Incident at school - come and give me your thoughts.

[Newnamez]

DD is 12 and in yr7 (first yr of secondary).
On the last day of term before Easter she came home and told us that during the first lesson that day 2 'older girls' (she thinks yr9) came to the class (which had a stand in teacher that day) and asked for her by name and said she was needed at the school office by the Head teacher. She went with them. The girls walked ahead of her whispering.
By chance a TA that DD likes and chats to came out of a room and saw the three of them and asked the girls where they were taking DD. The older girls said 'the office' and the TA said i'll take over and they ran away. The TA shared with DD that one of the girls is her (TAs) cousin and said she was a ''little shit'' !! TA took DD to the office and no one had sent for her. TA took DD back to class. That's the bare bones of it. That is literally all i know.

Now, i hear about this at 6 that evening from DD and get more horrified the more i think about it. I emailed a head of year level teacher that evening. I heard nothing all easter holiday which is fine, but i heard nothing from anyone last night either. (yesterday 1st day back)

Ive told DD not to leave class unless an adult has come for her from now on.

Im going to ring the school this morning to ask to speak to someone in person about this.

Am i wrong or is this quite worrying?! How did the girls know my DD s name and where she'd be? Where were they taking her? Why were they wandering round the school? How are they going to stop this happening again?

What would you do/say?

TIA

Well it’s irrelevant now as things have moved on

I’m so glad the HOY is seemingly on your page OP. 🤞🏻 for peace from now on!

Two fourteen year olds go to the trouble of finding out the name of a younger girl and what class she’s in at a particular time - not to mention the ‘coincidence’ that there’s a substitute teacher taking that class who doesn’t know the protocols so more likely to comply. They then have to fabricate some story to get out of their own class. The adult knew one of the girls and suspected she was up to no good and put a stop to it. And you think it was ‘just a prank’ ?

Odds are they walked past the room, they know her name anyway for whatever reason (sometimes sibling links, sometimes same bus, sometimes just because) saw a cover teacher and tried it on. Really most kids won't have thought beyond that.

This happened to me, but slightly backwards. I was the “good girl” at school and could often be trusted with messages etc, and always finished early. So if there was something the teacher needed I was sent with the message or to the staffroom to fetch that thing. Quite often it was “oh Toffee can you fetch X from reprographics please” so it was well known I would be “wandering”.
My bully had figured this out, got herself thrown out of class to stand in the corridor and basically waited for me outside reprographics. Ground floor of the school and right next to the front entrance. She was physically much larger than me and grabbed me by the hair, dragging me outside. She threw me into some broken glass bottles, stamped on my hand/wrist and tried to set fire to my hair (jokes on her, it was so damp and rainy that day it just wouldn’t spark) she managed a couple of good kicks to my stomach and back and then dragged me into a holly bush and basically threw me in, after snapping my glasses in half, removing my shoes and throwing one over the fence into the road and the other onto the roof of the sports hall.
She sauntered away like it was nothing.
I was in shock and just sat there for a few seconds before trying to find my broken glasses (I really can’t see without them) and holding my bloody nose, limped back into school.
I was spotted by a random teacher and gave all the info to them about what had happened but it became “her word against mine” I got told to “just conform” and “we can’t verify that any bullying took place” which sucks but seems to be schools mottos these days!

Your incident is awful, but in no way the same. Most schools would have cctv now and would take your report seriously.

The OPs child was seen by an adult and everything was OK.

What I maybe should have added is that there is no way for anyone apart from the girls involved to know what they were actually planning, so OP is not being silly or dramatic to think there could be more to it
My incident happened 26 years ago, so I would hope things have changed!

Maybe! In my first year, an older girl told me the headmistress wanted to see me and I was to wait outside her office until called in. They passed me a few times, sitting there like a nervous lemon ... all morning.

I do think this isn't very unusual. I don't know what the girls in OP's case had in mind, obviously.

This poster was not saying her incident was the same. I also think it’s naive to assume bullying at this level wouldn’t happen today.

Yanbu
I would be horrified. Girls get lured away and stabbed by such ploys.
That should never have happened.

I've not said it wouldn't happen. I've said it would hopefully be dealt with differently now. The incident is horrific and PP should have been listened to.

They might have said they were going to the toilet (before anyone says we weren't allowed to, a lot of schools get roasted for not letting girls out of lessons if they say they have their period).
Could it be social media, OP? Why they knew her name? I'm not saying you let you daughter use it, but maybe other girls in the class do, who have some issue with her, and passed on the info?

ToffeePennie that's awful

I’m a teacher and have daft students who would do this. The majority of them would not think past the doing something they know they shouldn’t. They could know her name in a myriad of ways-mentioned in assembly, overheard another student, met them on transfer day. I would try not to overthink it tbh. Sounds like a daft prank that has been dealt with well by the school.

Easy to claim overreaction after the event, isn't it? Until teachers and other staff (and parents) develop magical powers to foresee the future it is better to be over cautious than the opposite.

The adults in the building intervened and dealt with it, prank or not. Knowing secondary school students very well, I'd err on the side of silly prank with no forethought, over some of the scenarios listed above. Obviously none of us will ever know because the school dealt with it.

@ToffeePennie💐 That's just so awful. I teared up reading that. A hug for younger you !! x

Thank you again for everyone's input. Still reading. Obviously so many of us here have kids in primary and secondary and if i'd read my OP i'd have been worried and probably asked DD if it was routine for students to collect other students from class. And if so then make sure an adult sees them go and who they go with - the teacher or the TA.

DH feels the same as me. Uneasy that this happened at all, but unsure what any more talking would do. The school has said all the right things, almost to the letter! DD will never leave a class room with a student again.

She never sees either girl at home time, by the way. It's a school with 2 exits and the pupils who get on busses go one way and everyone else another.

Let's hope we have no more events!

Once again can i say how sorry i am hearing posters accounts of their own experiences of being bullied. Thank you for sharing - and thank you for everyone's kind and helpful words here. It was what i needed and DD says thank you too 😊

I think it’s also unfortunate that they apparently dealt with it and didn’t let you know, on that Friday? Assuming your daughter would tell you isn’t necessarily the case.

I’m so glad your instinct about the TA turned out to be correct. ❤️

FWIW, the fact your dd’s main take away was relief she was not actually being summoned by the head suggests to me the girls were leading her a merry dance and winding her up about being in trouble with the head rather than anything more sinister. You will never know but I’m glad your dd is ok and have the HOY’s reassurance.