My 13 year old is being bullied by a boy in his PE class, what should I do ?

[Nicole1976]

today my son came out of school and and told me he had been picked on by a boy in his trampolining class because of his weight (he's 4"11 and 8 stone 4 pounds) I was concerned and asked him exactly what happened.

First, The boy had called him fat in the changing rooms, and then during the lesson the same things were said as he struggled to get on the trampoline, later in the lesson he was also called gay and even pushed once.

Should I talk to the school and my son about this in more detail or should I wait for this to reoccur or happen again before taking any action ?

Hi,
I'm so sorry for your son. Many schools will define bullying as 'several times in purpose'. They might see this as an isolated incident.
It may be worth letting a head of year or tutor know that this has happened and ask them to keep an eye out for future incidents. It may help your son to know he has a nominated person to speak to if he's concerned.

We're coaching our dd (11) through a bullying situation. There are different tactics he can try. In the first place he must never let the bully see that the bullying is getting to him. Bullies get off on their victims' reactions and will get bored and stop if there is no reaction. So your ds can just act bored and totally ignore the bully. Otherwise he can shoot back witty replies like "I can lose weight but you can't get a new personality", "shame, you must be a very unhappy person", "don't you have anything better to do" or "your breath stinks, you should brush your teeth more often". That sort of thing.

Listen carefully to son over next week or so. Don't probe but just listen for news of any more incidents (not just with that kid). All kids get teased at school. Just wait to see if this is regular/vindictive before you wade in.

If it is, go to the school. Talk to Head of Year or similar. They know the bullying kids - they'll be on your side. And they DO help in constructive ways. DD went through all of this in Year 7/8, but has now emerged as much more confident and capable of dealing with it.

Please do contact school and ask them to kept an eye on it. It may be one off, or it may be that that students is unsing homophobic language repeatedly and no one has yet come forward to call them on their unacceptable language.

Talk to the school, either your son's tutor or the head of year, whoever you feel more comfortable approaching. Tell them what you know, then they can keep an eye on things.

They may not take any action straight away, if they think it's a one-off. OTOH there may be other incidents the school are aware of that you and your son are not. If they have the information, they can respond appropriately.