Should I mention concerns after seeing an older boy leave with a 14/15 year old?

[Needtohidekitkats]

What would you do?

DD had told me that, when she came to the bowling / arcade venue early evening, she saw a girl in her year leaving with an older boy. He had his arm around her shoulder as if he was leading her out of the venue. The girl wasn’t being animated, so my DD is concerned. This girl is known to be friends with boys outside of school. My DD used to be friends with her but they have drifted as different interests.

DD was there to attend a birthday, the other girl wasn’t there for the party.

Should I raise this with the girl’s parents (I don’t know them)?

Should i ask the school to include advice into PHSE (I would only describe situ in general terms)?

OR Should I just forgot about it?

Background: I’ve recently read an article written by a woman describing how she was groomed - started with an innocent meet and then escalated badly - so probably making my “mum antenna” go on high alert.

There’s not a lot to report from what you’ve said. You don’t know anything about who the boy is or what the relationship is. It’s definitely not a brother or cousin??
15 year olds have older boyfriends. How much older are we talking? 17 or 27??

How old he is would be helpful

I think if he’s possibly 16/17 then it’s perfectly okay really. If we’re talking early 20s then yes that’s weird.

Mention it to the school if you/DD are worried and leave it at that, definitely don’t contact her parents, and don’t contact the school with some mysterious situation and tell them what advice to give in PSHE.

It may be absolutely nothing, but if it is something then you’ll have done the right thing.

He may be a relative, or a boyfriend who is not actually that much older. We live near a college and some of the new kids there look like fully grown adults so some year 11 kids must look older than school age.

if I was going to contact the school it would be to the safeguarding lead and pretty much say “ this could be something or nothing but the whole situation gave your DD a bad feeling “. It’s not going to necessarily trigger a massive intervention but it will get this girl on the radar and importantly the information is recorded. These are the jigsaw puzzle pieces that safeguarding professionals will put together if there are other incidents.

Maybe email the school’s safeguarding lead as your daughter knows her through school? They will hopefully know if it’s part of a bigger picture. For me it might depend on how much older the person she was with looked, a year or two, or a man.

I’d advise my DD to be careful about commenting to other people about people meeting boys outside school, might be just your wording but sounds a bit judgmental. And I don’t think I’d tell my DD I was contacting the school, to avoid possibility of spreading rumours and also because IME DC don’t like you contacting school much and think you’re overreacting. I would say that she’d done the right thing by telling me and that I’d think about what to do. That she should tell me again in future if she saw something similar.

In my local area I once saw a tall twelve year old girl I knew to be vulnerable in conversation with a man I didn’t recognise. As I walked past I said hello and asked how she was getting used to secondary school, the man melted away.

So if it feels natural enough she could think about doing something similar and mentioning something to do with school so that a man would know they have been seen by someone who knows her and knows she’s at school (obviously works better in areas where everyone is at college from age 16).
not an easy situation but I think it’s good you’re thinking what to do. For me this is not all clear cut so I’m interested to see what other people think.

Thank you all so much for your feedback.

Talking to the safeguarding team isn’t something that I had thought of, thank you.

i got the impression from the conversation that DD thought he was 17+, and not a relative. She was concerned as the girl looked like she was being led away.

But you don’t actually know anything about her or thee situation? So could be an elder brother sent to bring her home??
Report to school safeguarding but there is not much to go on!