AIBU to feel my bullied child was punished instead of the bully

[Paprikas]

My daughter is quite a petite 12, herself and her friends were told to get off a bench by a much larger girl. When they wouldn’t this girl went for her, ripped her earring out, pulled hair out her scalp etc, my daughter kicked back at her, to get her off but it took a 6th year boy to lift the bully away. Anyway my daughter is traumatised, has been off school the last 2 days while the other girl was in the “support base” and threatened another one of dd’s friends. I don’t think the girl was punished, it was assault, what if she did that to a teacher. The school had been ignoring our calls until my elder dd put up a Facebook post. She then had the head boy shouting at her and sending a very passive aggressive message tonight. Sorry for ranting on but this school is already in bother with the council for bullying issues. AIBU feeling the punishment wasnt enough, I am too close to it to feel I’m making a measured decision. I’m thinking of reporting to the council and would appreciate any input. Thanks.

One incident which was a fight is not systematic bullying. The school should deal with the incident but referring through the Safeguarding procedures would be very heavy handed at this stage. The school must deal with bullying and get to the bottom of what happened and try and prevent it happening again, but at the moment, the issue as reported to us is not Safeguarding. If all such first (and hopefully one and only) incidents were reported to social services and the Safeguarding team, there would be chaos. The guidance makes it clear this is a matter for the school and they should deal with it according to their policies. It should not be referred upwards to the Safeguarding team at present unless the school really cannot deal with the perpetrator. In that case, if there is evidence, they can exclude the girl.

No School can guarantee absolute safety for anyone but they must do their best to ensure this behaviour is stopped. So working with them is best. You cannot expect a child to be permanently excluded before you let your child go back. There needs to be dialogue regarding how to avoid escalation of this.

It wasn't a fight it was an arrack! No reasonable person attacks another in this manner and I would assume this girl has form. It won't be healer first offience

To call it a fight suggests both parties had previous interactions which they didn't.

And it's not 'clear' it's a matter for the school the girl is above the age of responsibility and therefore it's a police matter.

No one here knows the full details. The OP doesn’t know the full details either really because she wasn’t there, so I don’t think anyone can really judge whether it was an assault or a fight.

The op's DD kicked back at the girl who went for her. No-one knows what verbal exchanges there were. This is why the school needs to (must) investigate.

I can assure you the Police won't be very interested. These matters are normally for the schools to deal with. Go to the Police by all means, but I can guess what they will say. As I have said, the school has policies and sanctions to deal with this behaviour. They need to establish the facts and this will inform what they do next. The Police would have to do the same but they won't want to. Age has nothing to do with it. On school premises, it is primarily a school matter. Do you think every event like this is investigated by the police? Age of responsibility is not the key issue here.