Bullying through primary school

[LemonBar3]

Hi everyone,
My son (11y) is about to leave Primary School. Sadly he’s experienced a lot of bullying through his school life. I moved him school’s just before lockdown. He settled well in his new school and things were ok. He had a few issues with 1 child but things were dealt with.
He’s never been a “popular” kid, which he doesn’t mind. He’s had a few friends to rely on up until Year 5. This new kid joined their school and he’s had nothing but trouble since.
This new kid is horrible to everybody. Mostly my Son, but always to everyone. My Son has bore the brunt of this kids behaviour for 2 years, both physically & mentally! School have always given me the speech “this child has a lot going on at home” ok, but why does that make it acceptable for him to bully others? Other children have problems too.
My son has ADHD, is a very sensitive boy, gets angry easily & suffers with anxiety & depression. We’ve experienced a lot of trauma in our home lives & some of the children in his class will bring these things up to hurt him. He’s constantly targeted by a large portion of the boys in his class for no reason. Things have escalated to the point of police being involved. It stopped for a little bit but quickly started up again.
School do absolutely nothing. Some of these children are sly with their behaviour & school will say things like “I don’t believe that, he’s such a nice kind boy” etc. even with proof of vile messages sent by these boys. My son has been suicidal over this bullying & neither school nor the parents of any of these boys seem to care at all. My son has had a lot of time off school because I refuse to force him into a building where he doesn’t feel safe!
His Teacher has said “his attendance is unacceptable & he wouldn’t struggle with peer relationships if he chose to attend school” disregarding the fact if they dealt with the bullying, he would attend school!
If 1 of them start with him, the rest of them join in. It’s pack mentality. It breaks my heart every day seeing my son so hurt when he’s never done anything to these children. He tries to be their friends even when they’re horrible! Some of them unfortunately are in his form group next year when he moves to senior school! He’s filled with anxiety & I have no idea what to do. How do I help him? :(

That sounds so hard for your DS. Can you get in touch with his new senior school and explain the situation. And ask for him to be moved so he won’t be in a new form with these bullies?

I found primary schools to be useless with bullying, secondary schools seem better. Hopefully he'll be put in a different learning group so he won't be in their lessons. If not that's something you could try to have changed? It's also possible that being a small fish in a big pond will make some of them wake up.
Does your child know any older kids at the secondary school? They might look out for him.

Have you told senior school and said he must not be in that form? Have you told school about the police incidents?

You need to do more to get him away from these people.

Sometimes you have to just move schools - what other local options are there? Get help from the local authority.

Martial arts classes?

I'm sorry you and your boy are going through that. Sadly in the same area the same people circulate so although it's a new School familiar faces end up there. If you want a real fresh start you'd have to move to a new town or city