Any head teachers, deputy heads, pastoral care people around? How would you react to this?

[Murmansk]

At her secondary school (Year 9), dd stood up to three bullies in defence of her friend, and was bullied in revenge, including some nasty stuff on Facebook.

She stood up to them in defence of herself, and they have laid off. There is an enormously strong culture in the year group of not telling, and you will be marked out as a grass if you do.

We're seeing the Deputy Head next week. We want to say that to protect our dd, we don't want there to be any investigation into the bullying which was targeted at her, or any action AT ALL which could mark her out as a grass. We do want them to wait a month and then go for a whole school and whole year approach to anti-bullying, equality and diversity. The idea of the delay is so that no connection is made with our dd.

The main thing we are worried about is that if we show the Deputy Head screenshots we have saved of the Facebook bullying, she may have to act. Immediately. We're inclined not to show her. This does, however, weaken our evidence.

Any thoughts, please?

I can see why you want to protect her from further harm but bullies rely on people keeping silent. I would show the head the extent of it and ask what they are going to do to protect your chil in future.

Thanks, Scurryfunge. Our priority is keeping dd safe. We want to tell the Deputy Head the extent of it - and if possible show her the screenshots - but ONLY if it does not trigger immediate action, which would mark dd out as the source of the information.

It is tricky. The school may only take a general approach to Facebook bullying as it happens out of school and may well advise bringing the police in about the harassment. It depends on the school and how robust it is in terms of bullying.

If they have laid off your daughter for the time being then it may be resolved. Cyber bullying should be covered in PSE hopefully.

Yes, we are kind of presenting it as "resolved", partly to stop any investigations. But we do want the school to act to stop it recurring.

Ironically they have covered cyberbullying last term. How on earth the bullies have missed all the messages about consequences, I don't know.

I would certainly take this into my ds's school, as I have got to know the staff there and trust them implicitly. dd's school hold you more at a distance though, and I would be having the same dilemma as you. It's difficult to say, without knowing the staff I suppose.

I do trust them; but I'm just aware that there are certain things people in charge of children are obliged to act on. The Facebook stuff was bad, but there's no question of a child being at any risk because of it. So I don't think she'll need to take action because of that. The child posting the stuff is stupid and should be stopped, but IMO the protection of my dd is more important. It's not great for the reputation of the school but again the protection of dd should be more important than that.

Tbh I think the only way of stopping bullying and creating an anti-bullying culture is if the school have all the necessary information AND crack down on it shock-and-awe style, in a hail of exclusions and letters home.

I do totally understand your reasoning, but I think you are to an extent colluding with the bullying by not giving the school all the info and effectively preventing them from taking appropriate action. The whole point of creating an anti-bullying culture is that people who are on the receiving end of behaviour they don't like should feel free to express that without fear of reprisals. So even if your strategy works, your dd is still effectively being silenced by the bullying.

There was a cyber-bullying incident at my dd1's school a few years ago (petty bitching rather than any actual threats of the type that have been reported in the media) which culminated in some RL confrontations on school premises (again, no violence just arguments). Although on paper the incidents could have been seen as fairly minor, the school went absolutely nuclear, sent letters home, long exclusions for the main culprits right down to 24 hour exclusions for people who happened to be in the same room as the confrontations but hadn't reported it, or anybody who posted on the FB threads even if they hadn't been abusive.

The kids were all , and a few of the parents were a bit about the fact that their little darlings were being punished for really not very much, but I think it was absolutely the right thing for the school to do, by making it entirely clear what their stance was going to be on any behaviour of this type. I don't think there's been any kind of recurrence since.

Obviously that depends on you having confidence that the school will crack down hard on the appropriate people, and if you don't have confidence in them, then I can understand you wanting to be more reticent to protect your dd. But in the end the school can only really take effective action if they know what's going on.

Great post, PollyMorfic, thank you. Lots to think about there.

I would love a shock-and-awe crackdown, with the main bully summarily executed excluded. But only if it's a month from now, so it can't be connected to dd, or as a result of something the bully/ies do unconnected to dd.

You could also look at it like this. If we allow the school to use the bullying of dd as a case in point, with the aim of improving the culture of the school, then dd is yet again made to pay for standing up for her friend against the bullies.

She has paid a high enough price already, and so have we. She has done her bit.

Sorry Murmansk - I think 'trust' was perhaps the wrong word. I should have used 'confidence' maybe. Pollymorphic is absolutely right, as is Scurryfunge in her post - it is the 'fear of repercussions' that allows bullying to continue, so obviously the "right" thing is to let the school know everything. My point was, I can totally understand that your dd has already been very couragous in standing up for her friend, and, in doing so, has become the victim of the bullies herself. As a mother I would want the same reassurances as yourself that whatever the school did, wasn't easily traced back to her per se, rather to be used as a whole school crackdown - as you suggest - in a month's time. I know I could talk about this with my ds's school, however, I have found my dd's school (as a whole - there are some lovely staff there too) to be quite patronising, and would, I think, take an "we know best" approach rather than treating me as a educated, knowledgable and experienced parent. Hope that makes sense. I hope it goes well for you.

"If we allow the school to use the bullying of dd as a case in point, with the aim of improving the culture of the school, then dd is yet again made to pay for standing up for her friend against the bullies."

That presupposes that you think there are going to be repercussions for your dd. If the school deal with it properly, that shouldn't be the case, the only ones to suffer should be the aggressors. The whole point of an antibullying culture is that people should be free to speak up. If you translate the situation to an adult context, it's like saying, "Well I'll report the person who verbally abused me/racially insulted me/beat me up, but not until sufficient time has passed that his friends won't find out it was me who reported it."

As a society, we consider it utterly unacceptable that someone should be put off reporting a crime for fear of intimidation or threats. Why should we accept any less for our dc?

Surely facebook bullying needs to be sorted out at home too - best way, suggest she doesn't use it, blocks all but her real friends.

Interesting point, RedHelenB. If we'd told her not to use Facebook any more, the bullies would have won - she would have been isolated, they could have said what they liked about her on there, they would have driven her off it. No, we encouraged her to post and post and post all the really fun things she was doing, with her many, many friends, so she could show how totally unaffected she was by their cruelty. And who the sad losers are.

PollyMorfic - "If the school deal with it properly" - therein lies the problem.

Sorry but I think the school have to act now otherwise the bullies may think that they have got away with it.
Something similar happened to dd and someone posted a video and some photos of her (and others) that was taken with a mobile phone in the school games hall. I took screen shots and sent them to the school. The bully was dealt with. Yes my daughter was a bit scared to go to school because of fear of what would happen or be said to her, but her friends stood by her and several of the others (including the bully's friends) saw dd with a new kind of respect.

Now it is forgotten about, but the bully and the others around all learned a valuable lesson, and dd took an important step forward in valuing herself.

Is there no way it could be presented as 'somebody else' saw the Facebook bullying and reported it to the school?

"How on earth the bullies have missed all the messages about consequences, I don't know."

But because you haven't reported it, there haven't been any consequences. So it is no wonder that the message of the cyberbullying lesson has been missed.

I totally understand not wanting your DD to be put at risk of further reprisals though.

If you go in and show the deputy head teacher things on facebook that give rise to any kind of safeguarding issue then the deputy head will not have any choice but to act on them.
Your problem is that whilst you do not think there is any safeguarding issue what you think is not a safeguarding issue may well actually be a safeguarding issue that the school has to act.
Personally I would show the school the screen shots but that is a risk that you might not be prepared to take.
If so I would go into school on the basis that bullying has been going on, that it did include so very nasty things being said on Facebook. Then I would say that it is now all resolved within the group but would welcome the school keeping an eye on the situation.
Expecting the school to start something about equality, diversity and anti-bullying is unlikely to happen unless you give the school full details so that they can gauge the level of the problem.

I fully appreciate where you are coming from but I think you should definitely go in and, also, definitely ask them to deal with it the way you wish. However, I also think you should accept the latter might not be possible. The school may knowa lot more than you do - past history and home situation being two main issues. You will never know what that is but it will influence their reaction.

She is a great friend. My son acts as she does quite a lot but he is nearly six foot and very strong with a deep voice. He only has to speak and the bullies cower and back off. He often says how terribly hard it would be without those physical attributes, which you daughter undoubtedly doesn't have. Well done her.

Thanks, Kez - she does have great strength of character, though! As they have found out.

Admission, your post is more or less the answer to what I was asking. Because I can't know what, professionally, the Deputy Head might be obliged to do if she saw the screenshots, then I think we can't show them to her. Your second para sums it up. And we can't take the risk.

Your penultimate para is what I thought we'd have to do!

We'll also say that we'll continue to keep records of any further incidents. And that the school need to be aware of the possibility of others being bullied.

Noblegiraffe, what I meant was that they must, hopefully, have been taught about the Misuse of Communications Act, and therefore the bullies should know that we could have involved the police. It's true that we didn't, this time; but if they had listened to the lessons, they should have known that we could have. So it was a daft thing to post stuff like that on Facebook. It would have been much more sensible for them to carry on surreptitiously undermining dd and avoiding doing anything which could be printed off.

A general bullying clampdown in a month's time won't have much impact on the actual bullies though. Presumably they have sat through such lessons before. They can't receive any kind of punishment in a month, or without knowing what they're accused of. I'm assuming what you're planning is the course of action your daughter wants?

Yes, it is what she wants.