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.

What happens online outside of school is not the schools problem to deal with

Do that to the children’s parents not the teachers then.

Why should schools be sorting out problems caused by parents allowing underage children on an app. Why can’t parents parent their own children?

What the child did was illegal. Grow a pair and tell the police.or will you wait until your daughter does get murdered? The school are acting dumb but know full well this is a safeguarding issue, or depending on if the boy has also been uttering incel crap, a sign of extremism.

Exactly this!!! It didn’t happen at school. It happened on your watch so you have to deal with it.

Take away the app/ social media element. If it was a bunch of kids standing outside school/ in the park and one kid said to another what this one did, and said the incident would happen in school. Would school do more then?
school have a duty to safeguard in school, parents outside of school.

school should do something about it. If something happens to your dd in school and they failed to act and put safeguards/ monitoring in place then they will be at fault.

if school don’t do anything I’d report to the police.

Good points- of course we would talk to the children, remind them of the rules, speak to individuals etc, monitor behaviour and of course look carefully into the 'death threat'. The reason alot of teachers are annoyed with the tone of the OP's follow up posts is the apparent misunderstanding that teachers are responsible for policing poor parenting (allowing Y6 kids onto class WhatsApp groups-this never, ever, ever ends well) and poor behaviour from children (allowing Y6 kids onto class WhatsApp groups-this never, ever, ever ends well) that takes places at home/the weekend/after 3.30/off the school premises. This is a parental responsibility, not a school one.

OP hasn't posted since 5.30am this morning.

It's still not clear what the in-school bullying is and what action the OP and school have taken. It's completely reasonable to expect the school to follow their own anti-bullying policy, absolutely, and in that position, I would (and indeed have) be directing the school towards their policy and requesting in writing that they follow it.

Going to the police is an option, although it's hard to take a line that this is a credible death threat if it wasn't reported to the police immediately and the child continued to attend school.

It's awful as a parent to see your child being frozen out of friendship groups - the feeling of powerlessness is terrible. But ultimately the only thing that you can control - including Y6 friendship dynamics - is how you deal with something. Limiting a child's exposure to other children not including her in their circle and encouraging other friendships is probably a bit more worthwhile than banging on about the school 'doing something' tbh.

But the school already followed their bullying policy.

I have asked the OP this twice. I still would like to know her answer. What, precisely and exactly, would she like the school to do?

Threats to kill are a police issue OP.

Yes. I would have gone directly to the police with this. Schools are not obliged to take action if they believe there is no real or clear risk.

OP should have immediately gone to the police, and that is what needs to happen now.

Once informed of a credible threat by the police the school's safeguarding lead and the head will then be forced to conduct an immediate risk assessment and they will have to implement safety measures which might include isolation, or adjusting schedules.

The police should have been the first step and that's where the OP needs to go immediately. Either she thinks this is a credible threat to her child - which means police - or not.

This reads like you want the school to parent so you don't have to.

HTH

No it doesn’t read that way, or help.

Did they? I missed the post where she referenced their bullying policy and what they’ve done as a result.

They are in Y6 so above the age of criminal responsibility. The school can choose- they deal with it, or you'll involve the police so they can handle the matter.

School aren’t responsible for monitoring children’s online interactions. That’s a parent’s job. Get your child off the internet. Contact the police about the threat to kill.

I don't think my first thought would be "oooh, Marjorie my boss needs to sort this out tomorrow", I think I'd be going down the route of the police.

"They said they’d chat with the kids parents and that’s it" that is absolutely standard school policy. The reality is that unless the school believes there is a credible threat, they don't have to do anything when nothing took place on school grounds. That's their policy, that's what they are doing.

OP needs to go to the police. Either she believes this is a credible threat of harm, or death to her child, or she doesn't. If she does, she goes to the police and at that point the school will be far less likely to claim they don't think there's a credible threat and will have to launch a safety investigation.

At this point, the school are, indeed, following their own policy. This is standard. But you already know that :)

Yep. Either the OP thinks this is a credible threat to her child, or she does not. If she does, obviously she must contact the police. That's exactly what I would have done.

You are allowing your 10 or 11 year old daughter to be on an app with a minimum age of 13 outside of school, and now it’s the teacher’s job to sort that out?

I was responding to a poster saying that this is nothing to do with the school and was a parenting issue.