My child is being assaulted

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DD 7has been assaulted multiple times by 2 boys in her year. She has been punched, slapped, kicked and pushed over.

Schools advice is for her to "keep away from the boys she knows are known to be volatile" so when they are playing whole year games, for example, the school have suggested she "uses clear language to ensure they are ready for theor turn, so as not to provoke their anger" and "when explained to the girls that their are some boys who are prone to angry outbursts, and the girls should avoid being around them"

AIBU, or is this absolutely ridiculous?!

Absolutely disgraceful dereliction of duty by the headteacher. Your DD has been badly let down. Their attitude is unacceptable and smacks of moral cowardice and sexism. Why should DD be responsible for these boys' behaviour? assuming she has never actively provoked them. What is your next step OP as this can't be overlooked? Is it school governors, the local authority?

The children are seven so under the age of criminal responsibility.

Surely in this case then the people in charge of them become responsible for criminal charges?

Children can't just be assaulted continuously!

And police surely.

Can they?
I mean we dont charge parents if their kids are violent .

For fucks sake.

Why don't the boys just walk away? Why do they resort to violence? In life as adults they'll have people irritating them all the time - door knockers, charity donation requests, someone who pushes past them on the street, people talking too loudly right next to them in a queue. Are they going to assault all of those people too?

Learning a firm 'no' or going to get a teacher is not too much to ask rather than an assault. If they can't do that they shouldn't be in the playground.

So why is the school (and posters on here) saying the dd is responsible for not getting assaulted?
so the boys aren’t to blame for being violent because they’re 7 and don’t know better…but the dd who’s also 7 is to blame for being repeatedly assaulted and should know better?

If the school are refusing to deal with it, (and even if they were) I’d be contacting the police. If they did this anywhere else but school, that’s what you’d do, not sure why it is different for school.

Doesn’t matter. You can still call them about an assault.

Well said, it's misogyny in a nutshell isn't it.

They can't be prosecuted but they can certainly be spoken to by the police.

Only thing that helped with DS in situation where it was made all his fault - was getting him away from the other boys in question for bulk of the day. It was lucky it was a two form year group - but still had to push for it.

He stayed away where he could and got followed or even had staff tell him off for not working with them he also asked adults for help - still made all his fault - evey talk with staff was same he needs to stay away and ask for help - he was and me saying again the school line to him started to make him lose faith and get angry with us as well.

Became obvious he wasn't the issue the next year when it started happening to other kids with same kid behind it and same follower.

DSis and her ex did manage to turn it round for DN - pointing out using her to pacidy another child wasn't on - but HT there was receptive and it was just TA and teahcers that needed to adjustment in attitude.

I think you may have to consider moving her to another shcool - and using childcare to sort round two school finsihes starts - or wait till end of the year - trying to get some sort of change from school in meantime then move both the younger kids if possible.

The reality is the boys will have consequences every time it happens.

But if these children have behavioural issues, such as poor impulse control, they're clearly not able to manage their behaviour, so the consequences aren't changing their behaviour.

The school won't have enough staff to be with these children all day to ensure they don't lash out at other people.

So they have told the OP's daughter to stay away from the boys and not instigate them in any play as they lash out when she does so.

They can't stop the boys from lashing out if they're going to lash out. They can't keep the children inside all day. The school, I'm sure, has put plenty of interventions in place - the OP can't be told about this, of course - but if these boys are being poorly parented and/or have SEN, then there's only so much these interventions will do. Unless they all have 1-1 TAs who are on a rota to monitor behaviour at playtime, all the school can do is try to keep the children apart.

This isn't about victim blaming or girls having to pussy foot around boys. I am a huge feminist but I am also a practising teacher and am well aware of the challenges around these types of issues. The gender of the children here is irrelevant. We have too many students with SEND in mainstream education and not enough staff, and so we do sometimes (often) have to rely on children understanding that X child is not to be spoken to like Y, Z child is not to be approached at playtime because he/she will hit/bite/scratch, whatever.

The OP has no idea that the school are doing 'nothing'. They may well be. But she needs to go through the complaints procedure to find out.

Calling the police (seriously!), Ofsted, the local council, etc, will achieve nothing here. The school complaints procedure is the first port of call.

At the same time, we all need to be aware of the challenges schools face in an age when too many people are having children without wanting to parent them.

It's also why we have such a big male violence problem in the UK.

Boys told it's the girls fault if she 'pesters' them and that violence is ok.

No. Completely unacceptable. They're only going to get worse if they're allowed to get away with it and told it's the girl's fault.

Why can't they just not be allowed in the playground (or not with the other kids at least, in a different outside area) to safeguard the other children? I wonder if they manage to control themselves in any other situation? E.g. I'm guessing they don't violently assault adult men constantly or the teachers.

'Consequences' need to be meaningful. Too many 'consequences' seem to be anything but.

I bet OP and other parents would pay for a fence to separate them if the school won't. Better use that than small girl children as punch bags - because that is currently what's being allowed by teachers.

This, look at the post above! They can't stop the boys from lashing out if they're going to lash out.. Seriously?! “Violent males gonna be violent…. What can you do?” !!!

Yes, for older children do call the Police.
This violence has to stop.

Because children are legally required to have a certain amount of time outside for exercise every day.

Because there's no money to build an extra playground space.

Because there's no money for more staff to monitor the children at play time.

You have no idea what the school have been doing behind the scenes to try and manage these children. Many TAs and teachers are indeed hit and kicked and scratched and bitten by children like this on a daily basis. I can well imagine that the boys in question are indiscriminately violent.

The anger you have here needs to be directed at the Department for Education, who keeps expecting mainstream schools to take in children with ever increasing needs, with less and less money every year to spend on them, and fewer and fewer teachers left in the profession to teach them.

I dont know i cant speak for other posters or the school
I would be furious however with the school for failing to safe guard my child.

Exactly this. The school have a duty of care and if they fail in it, then they should be very clear that their failure is facilitating behaviour that in adults we hold to be criminal. Those lads will grow up and if it is bot made clear to them now that their behaviour is unacceptable they will learn it later in more damaging ways.

This is totally outrageous and ridiculous.

Really? From daft 7 year olds?

You're taking that line from my post totally out of context.

How exactly are the school staff expected to stop these children from lashing out in the middle of the playground? Often these things are unpredictable and sudden, and there may be no staff near enough to get there in time. There may also be no staff available who have restraint training. If a teacher touches a child to try and restrain them without the appropriate training, they could be legally liable if the parent complains their child has been hurt in the process.

It would be exactly the same scenario, by the way, if this were a girl violently attacking a boy, or a girl violently attacking another girl. If a child of any gender has a tendency to lash out at others, it is not always possible - despite all the risk management procedures a school has in place for such things - to stop other children from getting hurt.

And expelling a child with an EHCP is incredibly hard to do, so it's not always possible to remove violent children from the classroom if their behaviour persists.

You clearly have no idea what working in a school is like. This isn't about misogyny. It's a wider issue with ever increasing extreme behaviour issues, particularly in primary schools, that schools are just not equipped to deal with and it's very challenging.

OP does it happen at lunch time mainly and who is on duty then? Some schools have very skeleton staff as they also need to eat and have a break, and it is unqualified lunch time supervisors aka some mums on national minimum wage who do not have a clue/are biased. I am not making this up.

Ah so they’re just being “daft” with their violence?