Disappointed with school's response to this...

[BlueRaspberry7]

A child in my daughter's year group has a pattern of excluding pupils and talking about them behind their backs, ignoring some children - that sort of exclusionary behaviour. My DD is one of the targets of this behaviour, and it's caused her upset on and off over the last two school years.

We spoke to the pastoral lead at the school in April and they spoke to my DD about it and did some minor juggling of form groups the following term.

The behaviour has started up again, with this child taking kids away from the group on their own, telling them secrets and that they mutsn't tell the others, or she'll be mad.

I contacted the school and was told that, for them to help, my daughter has to fill out a 'behaviour form' or tell them about specific incidents. I explained she's nervous to do this and finds it tricky to fill out a form when it's an ongoing pattern of repeated behaviour. they suggested she fill out a form at home, as she wasn' very forthcoming last time they spoke to her about it.

Does this sound like 'enough' from the pastoral head? I understand that they need to fully understand the issue to help - but I feel it wasn't taken as seriously as ongoing, repeated, exclusionary behaviour should be.

Your daughter needs to speak up. The school will need a paper trail otherwise it's all just "he said she said" playground nonsense.

I don't think it's really fair question their response when you haven't supported your dd to provide the information they need. They asked her to fill in a form, and when you that it would be tricky, they came back with an alternative which upu haven't yet completed. You need to do your part too.

That response sounds very reasonable. What do you expect them to do with vague accusations?

You need to help your daughter fill out the forms! What do you expect the school to do with vague/incomplete accusations?? Just sit down with her and fill them in ffs!

Unfortunately, there will always be kids/teens who are unkind to their peers. I'm not sure what else the pastoral team can do - it is important that those affected speak up. This whole excluding others is so typical of school behaviour, starting at early primary from my experience.

You won't like me saying this, neither will others I imagine, but there is a lot to be said for teaching our children/pupils to ignore this type of behaviour and not give it time. I think as adults/parents, we need to spend more time building up our children's resilience to deal with this type of thing and then shutting it down. I think you can give too much time to some issues and by doing this you're giving it some kind of importance when actually it's some badly behaved child who sounds like she has some serious confidence and self esteem issues herself that she feels she has to behave like this to make friends. "She's a nightmare, ignore her, hang around with X instead. She's just abrat, who cares what she says etc etc." is what I'd be saying if it were my DD.

It must be worrying for you but I'm wondering what you would like to happen?

This all sounds like very minor, yet annoying primary school behaviour tbh. I would be encouraging your daughter to speak up for herself but then build resilience and help her move past it. I wouldn't expect any massive actions on the part of the school.

How old is your daughter? This is so common amongst girls. One girl in particular did this at both primary and secondary school. We didn't complain to the schools, though my daughter was dreadfully upset each time it happened. Just listened to her, suggested she spend time with different people at break and so on. Took her out with different friends at the weekend. Explained that you can't control how someone else behaves, but you can change how you react to it.

Generally we found the 'stirrer' would eventually be dropped by the rest of the group for a few weeks, then new sub-groups would form. After a while the cycle of dramas started building up again. Years 4, 6, 9, 10 and 11 seemed worst for this. Sixth form college was a blessed relief. More maturity all round.

It's heart-breaking to see your child upset and having to develop a harder shell, but great learning for life.

My dd had this for a few years at secondary school- a group of "friends" with a ringleader who liked to exclude. My dd asked on the group chat if anyone wanted to do something for her birthday, but they were all busy....then posted photos of them on social media all out without her.
It broke my heart. But all you can do is encourage your dd to find other friends, and keep listening. When my dd mentioned another girl she quite liked in another group I encouraged her to get to know them, gave her lifts etc when she was invited out with them. Tell her how great she was, and how other people would appreciate her as a friend
She slowly moved over to this group, who are lovely girls and they are all still firm friends to this day. She was proud of herself for pushing herself out of her comfort zone, and she is so grateful for her lovely friends.
When she went away to uni last year she initially had a hard time with friends, but she knew she was resilient and she stuck it out till she found her people, and now has 2 great sets of friends.
Incidentally, a lot of the friends from the initial group broke away from the toxic ringleader and have joined dds group. Ringleader seems to have no friends left from the group. She does have issues, so I do feel for her, but these things do work themselves out. There is a limit to what the school can do- they can't actively make this girl nice to your dd. She needs to learn that she shouldn't accept being treated that way and not tolerate it. It's so hard, but , although we can be supportive, we can't "fix" it. I hope things get better for her

@ThePlatypusAlwaysTriumphs thanks for sharing your story. I'm sorry your daughter went through that and so glad to hear how things worked out for her.

My daughter's in year 8 and the ringleader had moved from group to group doing this sort of thing since primary.

We're doing lots at home on resilience, building self esteem, setting up play dates with other kids, supporting our daughter through clubs /team sports etc to build confidence. Will definitely keep this up.

I also think if there's an ongoing toxic pattern with a child then school/parents should at some point step in and show that there are consequences - not just leave it all to other parents to teach their kids resilience.

When this sort of thing happens in a workplace over time, it's called exclusionary behaviour, and can ruin people's working lives.

I'll help my daughter to fill out the form.

In your position I’d arrange something ‘cool’ to raise her social currency on her birthday. When dsd was this age she was bullied in a similarly undetectable way by one of the girls - lots of whispering, giggling while looking at her, and eyerolling. It all began funnily enough when DSD got a modelling contract (minor one, she walked the runway for a couple of brands maybe 3 x between 13-15) so I agree with others that jealousy is probably a huge factor in this.

I fixed this by trying to raise her social currency at school. I arranged back to school ‘spa days’, a few ‘shopping days’ / trips too for the 3 friends that didn’t get involved in this. The bullying tailed off swiftly after that.