Do you think your school (whether teacher or parent) genuinely has a zero tolerance approach to bullying?

[Zaforcap]

Does it match their zero tolerance approach to minor uniform violations (e.g. removing blazer to walk home on a hot day or a child having socks on the knee rather than above the knee). Do children feel more empowered to bully compared to say wearing a bit of mascara? AIBU to consider this when choosing a school?

It's not possible to have a zero policy because sometimes bullying is more nuanced than uniform infractions.

I mean say your dc is being bullied and if there's no witnesses then it's one person's word against another, and yes I have seen directly when a child will use "I am being bullied" really as a form of bullying in itself, so it shouldn't just be taken as read.

Bullying can never have the immediate reaction unless it has been witnessed - and even then other pupils or parents may have a bias that means it still isn't confirmed.

I’d hoped schools had changed a bit, but looks like they’ve got worse in that respect. It seems punishments for tiny things are handed out like sweets, yet the bigger issues have spiralled.

Well it does depend on the school as to what they hand out punishments for, but I don't think bigger issues have spiralled. When I was at school admitting you were feeling bullied would have been seen as admitting you were weak. A lot of bullying would have been brushed away as "toughening up". Now going in and saying you feel bullied will be taken seriously.

And when I was at school uniform infractions were taken seriously. We had to ask before taking our blazers off, and in all weathers we would have been expected to leave the grounds with tie done up and blazers on. It was accepted and so we just made sure that we were like that leaving the gates.
What has increased in the parents supporting their children in not wearing the uniform and then complaining about how unfair it is vocally.

All you can do is go and look round a school and get a feel for it. Do the kids look happy? Are they engaged in lessons? Are they joining in with extra curricular activities? What is the staff turnover like?

If there is evidence, bullying is easy to deal with (CCTV, screenshots of messages etc...) so parents are called, pupils spoken to etc...

Online, you're always going to get parents who say don't send your child to a particular school bullying is rife, the SEN help is awful etc... but as a teacher when I read these messages, it is almost hard not to laugh when you know the other side of the story.

e.g. a dad was saying online that his son was excluded for a few days because he brought pork chops left over from the family BBQ to school and a refugee child got offended. What the dad failed to mention was that he waved the pork products in front of this child's face then threw the pork chop at him!

Another parent always slags off the SEN department at school. But in reality her son was really violent, and despite being offered huge amounts of support, he constantly told staff to f*ck off and would push tables over if he got angry. The school even paid for external provisions as he badly beat up another child. The boys own brother said it was because his brother got to do what he wanted at home so wasn't used to being told no.

So ultimately, go and look round the school, and get a good feel for it. That's much better than reading stuff online or even reading Ofsted reports.

The school i work at is secondary so it's a bit different but yes I think generally good; most of the pastoral leaders are good at listening with an open mind which is important. There are some colleagues of mine in particular who I think are really excellent at it.

At my dd's school, I felt they listened to my concerns but their initial priority was keeping my dd separate from Susie, instead of looking deeper into Susie's picture ie her well-being, her home life, etc, reasons why she might be behaving that way. They literally initially said to me "we don't think there's any need to talk to Susie's parents about this" and they assumed it was just a "clash of personalities". She is from a genteel affluent family and I think they couldn't believe she was really like that. When other parents started complaining, i think they looked into it a bit more. At least I know of one other parent who complained.

I don't think things like detentions are useful for any issue, whether bullying or uniform. It is a silly method of discipline in my opinion.

I think the method of discipline that works the best is having a teacher who connects with the child (i mean, builds a rapport where the child seeks the teacher's good opinion). That teacher could be a PE teacher or a TA or anyone, but that will give the child a reason to want to behave.

Thanks @SunnyRedSnailhe open evenings are coming up soon. One of the two schools lets you also book an additional session to visit the school during the school day if you want. The other school (one most likely to get into) doesn’t. I had a quick look online at the school parrot website. It had a 2.2 rating. I’m mostly trying to speak to parents though. Their primary school is a feeder for this secondary, so some have older siblings there.

@Kingdomofsleepthats so true