DH says this is how bullying starts, I'm not so sure

[notsureabouttheschool]

DS is shortly to start secondary and is going up with a couple from his current school. They had an induction day recently and another child threw my DS's work in the bin
I know this sounds a bit trivial but there have been a couple of other minor issues.
I told him to just ignore him.
DH says he must confront him or it will escalate to bullying without a doubt.
Any suggestions on how to deal with this?

Bullying doesn't happen because of anything a potential victim does or fails to do. That's victim blaming. Bullying happens because some horrible pos is a bully. Make sure your DS knows how to report bullying whether it's him or someone else at the sharp end.

I don't think that sounds trivial at all, what an awful thing to do! It definitely needs dealing with immediately but I don't think your DS should have to stand up to him, more teachers needs to deal with it

Please don't make him feel he has to ignore bullying behaviours. He is worth more than that. Teach him to talk to the adults who should be able to deal with it and keep him safe. A skilful adult will be able to make sure that the poor behaviour is dealt with without making a victim of your son.

The school will want to nip this in the bud. Please contact them, if you leave it your DS will be worrying all summer.

Thank you so much everyone. My son looked very stressed when my DH told him that he needed to sort it out himself.
Backstory, I too was bullied aged 12+, and no-one to help, so I forget teachers are much more switched on now.
DH has suggested DS grabbed this child by the short collar and looked him in the eye and said 'just stop irritating me' 😮😮

Your DH's suggestion sounds quite aggressive. I wouldn't advise him to do that. I'd advise him to ignore it and either tell a member of staff or get you to talk to staff. Bullies try and get a reaction - don't give them one, but ensure they're behaviour is challenged by the school. I agree with another poster - the school will be looking out for trouble makers early on and will want to nip this in the bud.

Please speak to school now about this (I'm a HOY) with an email trail. Acting now gives an opportunity for class changes and an insight into the bully coming in who may have been described as perfectly delightful by their primary school. 🙄

Yes be proactive now as it could well escalate. Your ds does not have to deal with this himself, it’s up to the school to sort it. Get in touch with them and let them know your concerns. Make sure your ds knows the procedure for reporting any bullying.

I'll send an email this morning, also mentioning previous concerns at primary (not reported). The good thing is that he really likes the tutor teacher.

Also, this child chose to sit next to my son, not the other way round, so I think he knows my son is a soft target. 🙁

Dd had two induction days last year and a boy got a detention (on the induction day) for intimidating someone and another boy was sent home for fighting. I haven't heard of either of them bullying/fighting in year 7 so presumably it had the desired effect. I'd tell the school. They can either try and catch him in the act or say they saw him do it on cctv or say another child reported it rather than say he reported it

Sorry i see you are emailing. Good idea

If this is a child from his primary, it may not be too late to switch tutor groups.

If there have been issues at primary that the primary didn't know about, they might not have known to tell the secondary not to place them together.

He definitely needs to know that bullying is not tolerated. There should be a bullying policy in his student planner when he starts. Year 7s are usually told the school rules and about reporting bullying behaviour, what it looks like etc.

Sadly you can't encourage your child to physically grab another child. But if your son can't/won't report things, you need to on his behalf. Ds1 is introvert and found it very difficult to report it but luckily his HOY was lovely and understood this so we reported stuff.