2 day suspension for vile attack

[Poptart22]

My 13 year old niece was physically attacked at school by her ex best friend. The bully had threatened that she was planning to do this a week earlier, which we informed school of and pleaded with them to keep her safe, however the attack happened on school grounds a week later.

Some other pupils filmed the attack in which my niece can clearly be heard saying several times she did not want to fight, and did not retaliate once. The attack was vicious, she was repeatedly kicked and punched before eventually the teachers arrived.

My niece had to attend A&E. Police were informed who advised she can press charges, but we haven’t yet. However they went and warned the bully to leave her alone.

School suspended the bully for a measly 2 days. She has returned and continued harassing my niece, commenting on her weight and laughing about the attack.

To make matters worse my niece is a looked-after child in the care of her grandparents, with an already troubled and traumatic past.

I wrote a very angry email and attached the vile video of the fight to the headmaster asking why the attack was able to happen on school grounds when we warned them, why the punishment was so weak (in my opinion), and requested that the bully be excluded.

Today I received a phone call from the safeguarding officer advising ‘teachers can’t have eyes in the back of their head’ and that the punishment is pretty standard, as ‘fights happen all the time’. Also tried to put some blame on my niece for failing to report all ongoing incidents of harassment.

In my opinion, if the bully had been properly punished, the harassment would not be continuing.

Im planning on requesting a meeting with the head, since he hasn’t bothered responding to my email.

Where do I stand on this?

My niece is terrified to go to school and completely humiliated.

(I am dealing with this on behalf of my mother who is in her 70’s and struggling to cope).

Wow, the attacker should be expelled from school. Terrible. She should have been suspended in the first place for making a threat.

Follow the school complaints process, probably to Governors next and ask how they will Safeguard your dn. Sadly it is likely you will need to involve the police

Support the police prosecution. Give them the video and support your niece to make a statement and ask if the behaviour before and after the assault, even better if any of it is by text. They may also be able to give bail conditions not to make contact with/communicate with your niece, and if that's broken you should report that too.

Some schools see violence as par for the course. We have a local school that Ofsted said has an endemic problem with violence.
If you don't get a satisfactory result from the head, go to the governors. They are often shocked by these kinds of decisions.

It is difficult for schools to permantly exclude a child, they can’t just decide to and the school shouldn’t be discussing the punishment with you.

It’a up the CPS not the victim to press charges but your niece can say is she would provide a statement. I would encourage younto do this. This happened when I was teaching and the school had to ensure the children never crossed paths before the case went to court.

I woulf ask for a meeting with the DSL to ask them ehat they will be putting in olace to protect your niece. See if her social worker can also attend.

Yes involve the police. The school will be useless and sweep this under the carpet. This was a criminal act and the bully should face the consequences for her criminal actions.

Your poor niece, I’m so sorry. Pursue it with the police while trying to get the school to take it more seriously.

It’s really, really difficult for schools to permanently exclude. Where I work the local authority do everything they can to make their exclusion figures look better and so they encourage families to appeal permanent exclusions and do schools over to either rescind them and take the kids back or they dump the kids in alternative provision for a while and then send them back to the school. Your best bet is to pursue it with the police.

Why are you expecting the school rather than the police to deal effectively with an assault? Schools have fuck all power to deal with this sort of behaviour.

Get on with pressing charges.

Do they not have a duty of care to keep pupils safe? Surely she’s entitled to get her education without being beaten up on school grounds

Press charges. Then follow complaints procedure all the way to top. Keep everything in writing - if they call, tell them you won’t discuss by phone, only by email.

This was an assault, not a fight.

Of course she shouldn't be beaten up. But schools are not the appropriate people to deal with criminal behaviour. They don't have the right powers.

If you were badly beaten up you wouldn't be pissing about, you'd be getting the police to deal with it.

Report it to the police.
Write to the head teacher and note your regret that your niece has not been kept safe despite the school being notified of a potential serious issue. Ask the school what adjustments they will be putting in place to keep your niece safe as the aggressor will be back at school in two days.

Cold, measured steps are necessary one more step wrong and you escalate to the Chair if Governors and Director of Education at the Local Authority.

Vive la revolution!

Report this to the police officially.

Involve your niece’s social worker and ask them to hold a looked after child review at the school
so they can support you with ensuring the school provide adequate support and safeguarding.

Well they were well aware the bully was threatening to attack her. On the video, there are literally gangs of pupils crowding round and shouting well before the fight even begins and long after, before any sign of a teacher coming to break it up.

I would have expected that, at the very least, someone might be supervising the pupils, or keeping a bit of an eye out for any trouble.

Press charges and absolutely inform the school that bullying is continuing because clearly it needs to stop.

Ds was punched in class, he was actually not the intended target, the boy punched another child twice and had clearly lost control and punched Ds too before a teacher was able to get to them. He was suspended from school for 3 days, had to have a return to school meeting with him and his parents present and he also returned to 3 days in isolation. The school read out a parent response from us about if you touch our son again, we will press charges, they were all in year 11.

The staff made sure to keep an eye on the whole situation and moved the child in class away from my son and checked in with him for a few weeks to make sure there was nothing rumbling on. Luckily nothing else happened.

But the school is very well staffed, incredible pastoral support and a zero tolerance on negative behaviour. Your niece's school maybe cannot offer the same sort of support. You need to go into a meeting to tell them about the continued abuse of your poor niece.

I'm sorry this is happening. I too agree with pressing charges. Unfortunately when a child continues after already being punished, there is a big chance that if this behaviour isn't squashed once and for all, they're destined to end up being an even worse adult. I do believe that getting the police involved will potentially uncover / help with anything that's going on at home for that girl, as you don't behave like that when everything in your life is going great.

Before you go to your meeting with the head, write down a list of questions you want answered. Sometimes we forget everything we want to say and points we want to make when emotion comes out in the moment.

I've attached a screenshot of the exclusions guide for headteachers you can leverage to ask why this child was only given a short suspension and not an exclusion when attacking another child is clearly listed as a reason for exclusion. There are a few more handy phrases in there you can also use in your points. Basically, throw the book at them.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/66be0d92c32366481ca4918a/Suspensionsanddpermanentexclusionssguidance.pdf

@CouldYouMindThatBaby this is great.

OP, if your school try to brush it off and say what would you have liked us to have done, quote this ^

This. Press charges and inform the aocial worker. She should also have a LAC link worker at school.

I agree with you.

My ds had a knife pulled on him in a classroom and the boy was suspended for 2 days.

Ds had a breakdown and I rang him in sick as was going to the GP and school refused to authorise it - apparently he had no reason to be anxious as the other lad wasn't in school that day.

I truly believe- like you that the schools lack of taking previous incident seriously have this lad power and confidence to up the ante.

I'm so so sorry your niece went through this. As a LAC I'd be speaking to her SW and getting them on board to support her and preferably finding her a place is a decent school for naresh start where she feels safe.

When ds was attacked in school the police said they don't get involved in school stuff as schools deal with it.

School said there was nothing to deal with as police wouldn't proceed with case.

I agree it's a police matter but also schools need to respond to incidents on their own premises.