Year 9 girls - immense unkindness - WWYD

[Nancyinthetown]

Hi, we have just moved house from London to the Midlands and my daughter has recently started in Year 9 at the local high school. Before she started everyone we asked said how nice the school was and how happy their kids were. Sadly her experience has been very negative and she has been subject to immense unkindness from her peers. There have been several incidents where her peers have said some very unkind things, culminating in today some year 9 girls telling her to kill herself. I am really shocked at this behaviour in what is actually a nice area. It is starting to affect my daughter - she thinks it is because she is an easy target and has no friends to support her. I've been in contact with the school but in terms of the longer term, WWYD? Stick it out or find an alternative. I really don't know. Many thanks mumsnetters.

Move her. No question.

I have had 3 kids go through secondary and I would never keep them in a school with this level of bullying.

how long has she been there? How big is the school? Unless the school is very small it seems unlikely that every single year 9 girl is mean so if she's not been there for her long, I'd encourage her to keep away from the mean girls and try to find some nicer ones! Also worth talking to her tutor/head of year/whoever is responsible for pastoral stuff at the school to say that your daughter is having trouble finding friends and to see what they suggest.

Unfortunately, you will get unkind behaviour everywhere. Some kids can be very unpleasant to others. I would first speak to the school about:
how they can help her make some friends. Could she be buddied up with some nice girls for a longer period than is usual?
how they can sanction the girls who have been unpleasant. They need to follow the behaviour policy here. What is the sanction for this?

Ultimately, you might decide to move her, but it might be worth giving these things a go first.

Wow, thank you for your replies! Its good to get a sense of what others would do.
To answer a few questions, she is in a big school (270 per year group) which is the same size as her previous school in London.
She has been attending since mid September this year. We are talking to her form tutor/ head of year 9 and pastoral leader already.
Good point about the behaviour policy, I will mention that to the school. I think the school will do what they can.
I just feel so sad for her having to go through this and all this unpleasantness eroding her confidence.

I would remove her

I would give the school some time to address the situation but if it doesn't improve quickly (and certainly by February half-term) I'd be looking to move her. I'd also want to know that they're taking today's incident very seriously and would consider reporting the girls in question to the police for harassment.

I would raise it with school first and ask what their policy is on bullying. If it doesn't improve then I would look for a different school after Christmas.

Behaviour policy, anti-bullying policy and complaints policy will all be in their website. Lodge a formal complaint as per the complaints policy quoting the other two policies. Follow the complaints policy to the letter otherwise they can chuck your complaint out.

Is it possible her head of year could move her to a different form group/change classes so she isn’t spending much time around these girls? I would give it until Christmas and if school haven’t sorted it then I would look to move her. I went through awful bullying at school and no child should have to put up with it.

As @Thisonetoday said, ask her to be moved to a different class away from the bullies. If that's not possible then remove her.

Thanks Mumsnetters, your replies are really helpful for me. Good to hear what others would do.

Unfortunately schools aren't always good at dealing with this kind of thing. Keep contacting them again and again until you're happy it's being addressed properly.

This might mean a change of tutor group, sanctions for the bullies, moving the bullies out of her class, buddying her up with a couple of nice girls, having a mentor in an older year group, etc etc. Ask what school are going to do to help her settle in and establish a friendship group, not just to stop the unkindness.

Also make sure you and your daughter know who to notify every time there's an issue - probably tutor, but maybe head of year, behaviour team, safeguarding, etc. You need to make sure someone takes ownership of sorting this out.

I hope things start to improve soon

This happened to my DD, Year 9’s can be vile, so are Year 8’s, we didn’t hang around to find out whether year 10’s would be any better - we moved schools. Our schools head was crap, the Head of Year had his hands tied as they have to follow all sorts of procedures with bullying. My DD regularly got told to Kill herself, so much so, she started googling how to! KYS was randomly messages to her from various individuals throughout day/over weeks - acronym for kill your yourself. Anyway this just escalated, maybe because she hadn’t to physical threats, beaten up, filmed etc. she spent breaks in the toilet on her own, even some lessons as was so intimidated. I removed her promptly to a much smaller school, from an intake of 270 to 60, from a good ofsted to one that needs improvement, don’t let that put you off - the one that needs improvement is far superior to the school I removed her from and has been a very positive move and the change in my daughter from being scared to go to school to looking forward to going to school happened within the week of starting. In my experience, the bully’s are worked with, not removed, the only way to escape is to move, not sure why that’s the case and the bullies seem to get off scot free and on to their next victim which they did, and the video of the poor kid getting beat up put on social media.

@IwishIwasSupermum That is awful, your poor DD.

What you have said is exactly what I am worried about - how this could all potentially escalate. My DD is talking to her form tutor today after yesterday's event, so we will see how the incident has been dealt with. As others have suggested we are likely give it to Christmas to see if the situation resolves.

Maybe I shouldn't be, but I am surprised at how quickly my DD has been put into such a vulnerable position. She has tried hard to fit in and only ever wanted to make friends at school and be happy - not a lot to ask for really!

@Nancyinthetown keep an eye on your daughter, I didn't know the extent of the intimidation until I actually removed her. There were kids at the old school who reached out to DD after she left, saying they were sad she’d left, maybe they were too intimidated by the bullies to extend the olive branch while DD was still there. The whole situation makes my blood boil and when I read about it happening to others on here it brings it all back and makes me angry on your behalf.

Take care and best of luck to your DD, it’s not her, she’s very lucky to have a supportive mum. X

Your poor dd.

Honestly, secondary age girls can be absolutely vile and it all seems to get even worse in Y9. My dd is in Y9 and her friendship group is essentially made up of the misfits that have joined together to support each other against this sort of treatment. As a result the school now seems to buddy any girls that are struggling with one of their group.

That said, having had a child severely bullied through primary and secondary school, my choice would be to move them to another school if at all possible. My dc is now 20 and still dealing with the consequences of how they were treated - and that was with me coming down hard on the school and removing them.

If she doesn’t want to move schools or there are no better options and it’s a large intake, is the year timetabled in two halves? Could she be moved into the other half? That’s what two of the girls who are now in my dd’s group did.

It’s so hard to see your child go through this. My DD had issues in Year 8. The school (an Ofsted outstanding school in London) were very weak in the way they handled it. They did follow their behaviour policy, in fairness, but it was completely ineffectual. Lots of meetings and saying the right thing, but the bullies found new ways to target my DD. My DD wasn’t able to go to break or lunch without the girls saying awful things to her, or they’d follow her home insulting her and throwing things at her. She had to constantly block them on her phone as they trolled her online constantly.

In the end, one of them physically attacked her. My DD retaliated and they were both excluded. But there was no weight given to the fact my DD had spent nearly a year doing the right thing, ignoring then, letting the teachers know when things were particularly bad, telling us, letting the adults deal with it etc.

I moved her towards the end of Y8 and I wish I’d done it earlier. She made a good group of friends quite quickly at her new school and although (now in Y9) there are the usual petty friendship issues, the school seems to be much more effective at stamping out this type of stuff early on.

Some schools are better at dealing with this sort of thing and in my experience, it comes from the Headteacher and SLT. DD’s new school has a stricter behaviour policy, but also a big focus on emotional well-being and mental health. The two in partnership seem to work well to tackle bullying.

Excluded for a day btw, not permanently!

Thank you all so much for responding. I really do appreciate it.

It's so unfair that this happens. Best wishes to everyone and good luck!

You could talk to your MP, make a complaint to the council, make a complaint to Ofsted, there are quite a few ways to escalate. I'd ask for their anti-bullying policy - it should be on their website and let them know you have familiarised yourself with the document and you now expect them to proceed to the absolute letter of the document. You could also raise it as a safe-guarding issue that your DD's mental health must be protected. The long-term consequences of bullying on mental health are well-known.

Bitches at that ages you’re poor daughter and you too for the worry I’d move her if you can once they start this it can get worse.

The number one advice I would give is to start calling it what it is , bullying. Until you do this the school will continue to minimise the problem just as you are, its not unkindness or unpleasantness its bullying.

The poor little pet. That is just heartbreaking. I would urge you to contact the school’s safeguarding lead.This is deemed peer on peer abuse and should be taken very seriously.

@cyclamenqueen

Thanks for calling me out on this, you are completely right, I have avoided calling this bullying and so has the school. I think I’m just finding it hard to accept how another child could act this way. I find it baffling but it’s an age old problem so I shouldn’t be surprised really.