Please help! Meeting with deputy head

[luckystar02]

I recently handed this letter to my son's year three class teacher, who said he couldn't really offer a solution and to meet with the Deputy head.

This is due to happen tomorrow, has anyone been in a similar situation? What should i expect/Look to gain?..

Dear Mr.....
I would be grateful if I could bring to your attention a selection of recent incidents that have caused concern with regards to my son.
.
A red mark on his arm, which was due to a boy in his class holding it down on a radiator in the corridor on the way to P.E. whilst another boy looked on and laughed.

A grazed bruise above his wrist which lasted for several days. Ethan was very guarded when questioned about this, but did confirm it was the same boy form the radiator incident that had inflicted the injury.

I spoke with Mr Connor about my concerns of another pupil?s demonstration of ?bum sex? involving Ethan. Which was brought to the
Head teacher's attention.

A deep red scratch on his neck and a bruise on his eye lid. He tells me a boy from year six jumped on him during break time. The marks were substantial enough to be commented on four days after by Tracey from breakfast club.

Returning home form school upset that year six boys had taunted and ridiculed him even to the extent they followed and cornered him in the boy?s toilets. Another pupil from Ethan?s class witnessed this and told his mum who, perturbed, decided to find me at school home time pass this information on. Her son had witnessed the boys hit and jump on Ethan and unfortunately not for the first time.

It is understandable considering the above I am feeling uneasy about my sons welfare and happiness during school hours. The above points have occurred during the current school year. There were occurrences in previous school years but not to such a physical extent.

It disturbs me that such activities seem to go unnoticed by staff; at no point during these incidents does it appear an adult has intervened. It is only through limited communication with Ethan (as he clams up at the mention of these events) that it has luckily been brought to my attention.
This is offensive behaviour that should not be endured by any child.

Ethan is very upset at the idea of my mentioning this to the teachers as he believes this will make things worse, this is my biggest worry, shouldn?t Ethan feel protected within school?

im a teacher- this is horrific and totally unacceptable- give the school hell- what is their bullying policy? im actually kind of in schock to all of it...
sorry not much help- but son should feel more than just protected in school

Sit there and ask them what they plan to do with the level of disgusting and endemic bullying that has come to light

ask for their anti-bullying policy

ask what they have found in their investigations to date

AS far as possible remain calm and if necessary calmly state your point again and again. If you get wound up and start to shout, they will find find it easy to dismiss you.
Good luck, it sounds terrible.

Thank you to you both for responding so quickly.

I should mention my son has recently been diagnosed with 'specific language disorder' which make communication and relaying of information a very difficut task for him.

His class teacher has mentioned he believes other boys see him as 'different' and an easy target.

I discovered on Friday that the lunch time assistants have been made aware of this which adds to my fustraition.

2andcounting, can i ask, as i teacher, what would you expect to happen in this situation? How does your school deal with playground monitoring?

Again, many thanks

It's a good letter.
Could you also consider what you think needs to be done next? Clearly ds is being bullied and (as is typical) most of the incidents seem to be well out of the sight of teachers so what do you think the school should be doing? - is it dealing with particular children who are the culprits or is it providing more support for ds specifically or patrolling of unpoliced areas? (or all of the above?)

I think you have every right to feel angry but it helps to go in to a meeting 'armed' with a request/demand or two to get something constructive actually to come of it.

That is a good point, i was very dubious to mention what i wanted as i feared i maybe 'fobbed off' with reassurance and very little action.

I am going to mention the out of sight areas such as the toilets. I am also going to ask that all staff are made aware of my son's diagnoses.

I'm concerned this may only be the tip of the ice burg, there must be more my child hasn't mentioned and I worry about what may happen next and the lasting effects on my Childs confidence and education.

I want to feel confident there is sufficient adult supervision and communication with the school.

I will ask for this to be put in to writing and for a daily updates from his class teacher until we appear to see some resolution.

Yes, Ethan should feel safe in school and you should also be able to feel that he is safe. As a teacher I'd be mortified if all this had happened to a 7/8 year old in my class without me being aware, especially the incidents en route to PE.

As a parent I think I'd be asking if the teacher could put in place some kind of 'lining up' order for walking around the school so Ethan was either towards the front/back at the culprit was at the opposite end, ideally next to the teacher and buffered by some sensible children who will tell on him!

Ethan also needs to be taught some ways of letting adults know he needs help without feeling embarrassed. He could be provided with a 'help' card to keep in his pocket or, if he's a reasonable writer/artist perhaps a worry book - I've set these up across the school so every single child writes in theirs every single day after lunch even if they only write, "I have no worries" or, "I had sausages today". Children that need to report friendship issues, taunting or other things that have made them unhappy but they're not really sure about can write it down/draw it and the teacher respond in writing/chatting pretty much immediately. It does have to be set up so all the class write in them daily in order to help children realise that this will prevent the 'bullies' from intimidating their victims into not writing.... it reduced incidents of bullying at my school because everyone had a way of reporting it without having to worry about others hearing what they were saying.

The Y6 boys need to be spoken to about their responsibility as the oldest children in the school and I'd hope that one of the playground supervisors would be on the look-out for 'gang-like' behaviour so as to prevent them all following a single child into the loos again. Perhaps a different Y6 child/two could be Ethan's buddies/bodyguards? If boys in any of my Y6 classes had acted like you've described I would be contacting their parents and telling them that this sort of behaviour would have to be reported to their secondary schools... I'd also be getting them to write decent letters of apology and probably find lots of lunchtime jobs e.g. sharpening pencils/sweeping the floor/sorting the book corner into alphabetical order in the Y3 classroom so they could be helped to link their behaviour with some sort of reparation that would benefit the class of their victim.

Good luck with your meeting.

Good letter - it sticks to the point.
To repeat some excellent points above ...
... this is unacceptable ...
... remain calm and if necessary calmly state your point again and again ...
... (he needs) some ways of letting adults know he needs help without feeling embarrassed ...

Try and ensure that you get 'certain actions' by a certain date.
Get something constructive in writing.

Thinking of you.
How could the school have let it get to this stage ?
Hope it's going ok.
Think you should have taken someone with you.

How did it go ?