I feel like I'm going mad.
For a while now my 5 year old (in year 1) has had issues with a classmate. At first nothing seemed particularly directed at my son. He'd come home with, and perhaps I'm being naive here, stories of behaviour that seemed to me very inappropriate for 5/6 year olds: that this boy had spent lunch time running round shouting "I'm going to kick you in the nuts" and trying to kick anyone in site, that this boy would make the girls play a game he called slaves even if they didn't want to... etc etc, it felt like every day it was something new. It got ridiculous.
Then about 6 weeks ago my son woke up in the night having had a nightmare, saying it was about a game called prisoners that this boy had them all playing. The next night the same thing. He was terrified. I mentioned it to the teacher, she said she'd talk to them as a class. We worked on encouraging our son to play with others if the games this group were playing were too scary etc. Then came report's that this boy has a game called "run away from...name" which is as it sounds. My son said he usually picked someone different every day and whoever it was would be upset but that for over a week it had been him every single day. Then another nightmare, apparently this boy had given my son a very detailed account of how he was going to skin him alive because he'd knocked his tower over, allegedly by accident. Nightmares and tears galore over that particular one. I'd talk to the teacher, she'd say she'd watch them keep them apart encourage my son to make other friendships. A lot of emphasis on my son and what he can do to move away from this but I figured that's because he's my son.
Then the latest one: my son is in tears getting ready for school. Says he doesn't want to go because this other boy got a nerf gun for his birthday and has said he's going to bring it into school and shoot him and kill him. If he tells anyone he'll find him on the way to school. Obviously I explained what a nerf gun is, that it can't actually do any damage, but this boys has insisted it will kill my son and he's terrified. I tell the teacher, says she'll report it to the head. She checks in with me regularly and I repeat various other goings on (the boy threatened to stab him in the eye, a few other violent threats) and she continues with was my son can keep away from the boy. He starts mouthing "I'm going to shoot you" at my son across the classroom, my son confesses late one night he can't concentrate because he's too scared.
I assume given how violent and specific the threats are that the other parents have been informed but during this time I get 3 messages from the mum asking if my son wants to come round for a play date. I decline, just saying no thanks hope you have a good week - feeling a conversation between us might not be particularly productive. On the third one, I ask the teacher if they're aware as the playdate requests seem odd - she says no!! They haven't felt its quite reached that point yet. The teacher suggests a few more things to try first, both requiring my son to make sacrifices and try and make new friends. There's more this is just a very long post already. I feel like I'm going mad, does this seem like an appropriate response from the teacher? My son said he sat on his own at playtime last week as the teacher had reminded him not to play with this other boy and he couldn't think who else to play with. It feels like he's being punished for being bullied. I'm thinking of going to the head teacher tomorrow, does this seem appropriate?
I should say, I have another son at the school who is 2 years older in year 3. He tries to intervene when he can and go get a teacher but has witnessed many of these things happening. I don't feel my eldest would lie, he's a very honest boy and has autism so it's really not in his nature to do so. My youngest, I mean he's only 5 but he's good natured and usually very happy and easy going. The difference we've seen in him this last month is awful