Year 1 class allocation and complaint, teachers, governors, what are our chances please?

[hollybungalow]

our daughter goes to the village school and is in reception, it’s a great school and we haven’t had many reasons to complain. Until now.

We found out they were mixing the classes the day they chose to do it last week. This isn’t standard practice for them.

Our hold was placed in a class with no close friends and unfortunately a child from another class who has bullied her in an out of school setting. As they are separated currently we didn’t raise with the school as we didn’t know they were going to mix classes.
Our child feels things deeply and there has been a significant change in behaviour. She is convinced she is on her own and without friends because ‘no one chose her’ and it’s heartbreaking for us all.

Other than this i asked the teacher about how they allocated places and she shared who our child had chosen and honestly i was surprised who she had picked, one girl she knows but the other she has never mentioned.
The same day we got her school report and it wasn’t hers, it was for another child in her class with the same first name. Then the choices made sense and to me it’s clear there has been a mix up.

i raised with the head teacher and shared the out of school bullying and the view (backed up by the other parent) that we believed there had been a mix up. He is firm there are no circumstances what so ever (including physical bullying) that would cause him to change a child’s class. His view is that whatever happens ‘we work it out’

I didn’t agree and have raised a complaint with the governors and trustees.
Can anyone give me a view of how likely you think we are to succeed with our complaint and get our child moved class? ( there are 3 in the year and we would take any other than this one).
because of the timing, the only option we have for september is to put her in the class with the bully, keep her off and be fined or move schools. So keen to know how likely we are to succeed or if we chalk it up and get her in another school.

thanks x

Oh im sorry to hear that 😔

Thank you. I’m glad your story has a happy ending. I hope mine does too it as i currently lie awake with my crying 5 year old it’s hard to imagine x

This is my own ignorance having not had the experience at that age nor my kids. Genuinely didnt think a 5 yr old would intentionally bully without outside influence. I apologise

there is a difference in race but i don’t think it’s the cause of the bullying. Equally the child’s parents seem really nice and almost awkward about it but there is clearly a behaviour problem and my child is clearly targeted

If the HT really wrote that I would take that to governors

i have in writing on an email and it’s in the complaint

I'm sorry OP this sounds awful. Head teacher sounds like an asshole. I was also bullied throughout school.and I would feel the same as you. I hated school because of bullying and I don't think it builds up resilience to leave kids with their bullies. It's left me with poor mental health as an adult. I suspect that the parents above dismissing you so quickly would be singing a different tune if it was their child.

• The headteacher is on a power trip and doesn't seem to care about the well-being of your child. I think it's disgusting what he said to you re. the answer to parents like you will always be no. So unprofessional without a thought for your child.

-- The teachers can't seem to tell who is who, a full year at school and they are mixing up kids? Please tell me they know your daughter well and she's atleast had a good reception year and it was just an admin mix up!! If not my god!!

• Not only is she now in with her bully but they've also taken her away from friendships that have been built. I feel for her, I do think with this one she will likely make new friends as they generally do at this age. Edit to add- I do think this was harsh of the school though and unnecessary. New friendships aren't guaranteed but likely!

I've known a parent move their child to another school due to lack of friendships/not settling in and another moved because of bullying. Both now thriving at new schools. I don't think this makes you a helicopter parent at all. If they were happy at school I'm sure you would let them get on, but they aren't.

How did you feel at the new school? Did you get a good feeling from them?

I hope you find a solution that works for your daughter whatever that may be. Sending a big hug!

Blimey you're intent on taking things to the top.
It's almost as if you're enjoying making a noise for yourself rather than actually thinking of a solution for your child. .

thank you it has been really hard on all of us. Our ideal would be a solution or support for her to stay at the current school but i feel with each refusal to acknowledge what’s happened from the senior leaders (class teachers in our camp) this becomes less and less likely 😢.
The other school we saw was very different but we liked it and think our child would to.
overall at the moment we just feel sad
longer term her being at school where we are more aligned to their values would be better.
We just never expected to be in this position

in case you missed it earlier, YES I will unashamedly always advocate for my child. Noise, disruption, advice, being wrong, failing and trying again. If you have missed the solutions then your only intention is stir the pot. I’ll never stop trying to make the world a better place for my child. Suggest if you disagree and have no useful advice you find another thread for agitate on

Where are all these bullying incidents taking place (you mentioned in and out of school?) and at 4/5 years old, why aren't these kids being adequately supervised wherever it is happening?

Governors do not get involved in the day to day management of the school. If you raise a formal complaint you need to go through the stages as detailed in the complaints policy. Governors will become involved at a later stage.
I’m surprised at two things - you say it’s a village school but that it’s also 3 form entry; that’s very unusual. You also say the children were asked who they’d like to be in class with; again, that’s really unusual for such young children.
The mix up with the reports is likely a red herring. The classes will have been decided amongst the teachers well beforehand, (as a 2 form entry school our teachers meet with their year group partner as part of transition to look at and review the make up of the classes). Reports are written by the teacher, read by our Head and Deputies then printed out, sorted and put in envelopes by our admin team. They are then sent back to each class to be handed out. It would be possible to mistakenly give 2 children with the same first name each other’s report.
In a class of 30 Reception children, it would be unusual for every child to name every other child in the class.

Eh? You do know there are no poisonous caterpillars in the Uk don’t you? I. What circumstances was your DD alone long enough for another child to hold her down so much that you needed to take her to A+E?

The Oak processionary moth caterpillar is. They had to cordon off bits of our local park.

Exactly this. The only thing the governors are likely to be interested in is the report mix up - but from a confidentiality point of view, not in terms of class placements.

You need to focus on pushing to get the bullying sorted - if the HT fails to act then THAT could be conspired governor worthy as it would be against policy.

You’re not helping yourself or your DD to build resilience if you just jump ship as soon as someone is difficult.

What if there turns out to be a bully in the new school. What are you going to do then?

The trouble is that every year at least one parent is unhappy about class allocations. It's just part of the process that schools have to go through unfortunately. It's impossible to please everyone and every parent who is unhappy feels it incredibly strongly as it concerns their child.

What kind of out of school activity is letting repeated bullying happen? I'd remove her from that first.

You're not going to get her moved class. The reports are likely a mix up and not linked at all to the class allocation.

You have to follow the complaints procedure so jumping straight to CEO won't help.

We’ve had the exact same issue in a Y1 to Y2 class change and it was ultimately changed (to the class our child wanted) because the school accepted they didn’t follow their own policy on it which provides that longstanding friendships would be kept together. In our case they split up 3:1 of a friendship group of 4. I appreciate the comments about resilience and helicopter parenting but these children are 4 and 5 years old. It’s their first years of schooling and it’s vital (imo) that parents advocate for these little children so they go into school happy every day and ready to learn. Lots of people have ‘it’ll be fine’ stories and I’m sure in our case it would’ve been eventually, but our child was really distraught by it and the thought that their friends were all in one class and they in another, and school accepted they hadn’t appreciated the impact it was having at home. Ofsted now places importance on the wellbeing of the child so we focused on that when liaising with school about it. I think we got lucky that they agreed to change it but I don’t think your child should be forced to be in a class with a bully (but appreciate that the school hasn’t witnessed this for themselves). I really hope it works out one way or another. I found the whole period just so stressful whilst we were trying to
sort it out.

I would teach my child resilience. She will make new friends and teachers will make sure there is no bullying. My son was devastated when they mixed and he wasn't with a friend. He made new friends and is now very happy. Next year he's looking forward to making new friends again.

How did the other child manage that without ending up in hospital themselves?

This absolutely is what would be upsetting and make me consider moving. My son’s reception teacher knew their names after a week.

Hi OP, similar happened to one of mine and we eventually moved schools to one that was much more nurturing. They were shocked at our experience at the old school. Governors were useless, though that was the only complaints avenue open to me after the head (who left soon after anyway!). Your head sounds awful. I’d report to the ICO about the data breach re the report. They should have self reported that within 72 hours and could be in a lot of trouble for not having done so. I mean - how do they not know which child is which at this stage?! I wouldn’t trust any of them to look after my child at this stage. But even if I did move, I’d pursue the complaint to the end because it’s simply not right.

They won’t change anything.

Teach her to be a bit more resilient! I mean why not nip it in the bud when she says “nobody chose me” and explain that nobody chose anything, it’s what the school have decided,

Yeah, so this school didn’t become Outstanding by listening to parents like you….

I’m a school governor. If a complaint was raised to us, following the complaints policy (so likely has already been fully investigated by the head, download your schools policy off the website) then yes we would get involved. We would form a panel, bringing in other governors from nearby schools if not enough of us could be impartial (for example too many of us were parents in your class or knew you so had to be discounted). We would read school’s investigation and the details of your complaint including details of of the out of school bullying. We would take safeguarding, bullying and data protection seriously but normally these should be dealt with by school staff in the first instance.