Problems with behaviour towards my child

[poppy1973]

My child is in Year 7 of a comprehensive. He has been a little unhappy for a while, I wasn't sure what it was . He was in tears after school tonight and finally opened up what the problem was. He feels like older children are targeting him. Regularly pushing him corridors, swearing at him. Not his year group but other children in the school. He is petite and is finding that comments from older children are aimed and targeted at his size.

What should I do ? Inform the school ? Aim for a meeting with his tutor ? Any help and advice offered.

Hi Poppy, I'm not that knowledgeable. Maybe contact the form tutor. Hopefully someone more knowledgeable will be along in a minute, but you could try posting in chat for more traffic.

Phone the head of year. If your DS is being targeted by a group of students then that's bullying and should be stopped. If he is able to identify them then this might help. The school may also have CCTV in the corridors and be able to identify culprits if your DS can give specific incidents.

If it's a more general problem with older children, is it just your DS experiencing this? Or are all Y7s picked on? If it's older kids throwing their weight around then a more general intervention with that year group might be needed.

If there are 'hotspots' like after French on a Monday, then teachers could be asked to keep an eye on the corridors.

I managed to get in contact with the head of year as I didn't know how to contact the tutor. Head of year is going to have a chat with my son to find out what is going on. See what happens.

The teachers initially watched the corridors when they first started, but this soon stopped. Perhaps they need to go back to this. He has said that there is a number of children in the school (older ones - Y8/Y9) who are being nasty to him. I think that there is probably too many to point out. Normally boys but can be the odd girl too. He doesn't have a problem on the school bus and a lot of the older children know him and are quite nice.

I am going to wait and see if he has a chat with the head of year and see what happens. He is doing well in school and has kept his friends from a small primary school. He has unfortunately gone to a very large comprehensive where there is a lot of pushing and shoving done by the older children. I hope it gets easier for him, and that is isn't a thing where a few select children from Year 7 get picked on for the whole academic year. I don't think he could cope with that and I just hope that it would stop when he hits Year 8. I don't know !!!! They are particularly saying nasty things about his size, he is petite and unfortunately they are saying the wrong things to knock his confidence.

You did the right thing. Really hope this gets stopped. They are bloody cowards.

Thanks JellyTotCat. I just hope I have done the right thing and that it doesn't make the situation worse. Which is one reason why he didn't want to speak up about it before.

Kids can be so nasty, I really hope the HOY can help to sort this for him, poor chap.

Thanks. Fingers crossed !!!

Hope your son is feeling a bit better now op.