Sexual Harassment Accusation

[missusmrs]

Today I took a call from my 10 year old’s teacher before he arrived home from school. I was told there was an issue of' inappropriate touching' spanning several years and was she was been told to record it as 'sexual harassment' on the school record – and she was just informing me!

To say I was shocked is an understatement. It turns out a number of boys had been smacking female classmates on the bums in year 5 in a 'game' - i.e. sneaking up behind them. Boys were also smacking each other but girls were not smacking boys. It came to light yesterday, the teacher has carried out a full investigation of the serous allegations and concluded it is sexual harassment and it is going on school files - its currently sitting on his school portal page in big red letters.

I have spoken to my son to discuss, we have obviously discussed this is not appropriate behaviour at all. The last time he did it was before lockdown in year 5. They have had RSHE lesson on it today, one to one with teachers and all the boys have had to apologise as one to the girls.

He has exemplary past behaviour and I would always support the school however I am shocked at the process – surely for something so serious there should have been further parental discussion? I am horrified, that what I perceive is such strong language, is on his school record. The teacher says no one will see it but if that’s the case why do it. The boys have been spoken to by both school and parents, apologised and as it hasn’t in over a year presumably have learnt a lesson. My child is devastated- understanding it is wrong, not understanding why 4 of them have been singled out and not fully appreciating why I am asking so many questions. He is confused as to what he has spoken to the teacher about (he is dyslexic and his stories and memories get muddled at the best of times!)

I do not want to undermine sexual harassment in any shape or form and understand many people will find this emotive and may dismiss me as an over protective parent. But I have this evening read school and gov policies which set out how to address things like this swiftly but the ‘young people’ referred to spans all under 18’s – would a year 1/2/3 child also have this label? Are all historic behaviours considered?

I have a meeting at 8.45am at school, at my insistence, to talk through procedure and the record and wonder if anyone has any experience or advice?

You need to accept that smacking somebody on the bum will now in this day and age be classed as sexual harassment. It is all stemming from peer to peer assaults of which there have been plenty in the papers. This has led to schools taking a much stronger line on recording any behaviour that could be classed as being sexual harassment. What has been reported in the education press not only significant levels of such behaviour in secondary schools but also in primary schools.
I would go into school with an open mind but thinking that you need answers on firstly why if this has been going on for an extended period of time it has not been bought to your attention before. Secondly what have the school been doing about it, as they do not seem to have curbed any of the poor behaviour. I would also wonder about how it is has been so neatly packaged up, with the girls not being involved in this - sorry if it has been going on in the playground for some time then I would fully expect that some girls would be doing the same.
I would question what the teacher has said about the school record, if it is on there then it stays in there and the school record will be passed onto the secondary school. Highlighting it in red does seem rather excessive.

This should have been dealt with at the time long before it got to this stage. I think it has been very poorly dealt with by the school. It dhoulc havd been brought to your attention before it got this far. A really poor show from the teacher and school. I would complain about their procedures or lack of them.

I'm shocked that your only just finding out about this now and also why are only 4 boys being singled out of them all?

Surely there must be a recent in incident that sparked all this, as the y5 issues should've been sorted and dealt with then.

Wasn’t this thread deleted yesterday? This version omits the fact that the girls retaliated and pushed the OPs son over. Which the OP called an “incident” as opposed the the “game” of hitting your classmates on their bottoms over a period of some years.

Good on the girls

The bum smacking has only just come to light because the girls retaliated and, when asked why, explained what had been happening for a sustained period of time.So it wasn't dealt with previously because the staff didn't know. ( or so the OP explained yesterday).
And yes schools, including primary, have been told by the government to come down hard on peer on peer abuse, it is included in KCSIE 2021 and our children, even younger ones, were asked about how the school ensured that it was dealt with during a recent OFSTED.