School denial that bullying occurs at all

[Notenoughsleepmumof3]

We removed our DC from primary school recently because he was beaten up badly at the school during playtime. No adults seemed to be around. It was not the first time. He had been repeatedly hurt his entire time at this school over the years by a number of pupils, but it often takes time to understand the extent of the problem if the child doesn't always talk about it. There is shame and embarrassment involved. What I can say, is that my child's attitude changed when he started at this school in reception. Drastically. They expelled the bully, who they had been wanting to get rid of for a long time, so that was that in their minds. However, this bully is just one of a larger group. After addressing my concerns over the years about general behaviour and pastoral care (I had and still have other children at this school), I felt like I was hitting a brick wall. My DC was not coping and could hardly go into the building so we made the radical decision to take him out and put him in another school in year 5. I wrote the governors, the head, had meetings with teachers, but nothing else was ever done to address the behaviour issues or the pastoral care for the victims of these issues. My partnership with the school felt broken, so I took him out. He is thriving now and happy for the first time. The change is remarkable and I feel guilty that I did not figure it out until he was pummelled and had his head bashed into the wall. There is another boy in his class who has also been target and the mother and I have spoken. It has been very hard for her and her son as well. She has written our local MP, had meetings with various heads and the school has been told her 'bullying doesn't exist at the school'. When she said she knows another parent (me) who removed their child because of it, the school told her that was a lie. This is an outstanding school.

Have others had this experience? It is so audacious for any school to say they don't have bullying because it exists at every school on some level, but given the circumstances I feel more compelled to speak out.

I have contacted parent view on ofsted, but other than that I have only been dealing with the school.

Ps with the scissor attack, school said it wasn't serious as they were blunt ended scissors...

This is why is like to see a central log of incidents - teachers actually listening to the whole story - and not making damp 50/50 judgements because they have somewhere else to be - it doesn't happen at work place bullying and you have a legal right not to be bullied - there is some discrimination thrown into these experiences as well - which is also illegal - so why are children not protected?

lack of will

The children are just numbers to them. They get their pupil premiums or their results. That's all that matters to the school. Statistics. Shameful.

hi i just read your posts and i now feel i am not alone, i was looking for answers to a similar problem that my daughter has currently going through 'bullying' and i feel there is no impartial body that i can turn to.

whats the point of 'governing bodies' if they are friends with the school who you are complaining about? surely this is wrong where do parents of children who are bullied go? i was told by the headteacher of my daughter's school that my daughter is a liar despite the fact that there has been communication back and fro me and the school of past incidents ...the schools governing bodies along with the LEA are together...there needs to be an impartial body! 😓

Name change above, but I was the OP. I'm really sorry to hear of your story. I've spoken to lots of parents over the years and the system isn't set up for parents to raise concerns across the board. I feel like that is what Ofsted is supposed to be, but it acts as a wall to protect the heads and schools more that the children. It can take years to get through the system of complaints and the schools will hire legal teams to fight it. They will try and intimidate you. I have a friend who has done this and gone through the council and every agency available. A lawyer took on her case for free because she felt her complaint was so strong. But, did it do anything? She doesn't think so and in the meantime, time is passing and her child is suffering. You have to be careful, because if you raise too much of an issue, the heads will make it very hard for your child to move to another/any school. And of course if your child is really suffering they may begin to act out and then they will label that child with behaviour issues or like your teacher calling her a liar. My advice, based on my experience is to quietly see if you can move the child to a different school before it gets worse and before the school turns it on you. That's what I did with my son, and it was the best thing I could have done. I know this isn't always easy. My friend mentioned above couldn't really afford to go private and no other state school would take her DS (they were either full or read what the head had wrote about her DS), but the council eventually moved him to a private school and footed the bill, but it took nearly 3 years and her son has suffered tremendously through the process due to time. I will say it is best to follow your instincts and just do what you can. And if you can find a good alternative, act on it. My DS is doing A-levels now and we still talk about what happened to him and how amazing the new school I sent him to was. They knew what had happened and they just blanketed him in kindness and it really helped his self-esteem. Honestly we couldn't afford it, but we borrowed money to send him there for 1 1/2 years and then he went back to a state Secondary and he's been good ever since.

This has been our experience too. Dd was badly bullied for a long time at her old school and I feel like a right mug now for believing the school. They gaslit me for years and insisted they were checking on her.

She's now in a new school and vetter but I'm furious the old school covered up what they'd done to her.

Governors, LEA all useless imo and the only way forward seems to be to remove your child from school.

Gaslit...that is the word exactly. 8 hours a day in an environment where a child feels unsafe and unhappy and is getting hurt and not feeling protected by the adults in charge causes tremendous harm and can cause future mental health issues all the way into adulthood. It's really hard to send your child into a building everyday when you know this is happening.

You can always complain, but when I did this they said the case was closed because I had already removed my son and was no longer a member of the school community. And yet, I still had a child at the school. I removed him the following year because I didn't feel they would care about him after I complained.

This is why I feel strongly there needs to be a parents advocacy committee set up by the education ministers to provide a fair system to checks and balances on the education sector. So there is somewhere to turn to for help.

Hi I totally agree, as a parent i felt very isolated, on one occasion as i was walking into the school with my daughter i heard the teachers mocking me on their radio...so how does a parent have any confidence in such a system when the parents are seen as a problem...

i have had a response via the board of gov saying that they feel that the school have been reasonable, and sent a further link..to which i am not surprised to discuss further even though i have removed my daughter from that school

i do not think parents have anybody to turn to ..there are no independent bodies overlooking a parents concern...impartiality is negative i can complain to the headteacher then the board of Gov the the LEA and so on...but there will be no resolve as they all stick together blanketing their faults..

another issue i had with school was one member of staff, who is not a teacher shouting and manhandling children when i raised an complaint about this particular staff, it was ignored...this particular member of staff also ignored the bullying my daughter was going through, which was witnessed by my daughter on many occasions, on one occasion my daughter, asked her for to help, instead of helping my daughter, she made an issue about my daughters uniform...she never dealt with the bullies and as the bullies were bullying my daughter infornt of this particular member of staff they the bullies became more confident ..it was obvious that she had developed a grudge against me and took it out on my daughter.

This old age system needs change !!!..bullying enters the home via social media groups are formed to intimate the victim, which impedes into the school and makes the victim more vulnerable to a hostile environment...lets as parents get together and help to make a more fair system whereby parents dont feel threatened by schools who really are not well equipped to deal with a situation that requires independent scrutiny via a different independent impartial body🙂

Blimey. I posted on this old thread. From 2016. 6 years ago!

Unless you go through it yourself you don't understand. That complaining about a school is pointless. My friend is a Top lawyer and she was shocked at the primary school: lies, falsifying documents, saying I'd signed documents I hadn't. She attended the school meeting with me. We got nowhere. Sent it to DofE. Got nowhere. It opens your eyes as to how the whole system is so wrong.

This just happened to a friend of mine. Nearly verbatim Oblomov22. So depressing. The saddest part was the damage done to her DS emotionally and educationally.

clearly this wrong and unjust! surely there has to be a way to bring this matter to the attention of the law makers ? children are being affected in such way that it is clear that schools protect the adults and their reputations over the victim

How is it that children who have no choice but to be removed from the schools that are not equipped to deal with such issues are being ignored educationally

i hope i am making sense when i say there needs to be a new system put in place and the Gov needs to address this matter urgently !

this is not going to stop children will be taken out of schools because of the current culture in the way schools deal with issues of bullying

only last week a MP was bullied and look at the coverage she got for it and the bully is exposed, even the MP's argued that there needs to be an independent body investigating the bullying issues instead of the same person who the bully works with and is friends with...

Is it not the Governments duty to put in proper impartial bodies? .....so if adults (MP's)have the same problem is it not time to create a system whereby a new structure is put in place?

The investigations are carried out by people who know one another...in the court of law isn't a judge supposed to be impartial there must be no link between them and the persons infront of the judge when deciding on judgement the judge must be impartial?

so yes this system is wrong unjust outdated not equipped for what children are faced with in schools ...so a change is needed!

The impact on bullied children is lasting and there needs to be a debate on this matter not faults blanketed of a system that is UNJUST!

I completely agree with you and I know there are a lot of other families and parents out there that do as well, but having been through this and watching another friend recently go through it post pandemic, I don't know the answer because my friend was on it. She had a lawyer, the local council, social services all on her side. The school had falsified documents, pushed back the review dates again and again, didn't provide her lawyer with the documents requested, had a board of governors call her and ask why she was doing this to the school and then accused my friend of unconscious bias (My friend is also a minority that is marginalised, so it couldn't have been further from the truth), but once He did that and he knew what he was doing, she was no longer allowed on school premises, she was no longer allowed to speak with people at the school. The whole thing was a nightmare. Meanwhile they put her son insolation for over a year and a half every day he was at school. Heartbreaking. They forced her out.

Horrible! This is why I'd never complain to school again, dd now is in a new school but I would move her again if the same thing happened.

Pointless to try to hold schools to account.

so if we cannot get a resolve are we as parents going to just allow for this to continue?

there has to be accountability... over the years institutions have been called to account and further measures have been placed.

It always starts somewhere and i do belief that unless this matter is not addressed this will continue, and children and parents will suffer because of this system of impartiality and lack of independent bodies...😞