How do you handle this is in a vulnerable 12 year old girl :(

[Crankyandhot]

DD has just finished end of year 7 and it’s been a very very very rocky ride.

bullying being the main issue
numerous incidents mainly manipulation/ isolation. Then online threats of local jumpings etc
we nearly pulled her out ( EHCP ) and was in the process but after long discussions and agreements we decided to hold off until the next review.

anyway today forms were released. Current form she is in her friendship group ( 4 of them )
all friendship group and bully have been moved in to one form and she has been moved in to a different form with not a single friend.
more recently the bully has been trying to spread gossip between her and her good friend.

she is sat in her bedroom crying sobbing and so upset that she feels like she has been punished for me complaining.
the email says it’s been discussed in very length with colleagues and basically not to email about it until after summer.

they split up early so today and it’s going to be such a long summer of anxiety to go in to year 8.

I know she is mine and I’m a parent so always going to be sad for her but my heart literally broke for her.
she doesn’t understand why she wants out with at least one friend.

any advice on how I get her through this anxiety ( she is autistic with speech impediment and cerebral palsy )

Well they can’t really leave one girl alone with bully surely

So best bet is bully is in with all boys. She won’t like it but 🤷‍♀️

If the school is small and has so few girls I guess they are scared of losing any of them, even a bully 😔

Well yes this is what they did last time and it ended badly so I’m assuming this is why they have done it this way - they will not do all the rest of girls together. They said it was isolating one student.

I had a similar situation but my DD was primary school. I got the email about her class changing 10 minutes after school had closed. And she was separated from all of her friends and she was put in the same class as the bully.

So I called the school. I was stern, not emotional, factual. I mentioned that I want this situation sorted and that there is a paper trail about it, I demanded a meeting and got one 4 weeks into the summer holidays - which was torture for my DD at the time because she was in tears but I had to keep reminding her that I’m sorting it.

My only advice is get support from any charities - I made sure I used the right buzzwords in my email that forced them to take action as if it was forwarded on it would look bad. I spoke to the head, to teachers etc face to face months prior so I also had evidence that me trying to meet the school in the middle wasn’t helping.

I demand that they change her form if they can - but I understand that in secondary school they tend to do forms based on so many other things and not just friendship groups - so I would also find out more about how they choose classes.

sorry you are going through this but demand that meeting, be willing to emulate it if the head is palming you off.

I took in academics etc in to consideration and I admit that her form is slightly more academic by then it couldn’t have been that because one of her friends is extremely academic far more so than DD and isn’t her form. So it made very little sense there either 😂😂

im just so stressed a comment today was made about moving English classes but no info what so ever on set changes for the core subjects and no idea who teachers are. Her form tutor is brand new. She has literally had no warning of any of this !

I am sorry to say that I can’t help as regards the issue around the school, save to wonder if there are governors who might get involved.

I can imagine how upset your daughter is, and how this will impact her over the long summer. It sounds like she has support in school, but can you access support outside that now? One option for her is to look at the Childline website, think about her own resilience, and talk to the counsellors there for support. It is great that you are fighting for her and of course this isn’t your fault, but it means you are really involved and I wonder if it might be helpful for you too if she has someone else on her side, and you can have a bit of respite because the situation sounds really overwhelming for you and for her.

This is far from ideal, but it’s half there in that at least shes not with the bully anymore. Worst case scenario, I think that you can support to make this work.

Do you have contact details for the parents of the two girls she is in the form with? If so I’d probably message them, be really honest about what has happened (sounds like one of them had a similar experience) and see if they can sensitively explain to their kids so that your daughter is included with them next year. No reason they can’t sit as a 3.

And then I’d encourage your daughter to make the effort to see her friends outside school. Can you help reassure her by encouraging her to invite them over this weekend? Let them support her a bit.

If she has an EHCP you should ignore the don’t email message. SLT will be checking their emails despite the auto reply.

Ok so I guess we come back to, what are you asking for

Sounds like there are 3 girls in one class (DD’s two girl friends, and bully) and 3 in the other (DD and the two who are besties) is that right?

You’ve said they won’t leave bully as only girl in the class. And having bully with one other girls doesn’t go well either

They can’t swap DD and bully because one of the besties was also bullied by her

If they move one of DD’s friends to be with DD then one girl is left alone with bully

I am not sure what the solution is but you do need to know what you’re asking for. Personally I would be saying it’s fair enough for bully to be without other girls - she’s brought it on herself by alienating so many.

Go over their heads, governors/LEA ?

The best long-term outcome is for the bully to change her behaviour. With such small numbers, that's the only option that is going to work for everyone else, too (other than kicking her out). So I imagine that they have looked at what the best arrangement is to try and make that happen. If the bully is in with girls who are in a strong friendship group, then hopefully she will learn that she needs to earn friendship by being nicer.

Isolating the bully from the other girls doesn't work. They're still in the same school, they'll still have some lessons together, and she's perhaps even more likely to try to divide and conquer.

She won’t have 0 lesson with her friends. All that happens is she stirs between the girls especially if DD won’t be around and then at lunch she is accused of all sorts.

ny main issue here is they haven’t spoken to daughter and have sent this after school closed and basically made it clear they won’t reply so she is feeling left punished with our so much as anyone been able to explain to her why.
by the time summer is up she will be refusing to go to school.

" they can't isolate a child " but your DD is isolated ?
What work are they doing with the bully causing all this trouble ?
Op I don't know what the formal process is but I would be kicking up a massive stink and asking what can do to stop your DD from feeling punished for raising this

I can't believe they are allowing all this bullying to go on !!
Can Ofsted intervene ?

It’s the bullying that needs to be sorted though isn’t it - that’s where I would be going with this because I don’t see how they can change the classes around. Unfortunately that is the problem with very small class sizes and schools. They haven’t put your daughter with the bully which is good but it will still go on regardless of the classes. It sounds like a really crappy way to inform everyone of classes and I appreciate you may not have many options for your daughter but if she’s going to have to put up with this child and the dynamics of the others for her whole school life then I’d be thinking about other options because regardless of class mix she’s going to have this bully there day in day out for her school life in a very small environments where she can’t get away. It usually gets worse I’m sorry to say as they get older too.

This sounds like a rubbish school! I can't believe they have cut off communication tol September.
I slightly lost the plot with your outline of the friends and options ... it sounds complicated.
Are there options that you think the school should pursue and have not or are they out of options? Does the EHCP provide 1:1 and has that person a role to play here?

Part of the problem here is that there are only six girls in the year, if I understand your posts correctly. So that's problematic for the school in terms of organising classes, given that:

• You don't want bully in the same class as your DD (understandably).
• Bully is not allowed to be in a class with one of the two girls in your DD's class.
• The school presumably wants an even split of 3 girls per class. They're unlikely to agree to putting one girl in a class on her own with all boys.

What they've done seems in many ways the least worst solution. They've put your DD and the other girl (OG) that bully isn't allowed to be in a class with in the other class from bully. Then they had the option to put either (i) one of your DD's friends, or (ii) OG's friend, in the class with the two of them as the third girl. They chose OG's friend, and that keeps your DD's two friends who are girls together in the same class as bully, which gives them some protection against her. If they'd put one of your DD's friends in with her instead, that would have left the remaining DD friend and OG friend to deal with bully. The one thing they could have done, I suppose, is put the boy in the friendship group in your DD's class.

Couldn't you and the school encourage your DD to make friends with OG and her friend so they form a group of three? Then she'll have friends in her class, and her original friendship group in some lessons and at break and lunch.

Tbh it sounds like a difficult exercise for the school in balancing the different needs of all the pupils, particularly the girls, and unlikely that there was ever going to be an outcome that was good for everyone.

This all sounds so depressingly familiar. I was sent to a huge secondary modern school (70s). They put me in the first year with a girl from primary school. We’d never been friends. Other girls from primaries in the area were in my class. You were either “in” with the bullies or cast adrift and picked on mercilessly. I chose “in” because I knew I didn’t have the character to be on the outside. Got me nowhere. The bullies will always make sure you have your turn as the victim. Changed schools with the stress of it all. Straight into the clutches of the next tormentor. What I’m trying to say is that if your child can build resilience and coping mechanisms it will stand her in good stead going forward in life. I’ve never managed it but I do admire those that can remain unaffected and have a good sense of self worth. I wish her the best x

First things first , reassure your daughter that this will absolutely be sorted as soon as she’s back to school so she can stop worrying about it , tell her it’s a non issue and it will get fixed .
Try not to project your own worries onto her. If she sees you are worried , she will worry. And vice versa.

otherwise you’ve got a long summer of your daughter unhappy and worrying and you unhappy and worrying in her behalf.

Been there, done that, it’s not fun and I completely regret not being upbeat and positive about it with my daughter. It affected the entire summer.

teachers will be back in the school before start of next year so your email will be picked up and hopefully responded to.

It's really shocking in this day and age, when your DD who has specific and named SEN that the school is well aware of, that she is being treated in such a callous and cowardly way. The school sending that email half an hour after the end of term and stating that nothing can be done over the summer because all the teachers will have their OOO on, so both you and she will now have to sit with this information for eight weeks without being able to talk about it is utterly shit! A PP talked about this happening to her in the 1970s - well yes awful things happened back then and SEN weren't acknowledged or diagnosed or treated with kindness - but this is 2026 and the OP's DD has an EHCP!

OP, I'm disgusted on your behalf, even more so because you're actually PAYING for this shitty treatment. You don't live anywhere near Oxon/Bucks do you? If so, the excellent school my DS goes to is starting to take girls in 2027 and I can PM you the details.

I think this is where I feel the most hurt. We had a meeting with the La not long ago and one of the things I raised was the lack of transition for year especially after everything that happened.
I understand if there is reasons and they are going to help daughter but they just left her to deal with it all summer.
she only transitioned a year ago then they announced a merge 6 months in with another building. This happens in September so another transition.
as well this I was told in a brief convo with a teacher they she couldn’t remember onto of her head which class but she was moving classes in at least 2 core subjects.
there has been 0 info about the merge, new timings. I rang last week about someone showing her when they were over the new building where the disabled toilets etc were - didn’t happen.
I also sent an email 6 weeks ago reminding them that parents don’t have any info and how important it is the children are able to be prepped. Didn’t bother to respond.
so she has no idea what school looks like in September apart from that she isn’t with her friends and feel likes she been punished.

I totally understand the issues they are facing but her friendship group was 4 there is no reason it couldn’t have been fairer or communicated better.

They promise everything & deliver nothing & have left YOU to deal with it until school resumes.
As I've said before, it was the happiest day of my life when all my kids finished school (whether they were meant to or not - one or two of mine just didn't go back.)

This is I fear what is going to happen. I wanted out. DD wanted to stay ( at the time ) and so I negotiated with the school. Trusted their word and said I would give it 6 months and then there has been 2 very significant incident last week which left DD off school and was not even attempted to be dealt with and then this within a few weeks of that meeting.

one thing I do know about the management from the LA meeting is they don’t understand daughters “ autism “ which does make it even more tricky.

I would:

Email your caseworker at the LA, and copy in the school and anyone else relevant (if your school and LA are anything like ours then I've found the best way to get a response is bulk emailing every address you can find).

Tell them in no uncertain terms that this is unacceptable, and you need an emergency AR to look at a change of placement.

The school are behaving really disgustingly here and clearly no thought at all has been given to your daughter's needs.

Are you in a position where you could keep her home in September until a new placement is found?

If so, I would inform them that you'll be doing that and you expect the LA to fulfil their statutory duty and provide alternative provision until a placement is found.

I'm absolutely fuming on your behalf!

@Crankyandhot I trusted schools too (several, not just one, & all ages) until I didn't any more. The chances we give them, assuming they'll care about our children - but they just do what's best for them, & we're left trying to explain to our kids how they can let them down when WE'D said all would be ok..

Some people were exceptional - educational psychologists etc - but the schools - nope. Hugs..