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?!

Wow if that was the head’s actual words then that’s disgusting!

Ive asked for school to support DS in staying away from a bully - changing class, reminders, keeping them apart at breaks - and school said they couldn’t support that because then the bully would have no one to play with. Some weird rules!!

I know it is normally frowned upon on MN but I'd go directly to parents. School are doing sweet FA. Where I live, this is generally the approach when school fails to deal with matters appropriately.
In a few circumstances recently school was failing to tell parents what their little angels had been up to...parents were actually mortified and it got dealt with swiftly. I would want to know. My son is SEN and it's no excuse.
My son was spat at and slapped. School tried to make excuses, so when I spoke to the other child's mother, school hadn't actually informed her at all. Her child was promptly told off, said sorry and we got to the bottom of the reason why they did what they did. (They actually wanted to stay in an office during busy break times and lunch due to sensory overload, got desperate and lashed out at my kid thinking it would solve their problem). School was unaware of the issue.

My god that's made my blood boil. Complain to the highest level and don't let them fob you off. Maybe speak to other girls' parents to see if this is a pattern. This is 2026 ffs not the 1970s.

OP have you written to the school?

because you need to. Get assertive, get writing.

This

The school are failing to keep your daughter safe and basically enabling those boys to do just what they like.

Agree, and also blaming ops dd!
no wonder we’re seeing such a rise in violence in schools and society!
you have SOME (and strong emphasis on the some!) schools enabling the violence and blaming the victim, and then you have parents who can never see anything wrong in their child, who even when assaulting others it’s “they approached my child”!

When are these incidents happening? How are they happening? Who is in charge then and supervising?

It is also sad and indicative of the society we live in that violent children aren’t suspended or excluded from primary school. I understand the reasons why from the school’s perspective - exclusions look bad when Ofsted come to inspect. But why are schools marked down for exclusions when excluding one violent child makes the school lives of 29 others (plus the teacher) immeasurably better? We wouldn’t accept violence in the workplace - the person would likely be dismissed for gross misconduct - so why do we expect small children to just accept it at school?

Even if that were the case, leaving it all down to a 7yo girl with SEN to manage , is not safeguarding her or the boys being “goaded”.In fact , if that’s the case , they are failing all 3 children.It is clear neither of these children can manage their behaviour in a safe way, so the actual adults in the school need to step in and come up with a plan. And no , “stay away from them” is not a plan.

Get your partner/the Dad involved. A couple will be listened to more.

Reading between the headteachers words. If you have ever worked in a school you would probably see it.

Straight away I have 4 boys and 2 girls who spring to mind. Violent, aggressive, torment the playground. But we can’t just keep suspending them. Our hands are tied.

So if you can’t suspend them. Can’t stop their aggressive outbursts. Have to include them with other children because the costs and alternatives are too high. What is the answer? I would protect a vulnerable child by telling them to stay away and attempt to keep an eye on said child. Then inevitably something will happen and I need to deal with that!

Welcome to playtimes at a mainstream school!

Follow the complaints procedure all the way up. You'll be ignored, but will be collecting evidence in the process and when you take it to the council and ofsted they wont be able to dismiss your enquiry.
They no doubt decided your DD was part of the problem, failing to see that violence should never be excused. Are you part of a local multi academy trust? There's such a reluctance to exclude because the children are then sent to another of the trust's school. There were less issues when you could make the violent child someone else's problem.

What else are the school doing?

You need to look at this from another angle.

What they have said is actually sensible. They're telling your DD to stay away from nasty kids and not to play with them. Kids who are unkind should be shunned until they learn to be kind.

I say the same to my younger two. They don't need to play with someone being unkind. It's a choice and they need to choose the kind people.

And yes, if she approaches them knowing they will get angry then that's not helpful.

The school should hopefully also be doing something else to deal with these anger issues but they will not be at liberty to share that information with you.

I literally had this same conversation with two Y11 boys who keep fighting. The one in my tutor group is very aggressive so another boy has been told to stay away from him as if he approaches him it just winds this other boy up and he will lash out. It's common sense.

On an adult level, you only have to look at the number of posts from women who are in relationships with someone unkind/aggreseive/abusive and the advice is to leave them and stay away.

What ???!!!

Consider moving schools with your youngest. Could you juggle 2 different schools just for the rest of the year? I was bullied in primary school and the head wouldn’t do anything about it because the bully was a very bright lad and I was not. She said I would never pass my common entrance exams or go to uni. So my parents changed schools and I flourished. I passed my common entrance exams and went to uni.

At what point can they be permanently excluded ?

On the face of it v this does sounds awful, but it sounds like there might be more to this bybthecway the teachers have responded. Is your child daughter and others constantly going up to the boy/boys and antagonising them to provoke them, possibly quite a 'fun' game if they know they're volatile...? If that is the case (obviously might not be) that's not ok either...

Having two kids, in my experience the one who lashes out hits/kicks whatever has often been strongly provoked - so often it's 6 of one and half a dozen of the other.

I voted that you are being unreasonable.

It is beyond foolish to think that a school will support you. In my experience schools universally support as much violence from boys as they can get away with. All the while (as you are finding out) blaming the victim.

You need to take a two pronged approach:
(a) with the head, get it all in writing. As it currently stands there are different rules for different groups The violent child approaching your child is something she is responsible for managing and her failure to achieve that is her issue and her approaching him is something she will be punished for. That alone tells you the principle in operation
(b) Get your child into self defense or a martial art (with you if possible) ASAP so that she can learn to put that violent little fucker back in his place.

never, because their “wellbeing” matters more than the other 28 pupils in the class

Only contact the school by email. Then you have all the evidence you need. Look up their bullying policy and quote from it. Start asking what action they are taking. I suspect you’re is staying away from them but it isn’t working. If the school can’t keep her safe it’s a safeguarding issue. If the school won’t act I would look at other schools. I would officially complain to the school first. I know a police officer who told me that the police can be contacted over bullying.

Get copies of the school's bullying, discipline and safeguarding policies. Ask for an urgent meeting with the head and year head at which the agenda will be going through those policies and asking how they are implementing them. I am prepared to bet the bullying policy doesn't require the victim to keep away from the bullies.

If the head won't deal with it properly take it to the governors. Check whether there is one with specific responsibility for safeguarding and ask for a similar meeting with them.

Take photographs of every bruise and scratch and say that, if the school won't act, you will have to involve the police.

This is nonsense.

Wha will the police do about two 7 year olds?

Make an official complaint. I work in a school and deal with behaviour issues frequently. We might give this advice in some situations (to an older child) but we would definitely deal with the perpetrators. Do you know if they have? They might not tell you due to protecting the other families' confidentiality. But they should be dealing with it.

We should expect small children to put uo with it and the school are clearly failing g the Ops daughter by failing to safeguard her
But children are treated differently to adults for very good reasons.