Waiting for Head to call me back about ds1 being bullied. What shall I say?

[Greensleeves]

DS1 is 10 and has AS. Generally speaking he doesn't struggle too much with being different, although he is, IYSWIM. He's been lucky with a lovely class (mostly) and has some friends who are pretty loyal.

A few weeks ago he told me that a few Y6 boys had been calling him names and shoving him, but he said it wasn't only him they were picking on, and he could cope with it and PLEASE would I not do anything as I would only make things worse. I said I wouldn't do anything without his permission, in exchange for a promise from him that he would keep talking to me and not shut me out of what is happening.

So last week these boys shoved ds1 and his friend in the lost property bin (big thing on wheels) and spun it round and were calling ds1 "weirdo" and being pretty nasty. He was upset about this but still didn't want me to do anything. We had a big talk with dh as well about what exactly happened and what we could do to help. DS1 didn't retaliate, he told his teacher and she went out and spoke to them, and he thinks they may have got detention.

On Saturday I let him and ds2 (8) go to the park for an hour - very big privilege, they have earned our trust gradually, they had a phone with them etc. They came back early saying they had met these Y6 boys in the park and they had been shoving them, blocking their path, calling him a weirdo again and swearing at ds2 and taking the piss out of his name

So I talked to ds1 again and we agreed that I would call the Head to talk about it, especially as it is now encroaching on life outside school. I called this morning and she is going to call me back when she is free.

ANY advice at all would be gratefully received. I feel awful and we live in a small community, he will be going to secondary school with these boys.

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There's lots of info and good links on the Bullying topic here. It is ime difficult and delicate to get the right approach, but with care it can be done. First step is to ask the Head for the school's anti-bullying policy; get that, think about it, take it from there. You can eventually ask for the school's policy to be improved/amended if not robust enough.

ask what the bullying policy is.

how come this has been going on for a few weeks (especially the shoving/physical stuff) without it being picked up on by staff (or if it has been picked up on, what are school doing about it - more along the lines of PHSE lessons, rather than punishments, iyswim)

how did the lost property bin incident even come about? how did staff not notice? how can children be able to do something like that (really quite dangerous/easy for someone to get hurt) out of sight of responsible adults?

now that it has come to their attention (access to lost property bin being used in this way) - what are they doing about ensuring it cannt happen again?

sorry your ds1 is having a hard time, but well done him - he sounds as though he is handling it really well with no retaliation, keeping calm, and getting help - good on him! (but very that he has to, obviously). be proud of his maturity.

OK I will ask for the bullying policy. That's a good start.

I am proud of him, he is being really good about it, but I can tell he feels sad about it too. Sometimes he says "Well I AM weird, I can see why they think that" . He can be a PITA but he would never bully anybody, it's so unfair that these goons boys are targeting him.

I wasn't sure how much of a fuss I should be kicking up about nobody picking up on it or inadequate supervision.

www.kcs.org.uk/system/files/page/48/Anti-Bullying%20Policy_0.pdf

^ This is a policy which is good, ime. Useful as a yardstick.

I'm not sure whether the school can do anything about the out-of-school stuff but I think you can certainly use it to show that this is a 'pattern of behaviour' rather than a couple of one-off events. I mention this only because most anti-bullying policies will have a definition of bullying in them which mentions that it's a repeated behaviour rather than a one-off.

I would want to know what was being done at the school to actively discourage bullying, rather than dealing with it on a case-by-case basis. Essentially, I would want to know what they are teaching the children about the issue.

Sorry he is having a hard time, I hope the school deal with it swiftly.

I would put everything in writing, the school have to take it more seriously then. Write a chronological account of everything that you know, however small the details may seem. If the school do approach these bullies or their parents they may well contradict what you say so it is important that it is recorded. If you are able to give dates and times this would help, perhaps the member of staff on duty at the time of the pushing and shoving was not doing their job properly and this could be easily rectified.

Perhaps you could finish your conversation with the head by saying you will email your account to her?

Make no apology to the head and don't let them delay with their plan of action. Good luck.

It may be worth asking whether they have a system where all their information about individual incidents is collated. Each teacher may think they are dealing with a one-off because no-one else has noted anywhere that they've also had to deal with similar incidents involving the same children IYSWIM.

Might be an idea to ask for the Equality Policy too as your son has AS.

Yes, agree with above - everything in writing as they take it more seriously.

And ask what steps are being taken to ensure that such incidents would not happen again.