Please help, school no help.

[itwascousinhalifax]

Name changed as possibly outing but really need advice. Long post so apologies in advance. I’ll try to keep it to the point.

DD11 has been having issues at school
for around 6 months, with bullying ranging from exclusion, silent treatment to cruelty (laughing at her when upset, making fun of her appearance/interests - she is not as worldly as most of them) from various girl groups in her class, sadly one of these groups included her then-friends (who she has known from nursery). It culminated in her being physically hurt by a girl much bigger than her on several occasions, with her being pushed, grabbed round the throat and slapped on the face. I contacted the girls parent to be told my DD was equally to blame.

Lots of phone calls back and forth to the teacher didn’t solve the problem of the non-physical bullying, though after contacting the parent this girl stopped hurting her. DD appeared to be stoic and told me although she was on her own at break times, she was fine. However things came to a head over a month ago when her mental health took a nosedive and she was telling me she was unlikeable and hated herself.

More phone calls to school, which resulted in teacher speaking to the girls and they changed their behaviour for around a week, inviting her to town and hanging around with her at breaks, for them to gradually leave her out again. By this time DD told me she wasn’t fussed as they weren’t being as unkind to her and were leaving her to it, rather than being overtly nasty. She has been playing with younger kids as likes to be active rather than standing around talking about other people (her words). Also, a few girls from the main group did try to include her but are generally overruled by the leaders of the group. Again, DD didn’t seem bothered, likely because she knew there was some kindness somewhere.

Fast forward to last week. The two girls who were being nice to her were speaking to her in Polish, which was swearing, insults and foul language (corroborated by another child from the class who overheard and was shocked, but wouldn’t share with DD what it was or tell the teacher, not through fear but because she is also a previous perpetrator and generally doesn’t do my DD any favours). She came home upset and told me they kept saying things to her repeatedly.

I called the school but was told the teacher had went home. Asked for her to call me the next day and if she was unable to, the Head. No one called me. DD came home from
school the next day and told me they continued to do it that day as well, with them also excluding her from conversations after drawing her in.

Phoned today to be told both teachers unavailable all week due to attendance at a residential trip, and that they basically sat on this message but wanted “to think about what do next”, then told it would next week before I would be able to speak to someone as management was “thin on the ground”. Bearing in mind, they did not know what the incident was as no one had phoned me back to discuss further, so how they planned to deal with it on the strength of this is beyond me. I asked if one of the depute heads could call me due to the escalation into swearing and foul language to be told they would “see what they could do”.

Where do I go from here? They have basically hoped that by them being away from the school for a week I will forget about it and go away. The teacher has previously admitted that they hoped it would be fine until she started secondary after the holidays.

Look up the bullying policy on the school's website to see what they should be doing and start putting things in writing then there is a paper trail. Even if they do phone you, follow that up with an email confirming what was said. Make sure they are following their own procedures and use the word safeguarding in your correspondence because they have a duty to safeguard your child which they are not doing.

Download an app on your phone that automatically records phone calls, that way you can type up an accurate account of what was said and if they deny saying something you can always say you recorded the call.

Keep a diary now of all events, times ie morning before break etc and get your DD to report everything to the teacher and to you when she comes home. The only way round this is to be relentless.

I would contact the secondary school she is due to go to and request that your DD is not in the same half of the year as these girls and name them. Explain primary is being useless and you want this to stop for secondary.

Never speak to parents about their child's behaviour. It happens in school it is deal with by school. The vast majority of parents think their child is a darling and so would back their child.

If you can spoil your DD, take her out of school for a day with a "headache" and spend the day watching films eating ice cream and cake.

Get her involved with clubs outside of school to cement some friendships there too.

What country are you in?

Given that these girls are being so mean to DD would she really want to hang out with them? Will she be going to secondary school with them?

Approach the governors?

This won’t achieve anything at this stage.

To approach governors you need to have submitted a formal complaint, following the school’s complaint procedure.

Thank you everyone for your replies. I appreciate every one.

@rulerofthepencils she has further transition days at secondary in 2 weeks where I suspect they will be told which class they are in. I will need to act fast - I appreciate the advice on this, particularly contacting them rather than primary school.

Re the parents, this particular incident occurred out of school witnessed by me as I sat in the car watching her coming along the road. DD begged me not to say anything to her at the time. That’s when I contacted her mum who I believed i had a good relationship with, however she completely pulled rank. I then told the school about it and they tried to minimise it.

@ChompandaGrazia it was a tricky situation. She had friends in the group but they were being told by ringleaders not to talk to her, so she was then purposely left out. Think big friend group where the dynamic can change quickly depending on who is there. She is intuitive and stayed away as she knew she wasn’t wanted, but it spilled over into class and gym where she was being left out of activities (teacher essentially enabling this as telling them to pick people and DD would be left out, then teacher would wonder why she was by herself). This prolonged and worsening exclusion really got to her and that’s when I called the school again, where to the teachers credit I don’t know what she said but she was included again for a short while. Because she was being included again by nicer girls in the group she was happy because for a while she was part of something. Sadly, when she is ignored she will stay away, then is told by the teacher to involve herself, essentially being told she is to blame.

@MoreChocPls where we are in UK no board of governors (I don’t think).

I would be phoning again tomorrow morning and ask for an exact date and time that the deputy head would be phoning me. Do they have a year 6 residential coming up? I'd want details on how they plan to ensure my DD was away from those girls at all times, separate dorm rooms, groups etc.

As far as I'm aware, every school will have a board of governors, the information might not be on the school's website though and you might have to do some digging on google.

Are these girls going to the same secondary school as your DD? If so, I would highly recommend at trying to find her a place in an alternative school (I know easier said than done, but it's worth even looking slightly out of area). My DD was bullied horrifically in primary, we thought we had nipped it in the bud and it went on for years in secondary until we found out the extent and got to the bottom of it. Horrible people don't change, and often get more malicious with age so unless it's a huge secondary, she will still end up with some contact.

I’m sorry this is happening to your DD, it happened to mine also a year in to secondary, then Covid hit so DD was at home, her happiest place and I wasn’t aware of extent of bullying, she went back, then it escalated, her friend had been drawn into the bullying group, as soon as physical threats started I never sent her back, we found a different secondary, and DD made some great friends and is pretty much unscathed by this awful group (including boys). You need to have your DD’s back, the school need to ensure her safety, if they can’t then I would consider withdrawing her now, and finding a different secondary. The group who threatened DD went on to beat other girls up, I saw a video placed on class FB, it made my blood run cold to think that could have been DD. We were in contact with the school the whole time but they were pretty useless, girls parents had been spoken too, etc, didn’t help much as they went on to pick on other kids.
Really hope you DD is ok.

@xmasdealhunter she is going to the same school unfortunately. It is a very big school however. Yes there is a residential which they are away on just now, my DD wanted to go at the start of the school year, however since this we made the decision to withdraw her from it, as she can go days without a kind word said to her at school, but home is her safe place. School very aware of reasons why she pulled out yet did nothing to challenge the bullies at the time nor tackle the toxic behaviour that is rife in the class anyway, as the teacher put it “what can you do, you get backlash from parents.” This is what I’ve had to deal with, it’s exhausting. But far worse for my poor DD.

In that case, and there is absolutely no chance of finding another school (do have a look on your local council's website to see which have space), I would get in touch with the secondary school today, outline the issues and explain that you do not want these girls in any of DD's classes. They should (and most likely will) accommodate this.

Does she do any clubs outside school? Summer is a good time to start these and if she makes friends there her confidence should increase in making friends at secondary school.

Definitely get in before any transition day at secondary. They usually sit them all in their new form with their new teacher. Here it is only one day unless the child is coming from a non-feeder school or they have additional needs so need more support.

I would email now even though it is half term and follow up when school is back open. I would mention her mental health as that seems to hold a lot of weight and rightly so. The reason I say other half of the year is because they start off in their form but then some subjects that are setted such as maths and English mean they get a mixed class, the same with PE too. This is why you want to get ahead of it.

They also do positive friendships too so if there is someone you would like her with you can request that too. It does sound like the school have had a lot to deal with behaviour wise but that does not excuse their lax response. Hold them to their bullying policy, sadly you have to be relentless.

I’m surprised that someone at the school answered the phone on a bank holiday!

Normal school day here.