I'm not sure if I can name the school but I really need some advice on how to move forward with this as it is causing both me and my family a great deal of distress.
I cannot fault the teachers of the school my DD and DS attend as they have always gone far beyond what could be expected of educators to ensure my children have made exceptional academic progress but in the past two years a bullying culture has grown in the school.
It started last year with sporadic acts of excessive violence and abuse by a small number of students who seemed to be untouchable for reasons beyond my understanding. An example would be the year 7 student who felt it acceptable to aggressively scream "You're a WHORE" at a classmate until she broke down in tears. Her crime was to go the extra mile on her homework.
While the year 7 girl's parents have moved her into private education the offender has went on to assault many other students both male and female in an out of school. At worst they have received a day in internal exclusion because of a 'difficult home-life'.
At the other end of the scale there is a growing gang mentality in the school led by the children of local drug dealers, they wander the school in a crowd of 20-30 students and assault anyone they feel like. They have also carried out sexual assaults on female students in the knowledge that their family will deal with anyone who fights back. My DS has been offered drugs on several occasions by members of this group and has even started feigning illness to avoid classes shared with these animals, saying no is an invitation to be attacked by their gang. It is common knowledge that last year they forced a student to mule their drugs into school and set their family on him when he was caught.
It is not uncommon for them to send over one of their smaller members to start fighting a random year 11 then attack as one. Last year a boy in the school was sent to hospital for preventing one of their group stealing his bike.
Most girls now call home for a lift if they are late after school as they don't want to be caught by the gangs leaving their daily detentions. I know my DD has given up attending sport and drama clubs for this reason, and she loved both of them.
To their credit the teachers try their best and follow the schools procedures but they cannot protect the students outside of school, and no matter how many times a student is sent out of class or their parents are contacted nothing changes. Given the parents of this minority of students are often career criminals it is unlikely to have any real impact.
I cannot afford to send my children to an independent and the waiting lists for other schools in the area are excessive (apart from those which are even worse).
Is moving home and changing jobs really the only option left open to us? At the moment we are even considering emigrating to Canada or Australia to protect our children.