How on earth could this have happened - where were the staff?

[moffat]

Just seen this news.bbc.co.uk/1/wales/8598136.stm - where were the staff, and why were six yr olds doing this?

what a bizarre and very sad story

23 6 yr olds, 23 of them, doing this on a dialy basis?? all of them, every day?? mind boggling. how there could have been situations that allowed this to arise and how the girl could not be so traumatised that staff were alerted to it beggars belief.

2 kids hitting one child in the loo at playtime i can imagine - but this sounds like serious, long term, dare i say almost "organised"?

questions need to be asked about who started it and whether others joined in becasue of fear. And somewhere some 6 yos have been exposed to stuff they should not have to gain the knowledge to do what they did. utterly sickening

I can imagine a group of children being coerced into doing something they know to be wrong/don't want to do, by one or two dominant children in a group.

But still, I am sorry to say, I do not quite believe this story. Or at least not all the details of it, exactly as it is told.

I find this story only too believable. Something similar, from what I can make out happened to me although 2-3 perpetrators not the whole class. The dinner lady caught us but my parents were not told.

This really upsets me as I thought that with the current levels of hyperawareness f paedophilia this could not happen any more.

I just read this on the Sky News site and I am shocked and confused. That can't be right surely, to find twenty three seriously disturbed children in one primary school class?

There is something wrong with this story.

I'd imagine that it's been twisted or exagerated in someway, either by the press or whoever reported it.

This kind of thing happened back in the 70s and it will always happen, nothing to do with 'sick' children. When some kids get into a group, it all goes 'Lord of the Flies'.
I know because that kind of thing happened to me when I was 7yrs old and it was not even in the UK.
But the teachers must have been really stupid not to notice that a large group of kids were going missing and where on earth were they doing the abuse?

SGM's right, though. If this is as it seems, it's the fact that something was/is seriously wrong at a structural level, going a long way up.

The "cover-up" thing is just ... , because those are adults, with authority.

And it suggests something very odd going on.

I find it strange. I can only assume that although 23 chidren were involved they weren't all together at the same time. A whole class going missing at one time would be noticed. (I hope ) The first time it happened why wouldn't the girl report it, either to a teacher or her mother? Was she unable to due to SEN maybe. Didn't her behaviour change in any way over time? Withdrawn, not wanting to go to school etc. Why didn't any of her friends notice and tell teachers or parents?
The whole thing is unbelievably frightening. Hopefully the children involved are being monitored now.

Of course teachers still do playground duty. It makes me wonder whether all 23 were involved at one time or another. I seriously can't imagine 23 kids rounding on one and no-one noticing for even one playground duty. The kids I teach are very quick to tell me exactly what is going on in the playground if I am at the other side of it. Very scary even so.

this happened at my boarding school (unsurprisingly, since children in boarding schools are usually very poorly supervised and the bullying gets very intense very quickly - lots of fucked up angry kids and inadequate adult presence)

my friend aged about 12/13 was held down, her clothes ripped off her and a lengthy assault carried out - her breasts groped and pinched etc, she was bruised and hysterical afterwards and the boys who did it just laughed.

sadly if you don't supervise children properly these things can happen.

I can quite imagine the girl not telling her parents - there are many children who do not tell their parents anything about school. I have a little boy like that I'm working to try and get him to tell us about what happens when we are not around, the good and the bad.

This poor wee girl.