Attacked at school no help

[Nicolasaa9]

Hello,

I’m looking for advice and would appreciate responses that are helpful :-). I’d like to keep the details brief for privacy. Two weeks ago my 16year old daughter was attacked by another student at school, resulting in an eye injury that required a visit to A&E. She is now also experiencing neck and back pain and her visions been blurry. We have all relevant medical reports for this.

The school’s response has been completely inadequate and they are downplaying the incident. The outcome they provided does not address the seriousness of the situation, and it feels like proper safeguarding measures are not being followed.

Has anyone had experience taking legal action against a school in a situation like this? Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.

Pupils can (and do) go elsewhere for a levels- moving to a different school, college or learning centre. It’s fair to say this young lady has almost total choice to leave the school, or pretty likely the bully will

It’s not very clear what you want from this. If you believe the school could have prevented this from happening then your best course is to submit a complaint and pursue that for your ‘why?’. If you are looking for a criminal conviction from the perpetrator then speak to the police.

We don’t know.
Have you asked to meet with the school to discuss?

Criminal Injuries Compensation is likely your best route if seeking damages. If she has attacked other kids you could also ask for a review of the police decision not to take things further.

In England, most children have options at 16. They can stay put, or move on. OP’s daughter presumably would like to move on, if people are attacking her in school?!

No crime committed
at least the police don’t think so!

The assessment as to whether there has been a crime of violence is made by the claims officer, and doesn't require the police to have pursued a prosecution

Utterly inappropriate for this situation

What payments are available from the Scheme?
We can consider claims for the following:

• mental or physical injury following a crime of violence;
• sexual or physical abuse;
• loss of earnings - where you have no or limited capacity to work as the direct result of a criminal injury;
• special expenses payments - these cover certain costs you may have incurred as a direct result of an incident. You can only ask us to consider special expenses if your injuries mean you have been unable to work or have been incapacitated to a similar extent for more than 28 weeks;
• a fatality caused by a crime of violence including bereavement payments, payments for loss of parental services and financial dependency; and funeral payments.

It is for victims of “serious crime”

this didn’t reach the benchmark for the police even considering taking action

Hi OP
i think (I’m no expert) that you should complain to the school formally before pursuing legal challenges.

A court will want to see that all means of resolution were attempted before legal action was taken.

You could of course proceed directly to a Letter Before Claim (for compensation) to the school but you will need to address legally what you are seeking compensation for precisely (if you look at sample Letter Before Action/Claim) you can get an idea what you need to be addressing.

Legal action for compensation is about showing a loss and compensation is to put the person back in the position they were in before the incident.

Personally speaking(and I have sued the NHS for assault by one of their staff), this is a draining and very, very expensive route unless the school rolls over at the first hurdle of Letter Before Action.

Questions (legitimate ones) like “where was the safeguarding” is not the basis for a legal claim - you need to show that the school was at fault and how this resulted in damages that you are claiming for. Rhetorical questions aren’t the basis for legal action. Even completely obvious cases where there is no resistance on the facts alleged don’t automatically mean that compensation is owed.

I was successful at Criminal Injuries Compensation but the assault I experienced was sexual which makes it automatically qualify ( if they accept the assault and perpetrator/s acted in the manner alleged and that it meets the legal definition for the crime alleged). I have no idea whether your daughter would receive compensation but the police also give their views/record of interviews to the CICA so they have the independent information.

If I were you, and appreciate my experience is different, I would address the issues first with the school- get their response and then decide. You don’t need to act before reading around on the above things I’ve touched on…

I hope your daughter gets the support she needs and recovers well.

Very true, but she shouldn’t feel forced to leave on account of a bully. If anything, the bully should be the one made to leave.
Either way the OP never clarified if her daughter had only a few weeks of school left. This was just a presumption made by a previous poster.

You won't get anywhere with legal action on their response as neither you nor your daughter has suffered any loss attributable to that. You only have a case against the school if your daughter's injury was due to their negligence. If you are concerned that their response is inadequate, you can complain to the governors and/or report the matter to Ofsted.

I’d write to the governors, would any other parents submit a complaint with you?
also, read the school policy for bullying and use it in your complaint, quoting what they say they’ll do, outlining what they haven’t done, I may be inclined to send to the police as a cc too

If the bully is as described, it’s doubtful that she’ll be accepted into A-level courses at school. She’ll be headed to college, or NEET.

I understand your frustration, but what do you think the school could have done to prevent this happening? It’s next to impossible to permanently exclude and ‘inclusion’ is, apparently, everything.

Before you consider legal action you need to follow the schools complaint policy

In my part of Scotland, that's not easy.

It’s difficult for us to say without knowing what the school have actually done, although I accept you might not know the full details of this. If you can tell us then that will help us judge if it’s proportionate to the crime or not.
On what basis are the Police not taking it any further than just giving the girl a talking to? Did she admit it? I know you say ‘attacked’ but was it actually a fight or was your daughter just attacked spontaneously. Because if it was in the context of a fight between the two then will affect both the schools and the Police response.
If it were me, I’d want to see the girl suspended for a decent length of time (a someone else said, expulsions are unlikely now), with a reintroduction meeting before she can return where she and her parents are given a very strong talking to about her behaviour and safeguards while she is in school, keeping on school grounds during breaks for a while, for example. Also if want her to apologise.

Refer the school/ incident yourself to the Local Authority via MASH, this will then be picked up as a MASH enquiry- which will review what safeguarding measures have been put in place.
Make a formal complaint to the school copying in the Chair of the governor’s and if there is one the Chief Exec or Exec Headteacher if the school is part of a group model. if you are not happy with the outcome the school should give you next steps in terms of ombudsman etc.

What would be the purpose of suing the school? You should get the answers you need from the actions above?

The difference in England is that not every secondary school has sixth form provision. A lot of teens decide to go to a separate sixth form college to do their A Levels or equivalent more vocational qualifications. Some go into apprenticeships. Quite a few move to a different school for sixth form as well. It is quite different to the Scottish system where you are considered to be still at school for fifth and sixth year, whereas here it’s considered more as college, they might not wear uniform anymore etc. Mine have stayed at the same school though as it’s a good sixth form, offered the subjects they wanted and they were happy there.

I am sorry to hear this; it’s is frightening especially as I am guessing she is yr11 so GCSEs coming.

Sadly schools hands are tied, they will likely suspend for a couple of days or in Isolation. Parents will claim all sorts to avoid actually acknowledging anything. If severe enough they can let them study online at home. Sadly some homes are not as supportive as sounds yours are and homes are not supported or safe for online learning, so they could learn online at school and / or have their exams at a close offsite facility (which means more staff at the schools expense so less spent on the other students).
I cannot offer legal advice, but I would encourage and build your DD up and ensure her next step is not where this bully is going.

I'll be honest, I don't have any experience with this type of situation but I would imagine a complaint to OFSTED would be your first step. You haven't said how the school has dealt with it but anything less than immediate expulsion for the perpetrator is absolutely outrageous. The police should have arrested her too, she's old enough to take responsibility for her actions! I hope your daughter makes a quick recovery, the poor girl must be traumatised 😞. It's outrageous that the school could expect her to come back to school and face this monster again!

It’s next to impossible to permanently exclude

This is not true. In 2023/24 (the most recent year for which figures are available), a record 10,885 pupils were permanently excluded in England, a 16% increase on the previous year. Temporary exclusions rose 21% to 954,952. It is clearly not "next to impossible" to permanently exclude pupils.

Well, you tell us, OP. Look at the school's safeguarding policy. Look at their behaviour policy. As others have already asked, did the school follow their policies? If they did, you can question whether they're appropriate and effective. If they didn't, then you can raise a formal complaint.

I would also be furious if something like this happened to my child. It's bad enough when it happens once but for it to come from a person who has displayed this kind of behaviour before is devastating.
But you honestly need to approach it calmly and with a clear head. Hyperbolic threats of legal action when you've not even addressed your concerns with the school is unhelpful and, at worst, actually counter-productive because you won't get the answers and reassurance that you want.

As you are experiencing OP, schools will always take the side of the bully, because it is the path of least resistance.

Your daughter would be best off standing up to her, and verbally and physically going for the jugular. Your daughter might get a couple of days suspension but causing enough pain that the fucking bitch thinks twice about speaking to her again would be the preferred solution.