Feeling at a loss with how to move forward regarding school problems

[Sa999]

Sorry if this is a very long post I was hoping someone out there might have been through a similar situation and offer some words of advise.

My daughter current year 5 (aged 10) has had a very difficult time at school.

She has struggled with friendships at school as she is very much a Tomboy playing drums, karate and never really fitted in with the girl group. She has had a try a getting to be friendly with a few girls but is always muscled out by a little girl A. This girls A mum is the typical alpha at the gate and has a group of other mums that she stands with and all run the Pta ect. I am a single parent and work full time so often not at drop off or pick up (grandparents help me) my DD is friends with a few of the girls outside of school but doesn't play with them at school because of A. A few years ago it was so bad I wrote to school about it and unfortunately nothing much was done.

The last two years the boys who she previously didn't have too many issues with have also become very mean to her.

She is now getting into trouble at school and is seemingly being made a scapegoat for any incident that happens in school. She has come home upset about being punched and hit and excluded and then blamed by the teachers for starting the incident.

I'm not delusional she's no angel she can be cheeky and rude but I felt that she was getting such a raw deal that I have pursued my complaint to the governors (who say school are doing everything they can to support her)

I submitted a subject access request and have since receiving it found that school consider her to be a liar /the instigator of all incidents she's involved in. It paints a very different picture to the child I have at home (her cub leaders nd karate and drum teachers all say she is a lovely well behaved girl)
I understand that she is quiet possibly very different at school but struggle to believe she is instigating every incident and going out of her way to talk to children she doesn't get on with.

There is A and her two best buddies a group of 3 boys 4 of which are related to teachers in the school that she is always in incidents with. Their parents who are all good friends with A's mum have all written in complaining about her and say I aggressively stare at there children and have sworn at there children when walking home (none of which I have done)

I desperately want to move her schools as I feel she has been labelled a trouble maker and while I accept she is by no means perfect I think that even if she was the best behaved child in the world she would still be the class scapegoat.

However moving her is difficult, my elderly parents who do the majority of the school run would struggle to get her to the only other schools in our area as they are a lot further away I can't afford to change job or find a childminder to take her and I really see how depressed my child is to have few friends and be blamed for everything.

I feel so bad, because if my daughter is as awful as they say I have let her down and if she isn't and is being picked on I have also let her down.

Well, all other children and adults in the school think she is the one causing problems, so she probably is.

That is not to say she doesn't need help and support, and particularly if she is staying in the same school, then she needs help from them.

Can she move classes? Can she get any TA support? Can she get any form of emotional education, intervention, therapy, coucelling in the school?

Can you set up any sort of reward programme for her at home?

You don't want this behaviour to become entrenched before she move on to senior school

This must be horrible for you all Op.

You say you accessed a FofI request - how much have you been engaging with school about the situation? I imagine they must have invited you in to share all your concerns?
Although it's hard, you've got to show your daughter that there can be a way out of this by collaborating together. Would school staff be aware of A and her involvement or would it come as a surprise? Girls can be expert in hiding their meanness. Do talk with school as much as you can and try not to burn any bridges.

You say that some of the children are those of school staff - you must try to avoid making this into an us Vs them situation if you can. It's something to be won that way.

Thank you for your reply, yes I asked for her to be moved but was denied.

I have taken her to the Gp who referred her to cahms and the response from cahms was she is being bullied and they can't help. School have said they cannot fund any councilling as it is too expensive. She is seen by the Elsa team each week.
I wish I was able to fund something myself. (unfortunately my daughter suffered a great deal of trauma very young witnessing the traumatic death of her father school etc are aware of this)

I will try to do better in order to make everyone's lives easier.

Is she willing to move? At her age I would be working towards getting to and from school independently. Is there a school she could walk to even if grandparents can't? Or a school near where you work which has somewhere like a library which she can go to afterwards? The downside of this is her having to go there even on days when you don't work. I would also have discussion with the secondary school once assigned and be clear about the extent of the bullying and not being in the same classes.

If she is regularly punched and hit then I would use phrases such as 'failing to safeguard her' which might encourage the school to take more action especially if CAHMS will support the request to change class.

Is she going into her final year at primary? If so I’d do everything with secondary in mind. I’d chose a new school that feeds the secondary she’ll go to and see about her travelling there independently or use an after school club.

wow! and don't think you need to do better! I think your daughter needs trauma councelling - she may well have ptsd. Another possibility is an attachment disorder - when young children see their parents lose control of a situation, it can trigger a survival mechanism by which they don't develop normal close relationships, and instead are emotionally much more independent and isolated - could this have happened do you think? it happened to my Godson after watching his mother have epileptic fits aged about 2 and 3.

I’m sorry your dd is having such a hard time. This sounds like a very difficult situation and personally I think that moving schools is probably the only way you can hopefully break the pattern. However, given what you say about traumatic early experiences, I think you also need to prepare yourself that she does have some difficulties relating to / engaging with others as a result of that and is likely to need support to overcome those difficulties.

Her current school does not seem able / willing to support her however, which is also why I think a move could be a sensible course of action.

I'd suggest going to your GP and asking them to refer her back to CAHMs for PTSD and other trauma assessments. As a PP has said it can take a number of forms which can affect the way she interacts with others. She may not be aware of how she comes across and what seems to her to be an innocent interaction might come across as provocation to someone else.

Thank you all for your replies I am very grateful for all of your advise as I am struggling to find a way to help everyone involved on my own.

She is in her last year at primary and there are three local senior schools all of which I have friends children at who say the schools are good. The children she is at school with will all go to these schools and I desperately hope my daughter can find a way to get along with them.

I will try and arrange a meeting with the current head to see what he feels I can do to help. The two other primary schools near to us are both already oversubscribed so the chances of me getting her into one she could realistically walk or cycle too are slim.

I will try again with my GP to see if there is any way they can help her as she certainly is suffering from the effects of loosing her dad.

Thank you all for making me feel less alone

If you have a local hospice they often offer free counselling to people affected by bereavement. I had some counselling when my DD died with the local hospice and they were excellent. I went to them because that was their specialism and I trusted them, we made a decent donation which was not expected as it’s a free service but we could easily afford it.

We also used a local hospice for bereavement counselling for our son. It was excellent.

Also, just to bear in mind schools can lie. I don't say that lightly as teachers work so hard and have a tough job but we had a few incidents with bullying with our son and the teachers lied about it. We had proof that this was the case otherwise I would never have thought it possible.