To expect the school to do something?

[Itsjjustoomuch]

My DD is in a very bitchy Year 6, doesn’t really have friends at school (has good friends out of school). I let her join a group chat to help her integrate a bit more after a couple of the girls started including her (there’s a lot of ignoring/ freezing kids out of friendship groups). I was monitoring this chat and came across an exchange where one kid wanted my DD off the chat and if she wasn’t removed ‘he would kill her’ (My DD) then her supposed friend laughed (emoji) and wanted to know how he’d kill her, he then responded by saying he’d target her at school the next day.

I went to the teacher and head with a screen capture of this and other accounts of bullying and all I got was a lot of sympathy. They said they’d chat with the kids parents and that’s it. My DD still has to share a class with these kids and there’s been little consequence regarding this behaviour.

AIBU to expect the school to do something tangible about this? Especially considering the language used.

I wouldn’t move her from the school if she’s Year 6. You have to stand your ground with bullies.

Suggest using the school’s complaints procedure in the first instance. Threatening to kill a classmate at school, even when it’s kids just messing about, is disturbing behaviour and should be taken seriously. Most kids wouldn’t say that.

I’d encourage relationships outside of school at clubs etc. Will also help the transition to secondary. Ahead of secondary, make it clear to your DD these are kids who don’t understand kindness and the boy who suggested/joked he’d kill her is obviously pretty disturbed. And to realise she’s much better than them. So, why would she want to be their friend when they’re clearly so unkind and weird? It’s not healthy to want to be friends with abusive people, even if they act like top dog. They’re clearly weirdos or weak (so called friend who ‘laughed’).

Surely there are some kind children at the school she can hang out with, ideally ones who’ll be going to the same secondary. Perhaps help nurture those relationships via get togethers at your place or cinema trips etc.

This, and the OP is right, under KCSIE 2026 schools have a responsibility to act. I'm a teacher (secondary) and our DSL would definitely become involved.

@ OP, as a parent you have a right to see your child's school's safeguarding policy. Request this from the DSL. Don't go all ChatGPT legal on them but say that you're concerned that your DD is not being kept safe in education as threats made online referred to harming her at school and, following the meeting with staff, you weren't clear on what action the school were going to take.

And it is really hard not to let children have access to tech that all the other children have access to. It automatically creates an 'in group' and an 'out group'. Psychologically, this is extremely problematic territory for a primary aged child to navigate. As recent legal rulings have shown, the issue lies largely with the tech companies. Further, it shouldn't be down to individual parents to individually correct this problem. Instead, all parents need to be on the same page, i.e. operating collectively. So calling out this mom doesn't really achieve anything.

Where I work, this would be classed as online bullying and parents would be called in and spoken to, with further consequences for allowing the online bullying to continue. Online bullying can also include exclusion from the platform, and exclusion from school if they continue.

Whenever a kid is being unpleasant my kids (teens) just block any chat they're on and don't unblock. It infuriates the bully as they can't get to them out of school and still enables them to chat to actual friends (I'm not sure banning messaging for years 9/10 up is the best approach as they do turn naturally to their peers). It's been effective for them. The bullies tend to try to find someone else.

Can you take higher up to the school goveners? There is usually a safeguarding one.

Also 10 years olds can absolutely be held to account for death threats.

I'm very surprised nothing has been done. Similar happened at my kids school over WhatsApp and the school took it very seriously, notifying police so they would speak to children involved (and scare them a bit to be honest- death threats are a crime!!). Schools, rightly or wrongly, are supposed to safeguard children in and OUT of school and the duty of care doesn't end at the school gates.

I totally understand the dilemma of having a socially ostracised child and wanting them to be involved in socialising online to get friendships moving. It is really tricky as we all know these platforms aren't safe but washing your hands of it and having a go at parents for wanting their kids to be involved in this key part of modern socialising instead of addressing bullies seems short-sighted and frankly just one-upmanship.

Honestly OP, I hear you. Some of your responses to people are quite blunt, but I get that it's coming from a place of just wanting to help your DD.

As for the app, yes, it was a mistake, but I get that you were only doing your best, trying to help you child fit in, supervising the chat, but still, this happens and you're upset. Perfectly rational.

You've gone to the school and aren't happy with their response because when it happens outside of school, there's very little they can do. Sure, maybe the chat and threats have felt like they may spill into school, a valid concern, but unless it's happened at school, the school is so very limited in what they can do. If they did something like suspend the child, then the school would have those parents all over them too, saying it's not the school's business. They really can't win here.

What I will tell you, is that while they can't say is out loud, schools do wish parents would involve the police a lot more regularly. It's the only way to get some families to sit up and take notice.

I know someone people will say the police have better things to do and while they're not wrong, nipping this sort of behaviour in the bud in Primary School could be really helpful long term for society as a whole.

I'm sorry this has happened and I'm sorry your daughter was upset, but kids who bully others are genuinely very, very sneaky and they're very good at hiding the parts that happen in schools. Call the police and a few teachers and probably some other families will be cheering you on.

So would ours. In fact a couple of years ago it ended up with the police coming in to talk to the whole of Y6 and some individual conversations.

I agree with this. Framing these kind of kids as disturbed, struggling, really weird is very helpful for children when talking about things. And frankly any kid who is making death threats or encouraging another kid to do so has serious issues. Just say to your kid honestly they're a weird psycho who'll end up in jail, block and avoid.

None of the following being directed at you but I'm a parent who saw it from other side of the "fence".
When my DD was in secondary she was in a WhatsApp. One of the other parents reached out to us to say her DD was being frozen out, treated horribly. This was 1st time her DD had been allowed any social media.
Didn't get involved as my DD gave a very different view of what was going on off social media initiated by this girl.

If we allow our DCs to use social media there is a responsibility to make sure that their irl connections are good enough first and they are resilient.

The teachers are probably exasperated you allowed her in a chat group to start with tbh.

All this drama; they’ve got a job to do, parents could help them get on with it by removing screens and actually instilling healthy habits in their kids.

Does she do any hobbies? Brownies? Swimming? Gymnastics? Music?

Children of that age should NOT be on chat groups.
The end

"my DD gave a very different view of what was going on off social media initiated by this girl."
I'll bet she did!🙄

My 14 year old had a death threat on social media, it was in relation to an issue involving a classmate, but the actual threat was made by a student at another school. I screenshotted the threat and reported it to his school and the police. The police visited him at home and the school suspended him. We had no more issues with him.

I can't believe your daughter's school are trying to sweep this under the carpet. You need to nip this in the bud and report it to the police. The school will have to act then.

My sister had targeted death threats like this at school. This is a while ago so was on Facebook when you could all see each others walls. She was a bit older than your dd at 13 but we screen shotted them and went to the police who spoke to the children at their homes which gave them quite a shock. I think the DSL should be involved as a child has threatened to kill her st school and I imagine your child was pretty scared to go in. I think they should liaise with their school police offer to speak to the year group.

I would get her off the app and I would look into moving schools but that can be tricky at this point in year 6. Will she be in high school with them?

Mmm, I see this differently. Particularly at 10 years old yes there should be consequences for verbalising such a threat.This child has threatened to target op's child at school. As for saying they don't have means to make this happen, I don't agree, history of cases tell us differently.

Children can often be horrid to each other, and on-screen messaging apps just makes it visible to parents. I’m sorry your daughter has experienced this, but I bet the school does all the usual ‘be kind to each other’ training. If I were the teacher I’d probably have a word, because any chance to guide and influence is useful, but I wouldn’t be surprised about it. It happened in the corners of playgrounds 30 years ago, but fewer parents learned of it.

These apps seem to largely afford opportunities to perpetuate negative behaviours outside school and exacerbate them. 30 years ago kids weren’t memorising nasty things said months ago and repeating them verbatim! Now they just scroll to relive and recall all the horrible stuff. Nervous breakdown in a small box, IMHO.

The growth of phone use was one of the reasons I left secondary teaching, and now little ones are getting the same horror show.

“what’s being ignored by the teachers is the fact that obviously this toxic behaviour is going on in school”

well then focus on that. Ask them to sort out the bullying and the behaviour that’s happening in school. Don’t bring any phone/internet stuff that happens outside of school into it.

As horrible as it is kids do say these vile things to each other in the playground too. It looks really stark written down, and lots of intent gets lost, which is why they often need to talk to kids and their parents and there would be a wider chat with the whole year group too around social media and comms. Often kids forget what might be normalised in their smaller often gendered groups aren't normal elsewhere. I am not saying it is right, but this is genuinely how some kids talk to each other. We had stuff on a Yr6 whatspp group many years ago it was the point at which I massively cracked down on all social media /chats but we were a bit more naieve 5 years ago.

It's hardly a serious threat to life! The staff do not have time to police every silly thing said by a primary school child. And letting a six-year-old participate in a group chat is about as sensible as letting her play in traffic.

Primary schools are shit at dealing with bullying. Secondary school is another matter. Ours would definitely warn orla and sanction for off school social media bullying and threats and did so in Y7. And to the ex teacher upthread - 10/11 year olds can do a lot of harm physically sadly. I would follow up OP and copy in the head and safeguarding (if there is one). Is the bullying in school ongoing? I’m sorry your DD is having an awful time in school. Does she do outside clubs like Guides?

OP, so sorry you are having to go through this with your poor dd. Admittedly it's only my experiences but schools generally don't do much when it comes to bullying. I would speak with the police, given the serious nature of the threat.
To the posters that are up in arms regarding op allowing her daughter on the app. Do you not understand, the bullying was happening at school, nothing was being done. OP was monitoring the chat and this gave actual evidence, still nothing is being done.
There are many heads in the sand on this thread, quietly relieved it is not happening to your child, when it does I guarantee your replies would be different.

You need ti report this to the police as well as the school as they can take action. It maybe a threat but it maybe a warning so take no chances.

When my kids were each at primary school, year 5, they were also part of the class group chats. I monitored these also. In both chats I saw certain individuals bullied, in one case the girl was begging them to stop. These children were not my children but I couldn’t just ignore it.

Both times, I screenshot the full chat and I emailed them directly to the teacher.

Both times, my children told me that their teachers had called all those involved to come to class at lunchtime where she had the full chat in full view on the smart screen and the Head Teacher was also in the room. There could be no denying what they had done and were made to feel very ashamed of themselves. They were given individual punishments. One of their parents stopped taking to me - not that I cared, one child lost her place of becoming Head Girl etc, etc

I knew I had done the right thing for sure in one particular case as the girl being bullied randomly started to give me a wave and smile after school each day. I suppose it was her way of saying ‘thank you’.

@Itsjjustoomuch your school should be more proactive in sorting this. Also email the chat, it’s harder to ignore than just being shown it.

Hi, is there a parents whatsapp group you are part of? Is the boys parent in it? I would send a generic message not aimed at anyone in particular just saying that you have been monitoring your dc's messages and have come across some quite concerning comments in relation to your daughter and ask if they could please check their kids phones and address. They might not even be aware and hopefully they can call it out. I certainly would address that if any of my kids said such things. I know unfortunately not all parents care about this stuff or take it seriously but hopefully they 🤞.

There are things that the school could do. They are limited to a degree but they can certainly keep an eye out for your daughter.

My children have been bullied (we are Jewish so it's inevitable) and the school has always been very clear on where their responsibility stops. You need to separate things - what is happening 'in' school (they should address) and what is happening online (naught to do with the school really) and be really clear when you're speaking with them.

I will say the response from the primary school was pretty useless. My then 9 year old daughter was surrounded by a group of children shouting Free Palestine and stopping her from getting off a bus after a class trip. They followed her around at break and told her she had to pick a side and one child told her he hopes she and her entire family die. The school's reaction to that was to set up a 'restoration meeting' with me and the other parents. Very unhelpful.

In high school she was surrounded in the stairwell and then followed home by a group of older teenage boys yelling how they wanted to know where she lives so they could come find 'all of them'. The school addressed the part that happened on school property and I phoned the police about the rest. Whatever they did was effective as they've not done it again.

So with the second situation - some of it was at school (the guidance department did something - no idea what) and some was after school (the police did something - again no idea what). They were separate incidents for both parties. So really important to make a clear list of things that are for you to discuss with the school and things that are someone else's concern - and remember that you won't actually know what happens to the children or their parents, all you can do is keep getting in touch every time something happens to your own child.