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

I am so confused about why the girls picked your daughter in particular. This is what would worry me.
however after Easter holidays this won’t be what is the first on the list for the schools safeguarding lead, there will be children that have gone into care, or been arrested, or been raped, or run away from home, or come back with cuts all over their arms or no mediation after a long holiday. This is what their diary will be full of this week, not a mean prank at school that could have, but didn’t, cause any harm,

ok. Glad you made it sound urgent!

OP isn’t asking for details of the girls backgrounds. But staff should be sharing much more detail on what actually happened, how they will review safeguarding practices etc. Being reassuring not dismissive

I imagine people (i.e. the OP) wants an explanation of wtf these kids were intending to do with her DC. It's hardly data protection to reveal what they were up to and whether they will be apologising to DC as one of the consequences. Some reassurance of what steps will be taken so it can't happen again would be good too. I don't really think it's asking too much. 'Spoken to' doesn't cut it at all.

Correct, id be asking WHY these girls done this, what was their reason.

Has your dd got a common name. I mean it could be that if they went to a classroom and asked for 'Olivia' or 'Grace' or 'Izzy' for example, they would be likely to strike lucky!
Sending littler kids to tge office is a prank as old as time

I would want to know why they asked her to go the office? No point just having a word!

So adding a few more words would make people happy?
Tutor is probably busy. Tutor time is a small part of the day. They have quickly got back to the parent to say it's been dealt with. I don't think they as a class teacher have the power to say that safeguarding policies will be looked at or given anything to that extent of wording.
If anything maybe just asking the tutor if DD seems happy at school, and if they have noticed any reason for her to be targeted would be more relevant.

The school I work in and the school my children go to have children on a rotating basis from year 7-9 that do community service in the office. It is for 2 hours in the morning for a week at a time, prob once a term.

They absolutely do deliver messages to other children but it is also accompanied by a note.

I know we would take this seriously at my school but I’m also certain this would have been done as a bad joke and fortunately very unlikely to be anything as horrific as the case mentioned above. That doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be dealt with of course.

I have worked as a TA for thirteen years and I can’t imagine any teacher or member of staff that wouldn’t want to know about a situation like this and that wouldn’t class this as the utmost importance.
Teachers receive many petty emails from parents but this isn’t one of them.

A pp mentioned James Bulger and that was my first thought too. I wouldn’t settle for, ‘the girls have been spoken to’.

Oh the tutor is busy? Well thats alright then.

I'd want to know a lot more about the dutustion

• why my DD?
• why were they out of class?
• is it normal for y9 to run the errands (when genuine)
• how should the supply teacher have handled it?
• what they are doing to keep my DD safe

that they're taking it seriously, not lightly.

Very strange behaviour. I’d escalate with HOY or deputy head. All sorts of wrong things here.

Sorry but all the mentions of James Bulger are crass and distasteful

By all means get to the bottom of what happened but likening this to the murder of a toddler is outrageous

Don't be ridiculous, you know exactly why Jamie was mentioned. It's disingenuous to pretend otherwise.

Is it as a well known prank? Never heard of it and I went to a comprehensive in a city as did my son.

There's only 1 or 2 criticising, everyone else is supporting the OP & saying that response from school is NOT enough.

It was just before Easter, maybe the Ist , April Fool's Day .

Safeguarding children is everyone’s concern. The school need to address this issue pronto

This would really bother me, again not one to go into the school or complain but I would keep pursuing this with the year head.

There was an absolutely awful case in Ireland about 6 years ago, where two 13 year old boys lured a girl from school to her death.
Here is the link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Ana_Kri%C3%A9gel

Also you have the word of the TA saying that her own cousin is a shit… this use of wording and her open distrust of the situation implies this girl has form.

I totally agree.

It all seems very exaggerated and I am afraid some of this doesn't ring true to me.

I would be worried too and my over anxious brain would be spiralling and imagining all sorts of horrible things but actually, if I think about this in a more level way (far easier when not involved!) I would imagine that that they were playing a silly joke and planning on leaving her at the office with actually no need for her to be there. Definitely needs a call to school though, it’s a bit worrying that they had the opportunity and apparent authority to take her out of class like that.

@Moonnstarz are you a teacher?

If the tutor is powerless then that's precisely why the OP needs a better explanation from someone with the power to genuinely give it and the relevant reassurances. And it's not about words, it's about actions - the words would simply convey the actions taken. You seem to see this busy tutor's job as being to shut the pesky parent up rather than to deal with this incident so that it won't happen again (and with worse outcomes if a nice TA doesn't happen to step in).

You also seem to be implying that it must be the DD's fault. If there was some reason for her to be targeted, then that would come from investigating the other kids' motivation, not from the DD asking for it. Are unhappy kids fair game to be taken from class by older kids who are up to god knows what?

Absolutely, 💯