Should I go down the complaints route?

[wanttoleavesooner]

Trying not to go into too much detail as the situation is quite specific, but ultimately we have given notice to leave after a situation in the boarding house meant boarding is impossible where DC is at. There were physical and verbal threats, self harm in front of my DC, invasion of privacy, using tech to access and show porn and a general lack of care to all boarders by the matron that allowed (and still does) this to continue unnoticed. I took DC out immediately after an incident which was minimised by the school Head and Pastoral and we have been trying to juggle living closer to the school to keep DC there. I've had to change my work and our living standards have dropped considerably. At the time I didn't complete any complaints procedures and was largely worried with the mental health of the children involved, which was again minimised - the student is still boarding and their family are unaware as they live abroad. They've put a new boarder in this person's dorm, which terrifies me also. DC has also reported that since the incident they have been left out of celebrations - multiple certificates won not given in assembly and has been demoted from a sports A team to B, which they have now chosen to stop participating in. It has caused anxiety (which I've had to pay for therapy for - school didn't offer for my DC or any others involved) and DC has to see this person daily.
DC has been accepted to another school where they can board. Head at current school has said we have to wait until April to leave (I understand T&C I signed). My question is, given everything that has gone on, would I be wise to now complete a complaints form for this even from a term ago and hope this enables DC to leave sooner? We just want our lives back to where they were and feel as though we are being somehow punished for the school's lack of action.

Complete a complaints form, tell them when you'll be leaving and tell them also that you're consulting a solicitor about breach of contract. Do consult the solicitor.

Raise a safeguarding concern with your local children’s service. What you are suggesting is happening is institutional neglect.

Bloody hell yes. And I'd be notifying Ofsted or the ISI (whichever applies).

She won't get anywhere with a breach of contract claim as she's clear in OP that she has not exhausted the complaints procedure (ie not looked for remedy within the contract before deciding the situation cannot be remedied and the contract broken)

Only when the complaints procedure has been used and no resolution found will third parties get involved

Have you kept a paper trail, of the complaint you made each and every time something came up, plus school's response every time?

Without evidence, you are likely to lose if unpaid fees came to court, and the school would tell any regulators (probably truthfully as OP says she's not been following complaints procedures) that this was the first they'd heard of it and had they known they would have acted.

Best course of action now is immediate move, and somehow find a way to pay the fees in lieu of notice. You can't leave DC there, but also you have to accept that your decision not to use complaints procedure contemporaneously has limited your options now.

Yes, I did consult a solicitor who said the same re abuse. He thought there was a clear case, but wanted to charge £350ph and suggested if DC was happy there it may cause more trouble. At the time DC did not want to leave, and to be completely honest, I was a mess as my best friend committed suicide the month beforehand. I didn't take it further than the LA, LADO who agreed there was a huge issue and abuse but as it is an independent school they couldn't do anything. Now I am stronger but am unsure if I can do a complaint so many months after the event? DC now wants to leave as feels ignored. I am now quite ashamed that I didn't have the strength to do more. Since then I've been busy moving and trying to work everything out financially and feel I may have been deliberately distracting from the seriousness of the issues.

Yes I have a huge paper trail. HM and Pastoral even said they felt I was emailing too much (when DC got home more came out and I was trying to update them each step) to the point I felt completely batty. I can certainly show a huge safeguarding issue as the child was sent into school the next morning after a few hours sleep - Pastoral said this meant they were fine, even after clearly threatening people 7 hrs beforehand and self harming. Privacy concerns haven't been altered either (all boarding house issue) and the guardians have privately confirmed to another guardian they have not informed the parents, so presumably no MH needs being met.

If I start a complaints procedure now, can I not argue it is bad for everyone involved to keep DC there? The emails are all very clear on what has happened and the people on the governing body etc will know nothing has been done in the months since, which surely makes it worse?

Go and see the solicitor again. You've referred to T&C that you believe mean you can't leave until April. I'm assuming that's about giving a term's notice (but that's an assumption as you've not explained). You won't be bound to honour those T&C, though, if the school has committed a repudiatory breach of contract and you've accepted it, by removing your child.

A decent solicitor will need to charge you for providing help. In your position I'd see the solicitor again.

look up you local authorty safeguarding officer - LADO- just seen you have done this. Cannot believe that they said nothing they can do, that is literally their job! Go back to them and ask them how you proceed, as there are safeguarding breaches which show abuse.
Make a report to them. Some of the things you mention are neglect (lack of care), some are sexual abuse (exposing kids to sexual images) some are emotional abuse (bullying), some are physical abuse (you don't specify what that was.
If all those are present in the boarding house, then there is a serious and illegal breach of safeguarding.
Abuse is a criminal offence. You could go to the police and ask if there is a case to answer.

Put in a formal complaint via the complaints procedure.
But also find out who the safeguarding officer (designated safeguarding lead) is. Copy the details of the complaint to them, and spell out what is abusive as I did in the first paragraph above.
Get a copy of their safeguarding policy, they are legally required to have one. Go through it and highlight all the breaches and see what they are suposed to do.

Report to Ofsted and ISI.

If the school does not act on a clear safeguarding issue like this they actually risk being closed down, even temporarily.

This is serious.

Oh and when you have done all that (!)

write to the governors and say that you have had to withdraw ds due to his deteriorating mental health after suffering abuse at school. he will leaving forthwith and not returning. If they want any more fees then go to small claims court for them. (that is what I would do, not official advice. The stuff in my previous post if what I would do as a safeguarding Officer)

Thank you all for the replies. I did report to LADO and they said they agreed but nothing has come of it. The school got an "excellent" in the assessment after this from the ISI despite me telling them what had happened on the parent survey - I do feel I should have complained for them to take it seriously beforehand but it is very concerning that it still got the highest grade.

Yes, solicitor and I both said sexual abuse, bullying and extreme neglect and safeguarding. I do wish in hindsight I had continued with him as he was clear it would be an easy case to win. I may go back to him for a letter saying we will take them to Court as this was his suggestion before I feel I had a bit of an emotional breakdown and decided to move instead.

A good friend has suggested I meet/email with the Headmistress and ask nicely to leave at the end of this term, given the circumstances. If she refuses to then start the complaints procedure as there is more to add on the general school side now, since the incident. After the last meeting with the HM and Pastoral when they refused to let me record the meeting, as per my solicitor's advice, I felt very beaten, so I am hopeful they will agree.

They can force you to pay till April not stay till April.
I’d pull her out immediately.

I have also just looked at the Complaints Procedure and it states that to progress to stage 3 where a panel decides, rather than the HM who I was complaining to primarily before, it has to be done within 20 days, so I am out of the time limit. Am I right in thinking that, as I didn't lodge any formal proceedings at the time, other than the emails to the Head I could now start another process for the same issues that have not been resolved via my solicitor if they refuse to let her leave?

The school can't stop you from leaving before April - you can leave whenever you choose - it's just that they won't allow you not to pay until April. So the questions are a) can you afford to pay until April while also paying for another, safer school, and b) if you can't afford to pay for two schools' fees until April, is it worth your child's self-esteem and happiness to keep them at this school until April? If the answer to b) is no, then options are home-schooling for a bit, or another less-expensive school.

And yes, threaten to go to a higher complaints body. That might focus the bursar's mind on whether the financial loss in losing your fees a few months early is worth the financial loss the school might incur in either fines, or lack of new applications once poor safeguarding and general unkindness of the school towards it's students (not announcing prizes in prize-giving, demoting them in sports team - honestly, how spiteful they are!) is made public.

And I've just re-checked the LADO emails and realised that after I emailed them detailing the abuse they asked me to click a link to do a set form, which came up with a 404 error code. I emailed them to get an email address of someone to send the complaint to but had no reply. It's all coming back now, why I threw my hands in the air with it all at the time. I still have the original emails to them listing 14 points of abuse and neglect. They've clearly done nothing with it.

There you go - email them again - forwarding your original email(s), and say you are still waiting for a response to your report of the 404 error code and as such have not been able to submit your complaint. Given that you were unable to submit your complaint due to their failure to enable it, the deadline is therefore irrelevant and moot.

that is why there has been no action.
email again, and say that their clicky link didn't work. This time follow through and fill in the forms.

Go to head and say that you are putting in a complaint based on safeguarding. There is no legal limit on safeguarding, so if she/he says that the complaint is outside of the time limit, remind her that there is no legal limit for a safeguarding complaint.
At the same time, look on the website and find out who is the Designated Safeguarding Lead (it may be the head) and who is the safeguarding trustee. and governor. I say trustee because most private schools are charities and they are run by trustees. By law they must have a safeguarding trustee.
Make an summary account of all the incidents. try and be specific, but at the same time factual. Name the abuse. Try and keep it to say one A4 page. Send that to the head, to the safeguarding trustee and safeguarding governor, and to IS.
If you have any meetings with the head, take someone with you who can make notes. Make factual notes of the conversation. If you think he/she is saying something outrageous, challenge - can I just confirm that you are saying that do not have a problem with 12 year old boys watching porn in their dormitories? Then ask the note taker to minute that comment. That is nearly as good as a recording.

Thank you @steppemum that's very useful advice.

I have had DC in tears last night begging me to go to the new school sooner. Wrote to the school to explain distress and highlight other issues and asked for them to let DC go earlier, amicably. Just had an email from HM saying that nothing is stopping me removing DC sooner but she understands paying for 2 schools may not be financially viable and suggests I contact the new school to see if I can get a discount! <yes my eyebrows raised at this point>

So it looks very much like I will need to reply with "Thank you for your response, which clarifies your stance. Sadly that leaves me no choice but proceed with LADO and my solicitor to recoup costs. I will not be requesting a discount from the new school, who should not be paying for the safeguarding issues on your behalf" Or similar. Any wording or suggestions for the response would be very much appreciated.

Looks like I've got a lot of calls and emails to the LA and my solicitor tomorrow!

This situation sounds really bad for both your DC’s and your mental health.

Why are you not just putting DC in a local state school where they can walk to school and heal etc? I think unfortunately these private boarding schools have so much power because a parent relies on them giving a reference for the next private school. So they close ranks to protect their staff and budget. The bottom line.

However, if you took the state route you could threaten to expose them in the press not naming either your child or the other child involved - that would be illegal due to safeguarding.
When all of this happened this school should have offered your DC free counselling and a place in another house immediately. And dealt with the other child via counselling and screen controls.
In addition, if you gave specifics the ISI should have followed up too. Absolutely shocking OP.
You are not in the wrong here! Go back to your solicitor and if they want a messy legal case, bring it on. However, yes I would be writing to the governors etc detailing everything.

DC and I had an open discussion about schools when they were in (state) primary. We were in a grammar area and they unexpectedly passed 11+ with no tutoring. Unfortunately due to the pressure we know those children are under, and ironically the MH issues some friends who did go are already struggling with, we decided DC works better with carrot than stick. I went to a boarding school myself and loved it; we had so much to do after school and I got to try things I would never have been able to outside of the school. I gained lifelong friends and hobbies and felt it was very worth it. This experience has been far from that, with only 3 other pupils boarding in DC's year and absolutely no properly coordinated clubs after school. They were bored and made to stay in dorms on their tech as they weren't allowed to walk around the school unsupervised! What I hadn't realised was that when they listed "50+ clubs" they meant short 30min sessions crammed into the already tight 1hr lunch break. So not exactly fencing, trampolining, beekeeping type activities, as you can imagine.

Anyway, I won't go on about the other issues. I don't actually feel I need to email the HM back to explain what I am doing. I've offered an amicable resolution and it has been rebuffed, so I will just get on with it from my side as @steppemum suggests. I already have a 14 point list that I sent to LADO which was concise and to the point, so half of the work is done. I'll cc in the Pastoral Lead (as I did with the amicable request this morning) and find the ISI, trustees and governors emails from their school site too, so they'll all get it at the same time. I'll add "the school has committed a repudiatory breach of contract and you've accepted it, by removing DC." and they can expect a letter from my solicitor to confirm (thanks for that @LeakyPipes ).

You've all helped so much, I am extremely grateful for the hand holding and support.

You ought to tell the parents of the other child directly that their child is self harming.

So sad that no-one is looking out for this clearly troubled 12 year old.

Yes @muggart I agree that the school should have made sure that the parents were aware by contacting them directly. I was extremely concerned about the MH of all children at the start, and still am although I have now got to look out for my own DC. I was extremely worried at the time as the child was sent into lessons the next morning as if nothing had happened without any time for a proper MH assessment. If they had done something to another child I felt the parents would have turned on me for knowing and not saying anything - they still might if anything happens in future. As mentioned, their parents live abroad and the guardian has told another guardian that they have not passed on the information. I do not even know if they were aware of this particular situation. The child was subsequently found with images on their tech and suspended along with a few others (who were witness to the attack) which I feel was a ploy by the school to show the witnesses not to support my DC with what happened on the night they were attacked. The suspension was only really for 1 day as it happened before end of term and explained away as they had to fly home. Again, I suspect the parents weren't informed directly of this suspension, which would mean they would be unable to agree to medication which I feel is possibly needed for this clearly unstable child. The lack pastoral and MH care of all DC has been truly worrisome and IMO neglectful in itself.

I have been busy today putting the ducks in a row - will update when I hear more from emails to the governers/trustees/ISI (who have confirmed receipt)/LADO, etc.

Surely the HM wouldn’t want all this pulled apart in a public argument if you just pull DC out and refuse to pay the terms fees?

You are very brave and very patient OP. In your shoes, I think I would have gone straight to the police. I know they don’t really prosecute under 13s but I would have definitely spoken to them and consulted them to the point the school would have to take things seriously. I would always think if this happened in a state boarding school, what would Ofsted have done, what would the LA have had to do. At the very least this school’s tech safeguarding is a total failure and I would not let them gaslight you or your child.

@WarningOfGails well, I did try to do it quietly but they seem to think it is worth it for the term's fees! They've already lost 2 other boarders (leaving Jan) from this situation. It's a complete mess and all largely because they've followed the House Mistress in minimising rather than resolving the issue properly and with the safety of DC in mind. Very shortsighted.