My child is being assaulted

[ImplodingLoading]

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?!

Some practical ways around it include doing packed lunch which is often sitting with the nicer kids, signing up to any and all lunch time clubs away from trouble makers. You can try your best with the school, but ultimately you have to keep your DD safe by using whatever tricks you can. I guess getting your older child to check whilst still there could be another.

Put that in writing in a complaint to the Head, and cc in the Chair of Governors. Thats a totally unacceptable response and needs to be taken further. I hope your DD is ok though.

I think the kids should be punished for punching and your DD should have nothing to do with them in the playground.

Wtf as someone else said I would record every interaction and incident and escalate as much as you can. Council, MPs, local press, whoever. Teaching a girl to avoid volatile males to not provoke them??!!

Not the 7 years olds, obviously. The adults who think it's okay to imply that it's fine for boys to be violent and to imply girls are accountable for the behaviour of boys.

Well it’s very obvious on this thread, the people who actually have experience of schools and the challenges teachers face, and those that have no clue:

Oh yes, and those who think a 7 yo
being regularly assaulted at school is to blame and provoking her poor beleaguered assailants!

Yes, this is what I was trying to explain earlier but you've put it so much better than I did.

Yes and it will only get worse as he gets older

That sounds like an awful situation for your daughter and the school’s suggestion of keeping away from the problem children is utterly ridiculous. They have a duty to keep your daughter safe.

I went through something similar with my son, who was bullied by another boy. The school had no idea how to stop the bully, who was physically violent to boys and sexually inappropriate to girls. The bully ended up hospitalising another child in their year group.

We raised the issue with the class teacher. When that didn’t work we had a meeting with the headteacher. When that didn’t work we raised a formal written complaint detailing the history and previous meetings with the headteacher and the governors.

After that we could have taken it to OFSTED had they not dealt with things. Fortunately they did, but we had to go through the various stages of complaint escalation.

The best advice we had was to get every single thing recorded in writing: every incident, when it happened, who was told about it, what they did or didn’t do and don’t let up until they make serious changes and keep your daughter safe.

Your daughter should not be told to change her behaviour to avoid being assaulted by these boys. This is a shameful attitude taken by the school.

I had issues with DS at a similar age, he also has asd.

He came home one day with the start of a black eye and that was the final straw.

I kept him off school the next day and emailed the head to say he wouldn't be returning as they clearly can't keep him safe. Added that I was seeking advice from other professionals.

Magically the school had it resolved by COB that day and the other child never touched DS again.

Good luck with DD.

Sorry, I'm still here! Busy day!

Need to work theough the comments, but to answer some questions...

No idea if the boy in question has any additional needs. Outwardly, he seems a pleasant, bright boy when we've been at class parties, or crossed paths in social situations prior to this. However, no-one would think DD did, so obviously I don't know.

DD 100% understands, but if they are playing a whole class game and they interact, I don't think just not being able to address him in case he becomes angry is something DD should have to worry about.

She doesn't have or need any 1:1 support at this stage. She's very bright, excels at school, no issues there, etc.

Moving her would be a struggle for her. The close knit group.of friends she has, who really get her, she's known since she was 2 or 3. She would struggle being away from friends and a familiar setting.

There are certain children at the school who other children know have additional needs which makes them use their hands as language. He isn't one of them, as far as I'm/she's aware.

Also, I don't think we should be teaching a young girl that is a boy suddenly decides he wants to stand in her space in the line, she should move instead of "possibly provoking him" but politely saying no, in case he punches her in the face, or takes and damages her belongings.

I'll keep reading and catch up!

I do think there is probably more nuance than is in the op, some children are very adept at winding up/being sly to the kids who are quite explosive. Not saying that the kids should attack others but it could be that they're both in the wrong and by the sounds of the response from the teacher this could well be the case.

The headteacher is female. In fact, its an almost fully female teaching and leadership staff. The only male members of staff are the janitor, the maintenance person and the music teacher!

No, she's not, what she is doing is saying no. For example the boy child wants to stand at her space in the lunch line, she says no, he hits. She is then being told she shouldn't say no and should just walk away, in case he hits her.

My daughter, also 7, was getting hit, kicked and slapped so often.i have enrolled her into jujitsu. I've told her she is never to hit first but if someone hits her she is allowed to smack them back. She won't get in trouble from me.

I've already written how I'm approaching the school in a previous post.

This is not the case at all. In fact, we have met this little boy, by accident obviously, at the park, after the first attack, who approached DD and said hi and asked if she wanted to play. She hid behind me and I just moved her away and on to something else.

Are you kidding me? Is that you Tom's mum?!

My DD is not at all purposely provoking this boy, but likewise, she shouldn't be scared to join in all class games, gibe up her place in the lunch line, etc in case he gets angry and hits her!

Ds was like that when he was in y1. School didn’t believe him and said they were joking. So when he was push down on the floor and a boy sit on him and punch him where other boy throw sands on his face, according to the teacher they were playing magic. Ds was the flying carpet and the dust was magic dust. They only took one incident a lil bit serious when i sent them a picture of ds back with scars from the boys. But that was only talk to the boys. No parents were involved or called. They also said kids that age were not capable of bullying yet etc. what they did to protect ds was hold him off during break where he had to write a journal if what happen today, his feeling today which was more like punishment to him i,o protection, the bullies run free play around in the playground while he coped in class with teacher. We felt like it was a lost battles ( the leader of the bully was teacher’s son, and the other was teaching assistant’s son) so we moved his school.

A few months later a girl from his old class moved to the same school as ds for the same reason, after ds moved she become the next target. I heard they needed to take her to a &e

after that another girl become the victim, her sister was dd’s friend. Her mom told the girl that she needed to stay closed with other boys. I do not hear more about that so i guess her mom’s tactic was useful. I personally do not agree though

This is exactly what all those on this thread @ImplodingLoading are totally side-stepping! They are so fixed on the “it can’t be HIS fault!!! Poor lamb… she’s clearly doing something to upset him so is deserving of any violence she gets!!” 🙄

@ImplodingLoading To the HT:
”so- to be clear- what you are suggesting is that in order to not be assaulted in school, my child should accede to every request/demand that this boy makes of her. That if she provokes him in any way- and, again to be clear, this includes saying no to him cutting into the lunch line in front of her- she is not deserving of protection, but deserves his angry retribution. That’s what you’re saying to me? If it isn’t what you are suggesting, please explain how you propose to keep my child safe from this/these boys who appear to be attacking her for simply being where she ought to be.

Do you have any idea what you are advocating? Do I need to spell out the logical extrapolation of what you are saying to me?”

Put this in writing as a confirmation of the conversation you had with the HT, asking for clarification if you did misconstrue her words. That way you have a record of it.

Yeah this is in no way acceptable, YADNBU.

It doesn't matter if she is approaching him. If she the school feels her presence is provoking him. She has a right to be their. The school have a duty to safeguard all the children including your child. They are failing in that duty if she us being assaulted in their care.

On the surface I agree this is shocking. However why IS she approaching them and what is she doing?

I'm only asking because my 8 yr old has a girl in his class who will do everything she can to provoke an outburst of any kind so she can immediately tell on the child. I've seen her do it to several children including my son, and he's definitely not a kid who is going to hit out but he is a kid who becomes dysregulated when she does it and can't listen or settle (he has ASD and ADHD) and we've had to leave group activities because she just winds everyone up so badly.

She needles and needles at kids when she doesn't get her own way and has definitely been seated away from my son and asked to sit elsewhere before. If he was a different kind of kid I can imagine him hitting out but he either turns the upset onwards or brings it home and has a horrible evening.

When we do anything as a group of mums and kids she always manages to get a rise out of someone, even the most placid children then cries like she's been wronged and can't understand why she's in trouble as she's just telling us what happened. I mean she's literally followed me off to the side of the park where I'm telling my son off for something and stood over my shoulder taunting him by repeating all the things he's done wrong and how much trouble he should be in and her mum does bugger all about it.

Anyway my point is have a look at the dynamic, how is she acting in these situations?

Unless she's deliberately winding him up because she likes seeing other kids in trouble and telling tales. Different if a child is approaching her or demanding her place in line or whatever but this child is clearly demonstrating he doesn't want her in his space. If all it takes is for her to not pester a kid and start things then why is that the other child's fault? When the girl who does this to my son comes to tell me he's said x,y or z I've stopped even intervening, I just say. If someone spoke to me like that I probably wouldn't play with them. Best you play with someone else who is kinder. But she doesn't want that. What she wants is him only to play with her and to isolate him off from everyone so she gets that.

It definitely is pertinent to the post. The girl who harassed my son is likely also ASD/ADHD just like he is and as a girl is better at masking but also much more emotionally aware than he is. It's taken him 3 years to realise she may constantly claim to be his friend and inappropriately declare her love for him etc but ultimately she tries to get in the way of all his other friendships to have him to herself and does it by attempting to make him too upset to play with his other friends then being allover him which winds him up more. Thank goodness he's getting more able to say 'i am playing with Max just now. Please give me some space' the get a teacher if it continues. And his teachers see the dynamic because they are there all day every day. They split them up in as many classes as possible.

Even if she is being age/game appropriate these boysay not be capable of that interaction