Advice needed on how to deal with inappropriate touching

[Vallmo47]

Going to try to keep this as factual as possible even though it’s upsetting. Thank you for reading/advice.

DD11 (Year 6) was inappropriately touched in the chest region by a boy in the same year group 2 days ago. DD reported incident (witnessed by 3 friends) to the boy’s teacher. Teacher failed to communicate incident to myself, the boys parents, or any other staff in school and my DD was too embarrassed to tell me. No repercussions to boy as of yet. Found out about incident through a mutual friend and the school has verbally admitted fault in this.

Approached teacher DD spoke to, she admitted she hadn’t communicated with anyone and claimed the boy was only playing but she was happy to have a word with him again. The key word again - this child has been grabbing the girls’ bottoms and chest region for sometime (this was also admitted by teacher so not just hearsay). There’s also been a report of the boy grabbing at a girl’s groin region but the school claims there’s no evidence to strengthen this. The boy is not doing this to boys and he’s deliberately touching the girls in these regions and yet the teacher has claimed it’s innocent/playing.

Have spoken to head teachers who say they have no funding to supervise this boy on 1:1 basis and even if they do issue the need for this it can take years. The boy and my daughter will finish this school in summer and enter secondary education.

I do not feel that enough is being done by the school and the head teacher has agreed to meet with me to discuss where to go from here. What can I expect from this meeting/what would you do?

It is sadly not the first time the school has tried to sweep similar incidents under the carpet and I strongly feel that I need to stand my ground to protect both my daughter and others.

Thank you for reading.

Report to the schools safeguarding lead. If it is already one of the people mentioned in your post call social services direct and/or the police as it is a sexual assault. Tell then the school and their safeguarding lead are not taking any notice of your report.

If you don't want to do that quite yet tell the designated safeguarding lead that unless your complaint is not taken seriously that is what you intend to do

I would also report it to the school governors and make it very clear that if it is not escalated, that you will be reporting it to OFSTED and the police.

Thank you so much! Unfortunately I’m not familiar with the procedures so really appreciate your advice. I should have mentioned that the school is excusing the behaviour with the fact that the child has a diagnosis and therefore doesn’t understand. I still do not agree that enough is being done and am hopeful that it will be EASIER for them to get assistance with his needs due to his diagnosis. I fear social services do need to be involved eventually- the head teacher suggested this himself. It’s so sad but bottomline is I have to look after my daughter as top priority.

Yes I would go to safeguarding lead and report the incident(s) and lack of follow up. Whether or not the child has behavioural / other issues shouldn't impact on whether the rest of the class can be safe..
We had something similar at our school - a friend's daughter was touched in the groin by a boy when they were about year 5 .. fast forward 4 years and he has been threatening other girls that if he cannot touch them he will punch them (nice) and the police and school are involved.
Best nip it in the bud now!
Good luck!

Thank you @MrPickles73, that is exactly my fear- this boy is only getting stronger by the day. I’m also concerned about his home environment. But first and foremost I am concerned for my child obviously. It was handled so badly start to finish.

It's not sad that social services get involved. The boy clearly needs some intervention. Something is happening at home to make him act that way.

@TeeBee Sorry that’s not what I meant, what I was referring to was the situation full stop. I completely agree social services are needed.

I don't know what the "diagnosis" is, but if he is able to function in mainstream without full-time one-to-one, then he must be capable of being taught that he should not touch others without consent, and what the consequences will be if he does. (You could go into which parts of the anatomy he should not touch, but it's simpler to say no touching.)

It is lazy to ignore it because of SEN. He may need more teaching, and perhaps more reminders, but he can still have rules and consequences. It needs to be sorted before he is up on a sexual abuse charge, and it is much easier to deal with in primary school than in secondary school, where supervision at lunchtime is minimal.

@lanthanum Completely agree.