AIBU or is this the wrong way for school to deal with alleged bullying

[thenovice]

In the last 3 weeks 2 children have left my children's primary school because their parents say they are being bullied and the school is not dealing with it. Prior to this another child left last year. 2 of the 3 were in the same class. Fortunately my kids are not in the classes concerned, but this sort of thing should not be happening.
In 2 of the cases the parents posted a farewell on the PTA FB page, explaining that their concerns were not addressed and that they were basically forced to leave quietly. In both cases, within minutes of the posting, the Head Teacher had ordered the chairman of the PTA to delete the postings. The order was complied with!
The school has an excellent Ofsted and there is a lot of competition for places. The Head has been known to say to parents "If you don't like it, there is a long waiting list of people who want a place...". If it was just 1 child who left, I could perhaps believe it was a parent over-reacting, but 3? Is this the standard school approach? What is a head allowed to do? The culprits (I think the same in most cases) will be getting the impression they are untouchable. Has anyone else come across this sort of behaviour by the Head?

Ridiculous behaviour from the Head.

Parents shouldn't be posting negative stuff about a school on FB.
Bullying should always be dealt with.

I pulled my children out of a primary school because of bullying.

I wasn't the only one.

I lost a lot of friends over it.

I would do it again in a heartbeat.

The parents can post what they like on their own personal FB pages.

The school will no doubt have some kind of policy or agreement, which parents are asked to read and agree with/sign up to when their child starts at the school, which will say something along the lines of "not criticising, posting confidential information, slagging off, blah blah, the school on social media", so posting that on the school's PTA page was a bit daft.

Wonder if this would happen if we still had the cane.

You are right to be concerned. In my experience the Head sets the entire tone of the school and if the Headteacher is not fastidious about dealing with bullying then it is not a good school, no matter what the results. That said, bullying can be very subtle and difficult to pin down. There should be known procedures in place at the school for how to complain about issues so that everyone is aware of how things can be progressed. The parents whose children are being bullied should email a daily record of what has been done/said to the school to keep them informed and to create a paper trail. If nothing is sorted by the teachers then the Head should be involved and if the Head does nothing then a complaint should be made to Ofsted. Children aren't born with social skills, they learn them from their surroundings. Unfortunately there is a massive shortage of Headteachers at the moment so this one may feel less incentivised to deal with a rather thorny issue that might otherwise.

Banana really? Because bullying never happened when teachers used to beat children? WTAF!

Sorry, you are right, I am sure there is evidence that the cane didn't work. Whenever a child kills themselves because of bullying I wonder if just as many children killed themselves when we still had the cane. There should be firm punishment but I am not sure what exactly.

Unfortunately bullying isn't recorded so OFStead won't pick it up - unless there are official complaints .

HT sounds horredous!

3 left frim DD class - she was one of them - best move we made