Toxic situation- need advice

[Worried69]

My DD is year8. When she started y7 she made 2 good friends and spent a lot of time with them. She is in a class with one of them who has been increasingly tricky over year 7 and now is being really foul to my DD. She is extremely tricky and created a rift between my DD and the other friend and basically eats away at my DD's confidence, is saying horrible things about her to other girls and basically gets in the way of her efforts to try and create new friendships and break into new groups. What should I do? I have spoken to her class teacher as there was also some online stuff. She said she would keen an eye out and to inform her if things got worst. I have been listening and encouraging my DD to just be herself and try to move away from her. Buts it's very hard and my DD is really suffering. Shoild I ask for her to move class for example? Any advice and guidance or anyone who has been through similar things?

I am so sorry that this is happening, and apparently this behaviour can happen in year 8 as students spread their wings. I am aware of something similar to another girl and the parents spoke to the school, but I think at this stage you should go higher, i.e. deputy head as these things can get out of hand if not dealt with swiftly. The school needs to make this clear that this behaviour is not to be tolerated.

At the same time, your DD should keep away from her and find other friends. The key thing to explain to your DD is that the behaviour of this person is not about your DD but about what the perpetrator is feeling about herself. This is not an easy task for a young person, but if she could understand that, it might take the sting out of it.

You did not say how this girl gets in the way of your DD finding new friends as that is quite vile behaviour. Does she have some kind of vendetta with her, or does she just want the other friend to herself?

You might also consider joining your DD to clubs outside of school, so she has another space to be herself and find new friends there.

I wouldn't change classes just yet. Also as hard as this is, this is also a life lesson as I went through something with my DD in y4-5 and it was awful and we thought of moving schools, but she got through it, and it was a lesson learnt - albeit a hard one. Hope this helps.

We've been through this, and closely liaised with school. Mean girl and two cohorts were taken out of class for a chat with VP, but nothing really achieved. DD has been receiving CBT (thank you wise mumsnetters) and is now doing brilliantly. Doesn't engage with the girls who made her life a misery. Annoyingly, the ringleader is hugely popular which can throw up challenges, but DD now has the tools to deal with her shenanigans.

Thanks so much. Yes my DD trying really hard to make other friendships and spread her wings but this individual is very tricky and is also similarly quite popular and is I think saying horrid things about my DD and generally mixing things up and being pretty horrible. My worry is if the school deals with her it will make it worst for my DD so I just don't know how much to push on that. My DD has lots of friends and activities outside school so on that front she is totally fine.. She has always made friends easily and had nice relaxed groups of friends so this has all been a bit of a shock..

Chewbacca I suspect nobody really likes the ringleader they just don't want to get on her bad side!

There was a girl like that in my class. It was only years later we found out that nobody had liked her.

I would move forms. We did that for dd and it made a huge difference.

Interestingly she tried again at the end of year 8 and pushed it too far and suddenly everyone was on dd's side because she'd so openly been horrible and suddenly she was crying to the head of year how it wasn't fair and everyone was misinterpreting what she said, and saying she was being nasty, which was mean.
After I pointed out that her remark was not possible to be misinterpreted and it was funny how when the remarks had been her telling everyone lies about things dd had apparently done then she wasn't worried about making everyone ignore dd, it got dealt with.