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Primary education

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Interpersonal skills in Year 6

10 replies

Everhopeful · 20/03/2013 16:41

DD has been the target of a lot of low-level mostly verbal bullying over her time in primary. I've complained to the head, but very little action seems to be taken and I know this is because it's vague, diffuse and hard to articulate, so even harder to combat, to be fair. The trouble is, whilst me and DD will be very grateful to leave the little *rs behind, I think we also need to try and manage the situation to avoid it happening in secondary too. So, here's the latest incident and I'd appreciate some ideas to try.

Kids are all in a choir, Y6 sit on chairs and Y3 on floor (I don't know where Y4 and 5 are, but they aren't relevant really). One of the usual tykes decides she must sit in the middle, but this means some of the others can't see the music/words, so there is some jockeying around to try and cope with it. She tells one of the other girls that DD kicked her in the process and, when the teacher says none of them will sit on chairs as it seems to cause trouble, this other tyke starts whispering DD's name and looking at all the others, as if it's her fault. She protests to first tyke, who says that "kicking" is just a figure of speech and then starts crying just before coming home.

I don't want to have her going to the teacher all the while and I don't think crying is likely to help much either, but I am sick to death of this - I get at least one story a week featuring this first tyke. Any ideas what I should tell her to do?

OP posts:
Everhopeful · 20/03/2013 16:42

Oops - I've just read the second para - first tyke isn't the one crying, that's DD!Blush

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lljkk · 20/03/2013 17:58

Will they go to the same secondary?

Does your DD do anything that involves teamwork (like guides) or handling conflict (like martial arts)?

Everhopeful · 20/03/2013 18:05

No - she's managed to pick one that none of the others will be in, so that's a blessing! But it might happen again with others....

She does something uniformed (might out her to say what) in a mixed setting (girls and boys, mostly boys) and sometimes struggles with that too, though that is more of a character-building thing. Annoying at times for her, but she needs to learn how to manage it. DH has offered helpful hints here. She's losing interest in it anyway though (I can't say I'm surprised: I was always more surprised that she liked it, as it seems to me all the good stuff has to wait till she's older. The juniors don't get much other than drill and first aid, though they did go out in the summer to get muddy and she liked that)

She did martial arts a while back and lost interest in that. Pity, though it was expensive so I was partly relievedWink

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Everhopeful · 20/03/2013 18:06

Thanks for replying btw lljkk! Flowers

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Everhopeful · 20/03/2013 18:15

Issue at the other place is more that one of the boys fancies her and all of them tease her about them being an item. He doesn't mind at all of course, but she surely does.

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lljkk · 21/03/2013 18:22

It's all in the normal range, I think, the best thing would be if she could find an ally, a mate, someone in her gang. Then I think she could handle all the rest. There's no reason to think she'll be a victim again, I was bullied horribly in primary but never again.

Might have to wait until she goes to High School.

Everhopeful · 22/03/2013 17:37

You're probably right, though I'd have rather licked it now. Never mind - here's hoping it won't happen any more. She's fine about it now in any case, as she often is, so perhaps I'm just being over-protective!

Thanks for answering

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Hassled · 22/03/2013 17:42

If she's going to a different High School then you'll probably find the issues will resolve themselves - there's a much bigger pool of "nice" kids to pick from and there won't be any baggage. So many of the Yr6 social issues (and it does seem like a killer year for social issues) seem to be based around baggage/assumptions/reputations that have built up over the previous years, whether actually valid or not. Hopefully she'll shake all that off.

lljkk · 22/03/2013 18:37

omg, can't agree more about y6 being testy year for social issues. Every day DD comes home with a new soap opera, and I thought yrs 4 & 5 were bad. At least she was mostly an observer/reporter then, but now it's closer to home.

lljkk · 22/03/2013 18:38

ps: how is her self-esteem? I don't want to dismiss her concerns, self-esteem erosion is the biggest risk in what you've described.

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