DD14 assaulted and bullied by boys at school - school minimising

[DancesWithFelines]

DD14 recently ended her first relationship. The boy is still 13 years old, but 6ft tall. Jealousy and possessive behaviour has occurred towards DD and this led to the boy grabbing my DD’s face, swearing and shouting in her face and pushing her at school.

Female HOY phoned me to inform of the incident and said the boy was remorseful. DD was at a friends after school and was then followed home by two of the ex-boyfriend’s friends.

DD had blocked the ex on everything but SMS, she then received a string of gaslighting texts telling her not to tell school or her mum as ‘this was a me and you talk’. He said he only nudged her face and she was a lying snake, and that she was going to get him beat by his dad. She told him she was scared of him and couldn’t cope with him anymore and couldn’t keep it to herself. (There had also been an incident a month ago where the boyfriend had shoved her in PE for overtaking him in a race, and when she got upset he gave the silent treatment but this ended up being played down, to my regret).

i did not want her to go to school after she was grabbed on Wed but she insisted as she felt things would be worse if she didn’t go in, plus the ex boyfriend had been put in isolation as a sanction. My gut feeling proved right as yesterday she was bullied by the friends of the ex boyfriend. She was followed to her lessons in the science block (when these boys didn’t have science) and was called a snake and a wanker, she was ‘booed’ in the corridors all day.

We went into school immediately and called a meeting (I had already requested one) and were met by the female HOY and a male member of the SLT.
They confirmed that the ex boyfriend was being dealt with seriously, isolation and meeting with his dad. The other boys had parents informed and detentions.

However the entire meeting had an aura of victim blaming and desperately trying to pick holes in DD. I did at one point get quite cross and told them they were clearly minimising. These are a few points that have made me uncomfortable:

1. large part of meeting spent telling DD she was wrong to message her dad instead of telling HOY when she was being bullied yesterday. The reason DD is being bullied is because the boys believe she is a snake and a snitch but school refused to accept this made it difficult for her to go to the teacher.
2. CCTV had been checked of the bullying incidents and they said DD was laughing. We said that she would have been trying to front it out and laugh off the bullies but the HOY refuted me and seemed to be implying DD was enjoying being followed and called names. I said my daughter was assaulted on Wednesday and this bullying is an escalation. I don’t care if she was laughing - it’s not ok.
3. Shove in PE was playfighting according to them. I said I didn’t realise that playfighting was so common in teenagers - the male teacher kept insisting that my older son (16) and his friends playfight (irrelevant and not true).
4. Kept saying bullying boys were nice boys and had told the teachers they didn’t know why they were doing it and it was just pack mentality.
5. Male SLT teacher made an implication that DD manipulated her boyfriend for attention (no idea where he dreamt this up)
6. Male teacher kept saying that DD was close friends with the bullying boys which she refuted. She doesn’t even know all their names.
7. Male teacher asked if she had ever been to the boyfriend’s house and she blushed and said once or twice, he then said “by your response I would suggest you’ve been to his house more than once or twice” (irrelevant)
8. I played the voice note of my upset DD following the PE incident and they said “she only sounded a little bit upset”.
9. said that if DD ever feels unsafe she can just stand with one of the 8 staff members at break time - no explanation of where these 8 people were when her face was grabbed.
10. Acknowledged that the texts were awful and displayed a power imbalance but still kept insisting the boy is really remorseful.

I can’t believe we went into a meeting regarding these serious incidents and came out feeling like we/she were criticised.
We are currently supporting our DD and in discussions about informing police (however if they minimise as well, it will be awful for DD) Ultimately we may need to move schools.

Should I press further about the school’s handling and minimising? It has caused extra damage to the situation. For example, are there any articles reguarding victims laughing while being bullied as a tactic to try and get the bully to leave alone? I cannot understand their response, it honestly feels as though they want to explain everything away and make her out to be a drama Queen.

sorry it’s so long 😬

It's very hard to do this but yes I would continue to press them.
I would say to them as calmly and objectively as you can that the boy appears to be a thug going by behaviour demonstrated since the breakup and that they are minimising at every turn. Everyone is sort of saying the right things but nobody is taking any responsibility for actually sorting this matter and stopping it happening in the future.

Firstly well done for a brilliant job listening ans supporting your DD. This is appalling, and I would be livid! Definitely document and take this further - HT, governors, police, ofstead…

They’ve handled it appallingly and I hate to think that another child has been fobbed off like this.

Appreciate it’s a difficult and sensitive time for your daughter, but standing up for help self will take courage and energy. She needs to persevere & have your support or she will learn it’s okay to be treated this way. When I was 10 I stood up for myself to a verbally abusive nasty teacher and even took it to the HT. Nothing was done, in fact he went back to said teacher, didn’t believe me & others, and the situation was made worse. My parents weren’t aware. Since then I’ve had problems with confrontation & authority - scares me silly.

Wondering if that boy has been abused by his father too given his behaviour and comments about what his dad would do to him.

This is a Safeguarding issue as others have said already. Check the school’s Safeguarding policy, Complaints Policy as well as their Anti-Bullying policy, (all should be on their website) and follow the steps, including the fact that you are not satisfied with the response you received from the complaint meeting you have already had (did they follow up the meeting with a response in writing? They should have). Use all your points from your post, plus any relevant wording from the policies, because those are irrefutable. You can certainly now take this to the Head, in writing or email, and I would also copy your letter to the Governors. Remember to tell them exactly what you want to happen now - do you just want an acknowledgment on what has happened, do you want further punishment for the boys, do you want steps to be put in place to directly protect your daughter?
Any Safeguarding issue has to be logged by the Safeguarding Lead and reported by the school to their local authority. (If this is not done, this is a statutory failure by them, and warrants a complaint to DfE). Obviously there are different steps depending on the type of school.
https://www.gov.uk/complain-about-school

The Keeping Children Safe in Education document (which all staff receive training on every year) specifically says that abuse concerns should not be downplayed or dismissed.

Please do escalate the complaint to the HT as safeguarding procedures are not being followed.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1101457/KCSIE_2022_Part_One.pdf

I'm sorry you and your daughter are going through this.

I'd take the teachers to the cleaners, especially the male teacher. He will keep on minimising this type of behaviour in the future until someone gets seriously physically hurt, or worse.

You are being a fantastic role model for your children.

Speaking to other parents and it looks like it may be the case that the male teacher is the acting head at the moment which has floored me. He did not introduce himself as such in the meeting but did appear to have authority over certain things (getting my dad a fast track managed move out if required). The new head starts in September as the old head has a new job. Trying to confirm exactly what is happening by reading back over school correspondence.

I have also found out that the bully boys are in the school football team and win trophies etc. HOY is PE teacher so I now see why she was determined to pick holes in my daughter/daughters reactions. I was confused about it before, I asked my husband “why does it feel like they dislike DD so much?” I followed the Brock Turner case in the states a few years back. It’s starting to make a bit more sense now.

Please don't let them get away with it. I know that your priority is your DD. However, these boys will do this to other girls and women in the future, and the teachers will enable them, because there will be no consequences for them. Fight the fight!

Wow. I would have found it hard not to have gone thermo-nuclear in that meeting.

This is beyond messed up and I am so sorry this has been the school's response. I'm sorry they haven't listened to you or your daughter.

Make a formal complaint to the school, report the assault to the police. Do everything you can to get this to stop and for people understand that this behaviour is unacceptable.

You sound like a strong, intelligent woman and an amazing role mother to your daughter. Do not let these bullies (they're ALL bullies) push you around and do not let them get away with ignoring you. It's shit but I'm sure your daughter will come out of this strong, knowing never to let anyone push her around and to always stand up and advocate for herself. It's fucking difficult but keep going, keep fighting for both of you.

Also, lots of people laugh when they're caught off guard and it's basically a "wtf is happening" response. It's completely irrelevant anyway whether she was laughing or not.

I agree with this

Find out who the safeguarding lead is and get them involved

This is appalling

Heads should roll for this