them in class together. Imagine being at work and being forced to work in the same small office as a man who had done this to a woman?
They just keep saying they’ve followed the guidance but the guidance document literally says the children should be separated while investigation happens, police should be called, local authority MASH teams involved etc.take the victims feelings into account before making changes to remove the risk reduction plan, but in our little neck of the woods it’s apparently ok to just not have them sitting next to each other in class.
I think we’ll have to go down the formal complaint route with all three agencies to see where things have gone wrong. I feel as if the school have downplayed what happened when communicating with the police, because the alternative is that they’re admitting they didn’t treat the issue seriously enough.

I think that you will need to make a formal complaint.

I'd be asking for a copy of the plan that has been put in place. (Unless I'm misunderstanding and you already have one.)

I wonder whether this organisation might be able to help? https://www.lucyfaithfull.org.uk/

Thanks, yes we’ve seen the plan. It’s actually been removed now and now they’re following a ‘pastoral support plan’ as they say there’s no need for anything else anymore. The fact our daughter is barely in school doesn’t seem to be that much of a red flag for them.
I’ve spoken to Childline/NSPCC - the call handler sounded genuinely horrified by the situation.
But it feels hopeless when the headteacher and DSL are patting themselves on the back about how well they’ve handled it.

lf no one at the NSPCC is prepared to advocate for you, it might be worth trying one of the specialist charities.

A relative was getting nowhere with the school and Local Authority until a representative from a particular charity went in all guns blazing. (This was about a different matter, school provision for a disability, but as soon as someone from another organisation took an interest the school became much more proactive.)

My daughter was sexually assaulted at school, they didn’t go to the police so we did and my daughter have a statement. The boy perpetrator was removed from the school, but I don’t know if it was due to this or not.

keep going. And glad you are complaining. My daughter was pleased we took it seriously and were backing her. Good luck

This is really useful and we actually quoted that case study in our most recent meeting (before they re-contacted the police to mark their own homework).
We’ve also since found that the case was referred to the correct police department for dealing with this kind of thing, but they passed it back because of their workload, hence it ending up with the school liaison officer.

I’m so sorry this happened to your daughter too and I hope she’s doing okay now?

May I ask the age of your daughter and the perpetrator? I feel as if because mine is only 12, it’s being brushed under the carpet.

I had no idea charities would advocate, thank you! I’ll keep checking them out. The NSPCC did provide me with the phone number of a child law charity this week so I need to call them so see if they can help.

I didn't know either. Someone from the charity actually went in person to accompany the mother to a meeting at the school.

Call the police before she gets raped

I teach safeguarding.
Go back to MASH and ask for a face to face meeting.
Say everything you have said on here.

Your daughter has been assaulted. School are not being transparent (to the police laiason officer) about guidance received or action taken. The situation is not resolved and your dd now does not want to attend school.
Ask for Social Services to be involved, ask if you can press charges.

At the same time initiate the school's complaints procedure, copy to chair of governors and head.
Is it an academy? report the complaint to the academy, if it is a Local Authority school, rpeort to the LA.

You have been badly let down by the school and by the safeguarding team. You dd deserves better. But sadly I have heard of a lot of cases where the school does not act well, because they see the perpetrator also as a victim, and somehow they view it as 'kids misbehaving' rather than sexual assault. and the police would rather let the school deal with it.

I will be honest. If you don't see change relatively quickly, I would move schools, not because I think you should, but because if the school is not taking action, it is not going to change, and your dd's mental health is more important.

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

I would bet, in this case then, that teachers don’t know. They will have been told that there was an ‘incident’ and the ‘girls need to be kept apart’ not that your daughter was sexually assaulted and the other girl shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near her. I suspect they would treat it much more seriously if they knew. It appears she is continuing to prey on your daughter (moving to her desk in English etc) to the point where your DD isn’t attending school so the lack of assigning victim and perpetrator has completely failed her.

The continued behaviour means you should now ask that the perpetrator be removed from all the victim’s classes so that your DD can return to school safely. This is an entirely reasonable request.

Thanks this is really useful.
Does it matter that so much time has passed? Initial disclosure was October….the sexual assault stopped at that point but my daughter has continued to feel unsafe as a consequence of lapses in judgement by staff, the girl and her friends making comments and staring etc. but with the actual sexual assaults stopping, and us having moved her down a set to limit the school and the girl continuing to cause a problem, it feels as if we’re somehow continuing to fight something that’s no longer a problem (from their perspective, obviously our daughter not wanting to go to school is absolutely still a problem for us).

You’re absolutely right - the wider teaching team have only been told the minimum to ensure they are able to follow the risk reduction plan that was put in place. They’ve no idea why it was put in place and actually, because the plan covered all 5 or 6 girls that experienced some kind of problem with the other girl (the perpetrator), the perception from other staff members could very easily be that the group of girls had bullied the single perpetrator. It would certainly explain why some teachers were offhand when they hadn’t updated seating plans etc and were abrupt when my daughter told them she couldn’t sit where she used to. Some days I feel like sending a collective email to all the staff telling them exactly what’s happened…but bit of a legal minefield to get into, I suspect.

We think asking for the other girl to be removed from our daughter’s original class to be entirely reasonable but sadly the school does not.

I think you might have hit on the nub of the problem here, the staff do not understand the seriousness of the situation, or why it is happening and so are not supporting your child.

I would let them know. You may do that by emailing them, or by talking to them one by one. You don't need to give the perpetrators name, you can just say:

I am concerned that the safety plan for my daughter is not being implemented in your class. You may not be aware but this safety plan was put in place after she was sexually assaulted multiple times by another pupil, and she is currently really struggling to come to school as she does not feel safe.
Please could you help us by making sure she is able to sit in the place asigned by the safety plan. Thanks for your support.

I would also go back to the school.
Really common theme in school is
2 kids, one bullying another. The victim is offered a quiet place to play indoors while the bully is allowed to go out to play. Parents need to challenge and say why is my child being victimised for being bullied? Make the bully stay in, and if their parents complain, let them know it is because they cannot be trusted outside. Allow my kid out to play with their friends.
You are getting this with moving classes. Your dd should have been allowed to stay. The perpetrator should have had a fixed term exclusion for the assault followed by returning to school on terms which jkept your dd safe. That means they have to move classes or groups, not your dd.

Believe me we’ve tried - brick wall. Quoting crap about ‘we’re following the guidance’, ‘we’re acting proportionately’, etc.
Telling us they care and they’re looking out for our DD while all the while making the situation be that she is the one needing to make changes to avoid the other girl rather than the other girl having to have her routine disrupted. No visible punishment for her at all - when we questioned how this is being dealt with regarding behavioural policy ‘we can’t discuss that with you it’s being dealt with’ . Kids usually know who’s got detention etc so when there’s no visible punishment - I think we’re safe to assume there hasn’t been a punishment. We don’t want the girl to be prosecuted - she’s clearly got troubles herself to be behaving this way at her age…we just want our DD to stop having to now just accept that nothing else is happening - risk reduction plan replaced with ‘pastoral support’, our DD can use a different toilet if she doesn’t want to use the usual ones.

The parents have made spurious and frankly embarrassing complaints about our DD ‘she forced other girls to report’ erm, no, she encouraged her friends to speak up about unacceptable sexual assault and we just wonder if the school are more about keeping them happy. The headmaster has already told me he’s ’in the middle’ - no you’re not, there is no middle, only sexual assault is wrong and my DD did nothing to invite any of this but has had her world tipped upside down as a consequence of you not putting in adequate separation, punishment in line with behaviour policy etc.

But just to add to that, we’re wary of speaking to other staff members because of the rules on GDPR, libel, slander etc - what on earth are we ‘allowed’ to tell them? Rhetorical question - I’m just venting really as there isn’t anyone to really talk to about it all ‘in real life’ to give us clear, unbiased advice.

Write to the board of governors, Ofsted, your local MP if you haven’t already. The more pressure put on the school by other agencies, the more likely they are to make changes.

I’m so sorry that you’ve been through all this.