My son just wants to be friends with his bullies

[Jk38]

My 5 year old is nearing the end of his first year in school and although he's the oldest he's been bullied by his two closest friends and I don't know what to tell him to do

The group of three have got on well mostly this year but child A started calling him names a couple of months ago, (told class teacher and it stopped) then child B was taking snack money from my son (if he didn't give it he would be excluded from child B birthday party) (we tackled that one directly with child Bs parents when he finally told us)

Tonight he's come home with bruises and told us child A has hit and kicked him on three separate occasions today (we're letting school know in the morning)

The thing is, at bed time I'm telling him to keep away from child A and child B and make other friends but he still wants to be friends (and he cant understand why they are nasty to him but pretty much is prepared to put up with being called names and hit rather than not have them as friends, he's worried he'll lose them by us conacting school tomorrow, but I've explained that we have to Obviously we want him to keep away from them but he wants to go back for more

What do I tell him (upsetting for me and his mum to listen to and we're stumped on what else to say to convince him they aren't really good friends) ?

Sound so so like my son who is 10.
Sadly it's the end of term, kids and staff are knackered. However, I would put it in writing to the school and ask them about their bullying policy.
Hopefully he breaks up soon and the summer holidays will be a well deserved break.
See how things go in September and if they start back up refer to your email
Good luck. It's awful when your kid is being picked on xx

Coming home from school with bruises is unacceptable. And I would be discussing that issue with the school, they have a duty of care.
Trouble is boys seem to stick with friends even when they're not true friends. And it's that magic number 3 ... always someone on the edge.
It's hard to encourage them to keep away from children when you as an adult know they are making bad friendship groups.

When he moves up a year do they move the classes around? That might help, but it's probably too late to do this as schools now broken up.
If it continues in the next academic year, perhaps you could ask the school to have some sort of bullying awareness activities, children need to learn names are hurtful just as much as physical violence.

I feel your pain as I went through this with my eldest, the whole 7 years of primary.

Keep on top of it, keep mentioning it to his class teacher, and if things continue and don't get better go higher, and keep going higher if you're not happy about the results.
My child had PTSD from his primary school years, and I don't mean to worry you, as this hopefully is just a small phase for your child to get past, but by 12 years old my child had suicidal ideations, and we needed to take serious measures to help him with this.

Thanks for the replies so far. The worst thing for me is seeing my son being a 'mug' and saying he's willing to accept what the other two are repeatedly doing in order to remain 'friends' (any adult mind would 'know' to move on). They will all move on up the same class next year, and I know it will be most likely be more of the same (I just didn't want him worrying all summer but he seems to have forgotten it for now) In fairness to the school, on his last day, his teacher got my son in a room, spoke to him about it, gave him the option to bring the boy in who'd hit in as well or separately. He opted for as well and they talked about why it is wrong and they left as 'friends' It's so hard though to hear your son say 'It's ok if they hit me, I just get upset when they call me names' Again in fairness to him, when we found out about the 'give me your snack money or you're not coming to my party' blackmail thing, my son did go straight back into after school club and ask the boy for his money back (so the positive is we did see him stand up for himself with minimal encouragement for us) I know all children will have their 'scrapes' at various points, it's just never easy when it's their turn Hopefully it's character building, never right, but sadly unavoidable it seems

My son who was bullied finally had enough ... maybe your son will get to the same stage. He actually pushed the bully over (didn't hit him). After warning the bully it would happen if it continued. When he was pulled up about it, he explained what had happened to the adult, explained he had warned the bully of the consequences of his actions, then walked off from the adult having said his piece.
I was so proud of him!
I know we must encourage our children not to do anything at all violent at school to support the school in it's policies, but in this case it worked, the boy left him alone for the rest of the year until they left to go onto their separate secondary schools.
So maybe your son will get there too! Sadly we can't be with them to protect them, and your son is learning a very important skill, albeit in an awful way, the skill of resilience. And goodness knows, we need that skill in the world today!