I'm not sure if my daughter is being bullied???

[MamaGEO]

DD is in year 4 in primary, and has always had challenges making friends with her classmates....there's alot of people refusing to play with her for all sorts of random reasons, or none at all. I've asked the school to look into it. Even to the point of asking their opinions on my daughters behaviour to others to see if there's something we can work on at home - but there doesn't seem to be an appetite to help.

DD doesn't have this issue outside school, and always finds friends in other activities, holidays, etc.

But she's really unhappy at school, and I'm worried about her mental health.

Can anyone provide any advice on what I could do next?!?!?

What are the behaviours of the other children?

Have you spoken to the senco? Does the classroom teacher feel that your child behaves socially age appropriately?

Thanks for responding 😀

There's alot of exclusion, ganging up with eachother to exclude her. Saying she cant play because they dont need anyone else, but then allowing other people to join in, etc. It started off with a couple of girls, but now everyone is doing it.

If it was just a particular group, I wouldn't mind, bit she's coming home saying she hasn't played with anyone because they've all refused......

Exclusion is a form of bullying. I found with my kids this kind of behaviour really ramped up in y4, especially with the girls, it’s like their hormones cause them to become a bit nasty.
I’d speak to school again in the first instance and say it’s beginning to have an effect on your daughter. Sounds like they need to be getting the whole class together and speaking about how they should be treating each other.

My daughter had this sort of odd experience with groups and exclusion in highschool. I moved her to homeschooling and then to one of these new fangled ’academies’ and she suddenly made loads and loads of friends.
Looking back the school environment was a very toxic one, lots of snide remarks about appearance or anything at all that would make someone stand out. It had turned into a dog eat dog environment where everyone was just miserably trying not to bullied while being harassed by teachers about wearing the wrong socks etc.
Bottom line is I thought my daughter was a bit introverted and socially awkward, turns out she’s great but school was crap.

The same thing happened to my daughter (same age), I feel for both of you as it can be so soul destroying and their confidence takes a big hit. I had a chat to the school so they were aware and also contacted a few of the parents. The parents had no idea and were shocked, they all spoke to their kids about being includers. She lost a couple friends in the process but then was able to move on with a new high school and make new friends. She now knows which kids she shouldn’t bother wasting her time or energy on and can spot a ‘good friend’