To complain to the school

[catgirl1976]

DS is 14. He’s largely well behaved but like most teenagers does the odd stupid thing.

i got a call from school today to say he’d been bullying another pupil.

I asked what had happened and he had apparently thrown a cake at a boy and thrown an orange at him the previous day and was being put in isolation for the rest of today and all of Monday. Fair enough. Throwing food at another pupil is totally unacceptable and there should be consequences.

However I asked if they had spoken to DS and if he had said why he had done this. The teacher said yes and he had said the boy had called him a cunt. She then said she told DS it wasn’t her job to believe or disbelieve him but she had had the pleasure of teaching this boy and he was a model student so she didn’t believe DS. So DS had done this for no reason

i said I didn’t believe that DS had done this for no reason and that he had told me last week about this boy calling him a cunt. I also said that DS isn’t perfect but he is honest. However he was not good at putting across his side of things and when confronted tended to shut down and just say yes and I struggled to get him to report things as he was worried he wouldn’t be believed. Which she had now just cemented.

DD came home and told me that he explained this boy had been calling him greasy, fat, a fat cunt and so on for about a week and also getting his friends to squirt water at them. He told the teacher this and she said about not believing him due to this other child being a model pupil. She then went through DSs behaviour record noting two previous incidents (pushing a friend over when playing too roughly and an incident where another boy beat DS up but he also got sanctioned as he fought back though came off a lot worse and it was acknowledged by the school he didn’t start it). The school says they start each day at zero with behaviour. Clearly not.

she then told DS she though the reason he had thrown food at this boy was that he was smaller than him and an easy target. DS is six foot tall. They are all smaller than him.

I wonder if she would comment on his motivations being due to any other physical characteristics such as him being fat? I think it’s inappropriate.

obviously I am cross at DS for throwing the food and agre he needs to be punished. However o am angry that HE has been bullied by the other child which has been totally dismissed based on the teachers opinion of the other boy, that he was not believed and that she commented on his physical appearance as a motivator.

AIBU to contact the school and raise this or am o being “that” mum?

As a teacher, then your son is being punished for his actions which were wrong and could have caused damage. There is clear evidence of his wrong doing.

Whether the other boy called him a c*nt or not is irrelevant as there is no evidence of this. Teachers can't punish someone on hearsay, so unless there is a reliable witness or this boy owns up to what he said then without evidence then there is no case.

You wouldn't believe the amount of times I hear children make uo reasons why they hurt someone or even mis-hearing what someone said.

I suggest you teach your son not to react to these idiots, especially if he is 6ft tall, and instead report the behaviour of the other child.

Use this incident to explain to your son why it is very I.portant to report things that happen to him as they happen, even if he is not comfortable doing so.

Send your post (edited) to the head. You are in your right as a mother to be concerned (and to raise any concern) over any bullying towards your son.

I have focused on telling go. His behaviour was unacceptable and if he is being bullied he needs to tell his form tutor before it gets to this point and especially given his height as he stands out. Hopefully I’ve got through to him. But I am sick of him being bullied and not being believed. I think because he’s so tall people assume he can’t be being bullied or he’s somehow older than he is and there are different expectations for him (not that throwing food would ever be acceptable)

Thwres no proof that he threw food at this kid other than he admitted it because he’s honest. Are you saying if he denied it they couldn’t have taken any action because there wasn’t any evidence?

I would tell your son from now on to report every single incident of this boy calling him a cunt/fat etc. verbal bullying is as bad as physical and the school can’t just decide they don’t believe a child without even looking into it- that’s awful.

Sorry for the poor typing. On my phone.

i am going to raise it with the school. And obviously keep telling hi it wasn’t acceptable to throw food regardless and he has to report these things when they happen not react badly and then report it.

You need to separate the two things.

Your son is a violent, six foot teenager and if this is not nipped in the bud immediately, it's unlikely to get any better the older he gets.

If your son is being bullied, you need to report that to the school and follow it up.

He’s not really violent because he threw some food is he.

No, he's violent because he threw 'some food' (and an orange could've done a lot of damage to the face) and because of his previous record of pushing a boy and fighting with another.

He’s not violent. He threw a biscuit at a kid who called him a greasy cunt. A bait. Not an axe or a brick.

A biscuit not a bait that should have said.

And he didn’t throw an orange. The teacher said orange. It was a cherry tomato.

And he didn't throw an orange at him the previous day?

Oh...

Also he wants fighting in the previous incident. The school reported that he was beaten up by another boy who started it. DS got a lesser sanction because he hit him back but he was quite badly hurt. The pushing thing was two friends playing and it got slightly rough but still playing not fighting. . He’s hardly Reggie Kray.

I agree an orange with enough heft could hurt. But a cherry tomato …

Yes. If he had denied it then it would be one child's word against another with no evidence either way.

But there are often independent witnesses to physical altercations (that have no friendship link to either party) but when it comes to verbal abuse that's much harder to prove. So if your son had been caught lying he would have been in even bigger trouble so its not always the best policy.

Our school has CCTV everywhere so we would then check that to try and establish what happened.

Because they have beef (olives) presumably.

If your child (or you) had reported what was happening to him, it could have been investigated and the the bully punished.

As he retaliated repeatedly and and only brought it up in his defence when caught misbehaving, it doesn't sound as plausible, and he's been shown to treat others badly and needs to be punished.

I think if your DS was going to get in trouble regardless he should have gone with the orange.

He should get a punishment for his action, BUT 'model pupils' should also get punishments for bullying. I think the teacher is being naive if she thinks some model pupils aren't just very clever at hiding their bullying tactics.

I’ve explained this to him really clearly. Hopefully it gets through. But I’m still annoyed the other child’s behaviour is felt to be impossible because he’s apparently perfect. They are 14 year old boys so I’m sure he’s more than capable of doing the odd thing wrong like they all are but .. it won’t even be entertained and my son is basically called a liar.

i have stressed to him though by not reporting it until after he’d reacted badly and done something very wrong he’s wiped all his credibility and handed this boy a win on a silver platter. With a biscuit and cherry tomato garnish.

I wondered about that, unless he threw some peas which were still in the can.

Good Lord the accepted level of violence at my (in fact really brilliant) state school in the mid-‘70s would make this generation’s false eyelashes wither.

Skinheads massacring hippies in the yard, grebos scratching initials into more feeble boys’ arms with rat tail combs, girls being rather too enthusiastically explored on teachers’ desks during break (not by teachers, be it said).
(Though one teacher was given to ramming inattentive heads through thin asbestos walls)

Gawd, a mere bunfight would have been sheer bliss!

I agree with you as far as what the OP’s child did but if the teacher really said that the other child can’t be a bully because he’s a “model student” then she’s a fool. People with the attitude that “my child/favorite student/favorite employee would never bully” are one of the reasons that bullying continues.

Yanbu. Bullies are bullies. Doesn't matter if ds is 6ft or not x

It always seems to be your son is misunderstood or are you a tiny bit biased? Keep records of everything that happens positive and negative, but question your son seriously about what happens, I suspect he is trivialising things and as a much bigger boy he may well be intimidating even if he doesn't do much.