Educating Yorkshire C4 9pm

[DameEdnasBridesmaid]

Am looking forward to this, RL Waterloo Rd?

No. Sure, I saw teenage girls being bitchy and catty but not bullying. I really couldn't make the call that it was bullying or not unless I'd seen a lot more with my own eyes and not just what the cameras had managed to catch or the editors had decided to show. For it to be bullying it would need to be those girls picking on Hadiqa on a regular basis. I didn't see that. I saw girls having a falling out and I can, to some extent, appreciate why. Hadiqa had moved into an existing friendship group, clicked with one of them in particular, the other girls would see this as 'their' friend being taken away from them (that they'd know since primary) and they were upset. I think an adult would be upset by that happening, but one would hope that, as an adult, you would have a better perspective on things and be able to handle it more maturely. The teenage years are called your formative years for a reason. You are still learning how to handle difficult situations and you don't always get it right, which is why you rely on teachers and parents to guide you - as happened here.

Bullying is a serious thing and I don't like the way it is bandied about every time some kids have a disagreement.

Upsy, you're wrong. There was bullying.

When Hadiqa sat down and one of the girls said 'her face bare pisses me off'- bullying.

Being excluded by that group of girls- bullying.

Having rumours spread about her- bullying.

It's so annoying how when it's girls it's just 'falling out' but when it's boys it's bullying.

I disagree. In my experience, its more likely to be called bullying if its girls. Boys can just have a bit of a fight, clear the air and move on.

None of those things you have listed says to me 'bullying'.

And I repeat, we don't know the full picture. For all we know, as soon as Hadiqa was away from the cameras she could have been saying or doing all kinds of things which made it understandable for the girls to want to exclude her. We just don't know.

As I said in my earlier post, bullying is serious and I don't, for one second, want to be seen as diminishing that.

But I do think that by calling every spat between developing teenagers, at an incredibly stressful time in their lives (exam pressure mixed with raging hormones), bullying does divert away from true, sustained and incredibly damaging behaviour.

I think sometimes these days we can be too quick to over-dramatise normal fall outs or behaviour into bullying.
I don't think I know many teenage girls who haven't fallen out with their friends or had one major fall out. I don't think many teenage girls won't have said bitchy comments or experiences rumors. It isn't nice, but it is normal and going to happen whatever a school does.
If we pandered to every occasion then how do children today learn a bit of resilience and how to deal with these situations by themselves. The school was dealing with it well IMO, highlighting to the girls that there was an issue and that they needed to sort it between themselves, or take up the offer of support from the school. The school then checked up on the issue regularly.

Agree with upsy - naming these kind of petty girl fall outs as bullying takes away from serious bullying.
For me I'd far rather my DD had these petty fights, felt a bit rubbish for a few days then, as they normally do, was best friends again the next day as they had sorted it out...
than the whole thing being intervened with by a teacher who tells DD she is being bullied and it is awful and that she shouldn't worry, the teachers will deal with it. DD's friendship would probably never be recovered with the girl, she would probably feel pretty powerless, her self-esteem crushed and it would be a unnecessarily huge issue.
Scenario 1 promotes resilience, scenario 2 promotes allowing yourself to be a victim in a situation and allowing someone else to take control and sort it for you.

and I don't, for one second, want to be seen as diminishing that.

With respect, I think you are diminishing that. Hadiqa went from a confident student who enjoyed school to an introvert removing herself from school life. The commentary told us that teachers were concerned at how the friendship issues were effecting her school work.

There can be a lot of pressure on victims to take responsibility for others bullying them, to just accept it as part of growing up, to reflect on how "they are causing" the bullying.

For me I'd far rather my DD had these petty fights, felt a bit rubbish for a few days then

Honestly? She moves to a new school, and when she sits with her one, first friend, the other girls make those comments out loud? "Why's she sitting with us? Just her face pisses me off?". Nasty, jealous, passive comments. And when your daughter tries to address this in an adult manner they turn away from her and ignore her distress. And this happens again, and again and again?

I know some will think I'm exagerating, but it was the ongoing situation that her teachers commented on, and the change they saw in her and her attitude to school.

Vivacia I think the issue is in the fact this is a TV show and how they portray it is very biased and constructed meaning. The way in which it was shown, I saw it that she had been there a fair amount of time (1 term +) and the fights shown were petty girl things, because they didn't from day 1 reject her, it was just for a few days and resolved. But I am aware this is all subjective to how you interpret the lack of information and shit-stirring by the TV company!

Quite. Hadiqa could have been beating up the other girls, and the film crew chose to not show us. I'm basing my interpretation on the story shown in the film.

I think when one someone makes a phonecall pretending to be someone else to create a problem within a friendship that's bullying. whoever made that phonecall specifically targeted hadika to take the fall for it knowing it would run a wrecking ball right through the middle of her and saffiahs's relationship. I think if that wasn't bullying, then at the very least- that and the other stuff ('her face' etc) was bullying behaviour. and it's behaviour that is not normal among teenage girls- it is normal amongst particular types of teenage girls that tend towards bullying behaviours. many teenage girls fall out with each other without ever making malicious phonecalls or referencing the other's appearance.

I don't think this programme is representative of how a large comprehensive actually functions. It's made for TV and they will have edited it again and again. If teachers spent that much time worrying about a couple of girls, they'd never do what they're paid to do. My sister is a teacher in an inner city comp and she find the whole thing farcical. AND she thinks the headmaster is a tad creepy.............

Yourebeingadick one of the teachers said themselves 'IF a phone call was even made' so they obviously think its at least a possibility that the whole thing was just a misunderstanding blown out of proportion. And presumably they were privy to a lot more of the story and know the girls concerned much better.

one teacher being doubtful is not proof that something didn't happen. the girl involved said someone had phoned her house and told her brother that she had been talking to boys on FB. unless her brother made it up to get her in trouble which is a possibility then It's probably safe enough to assume a phonecall was made. however, even without the phonecall- the other behaviour that was recorded on camera was bullying behaviour which is not something normal to all teenage girls/friendships.

I think this "bullying v non-bullying debate" is getting a bit convoluted. I think the only person who can make a definitive judgement about this is the "victim" or "recipient" of the comments/actions of others. We are all different and have differing perceptions - some will feel they are being emotionally bullied by nasty comments and others will just shrug it off or "give as good as they got" - in the opening scene a girl is pushed over and she shouts something to the effect that she is after whoever pushed her over and she sounds like she means business.

We have heard on the news lately about kids committing suicide because of "cyber bullying" and that's awful, but another kid might have received the same sorts of texts/emails whatever and shrugged it off. So much depends on the young person's self esteem as to how he/she is going to react, but even kids with good self esteem can I imagine be really upset by this "cyber bullying" Sorry I'm straying from the thread.

I think confident, resilient people with high self-esteem can be worn down by bullying. That's the nature of bullying. Suggesting it's down to low self esteem is victim-blaming.

Yourebeingadick I know that what the teacher said is not proof about whether a phone call was made that's why I said its 'at least a possibility'. From my personal experience, also hearing friends with older girls talk and speaking to a member of my family who currently works as a teacher in a similar school to the one featured, I would say that this behaviour is indeed normal between teenage girls. Unless it becomes a sustained attack on one person/group I still maintain that it is not bullying.

nananina I completely agree.

Vivacia I have to disagree that what nananina said was victim blaming. What she is saying is that someone could say or do something to me, for example, and it could be water off a ducks back or I might just tell them to get lost. They could say or do exactly the same thing to another person and that person considers it bullying. That has been proven on this thread. We all watched the same events on the tv and have reached several different interpretations.

Sorry posted to soon. That is not blaming the victim. It's just different personalities.

Upsy I agree with that, but if you think that's because you have great self-esteem and they don't, then we disagree. I have seen too many vibrant, confident people from pre-school to adult workplaces to retirement homes suffer from bullies. Unkind, sustained behaviour from one person is not the fault of the recipient.

It is not normal teenage girl behaviour. There are plenty of nice teenage girls who dont resort to bullying behaviour just because they have a fall-out with friends.

Also agree with vivacia wrt victim blaming comment.

Upsy -it was a sustained .They all had excluded her for several weeks.How is that not bullying?

Hadiqa had a conversation with one of the teachers before the phone call incident. She was called into the office to chat because they had noticed a change in her personality. Hadiqa said she was fine, the teacher said she was a rubbish liar, she then said she was coping, the teacher was sceptical and Hadiqa finally admitted she'd spent a lot of time over the last few weeks in the toilets and broke down in tears.

So the phone call row was obviously the culmination of a sustained period of feeling unhappy and excluded - so yes, bullying over a sustained period of time. Because bullying is defined by the way it makes the victim feel, not the intentions of the bully.

MrsCakesPremonition I said above, if you read my post that someone could say or do something to me and it be water off a ducks back but they could do the same thing to someone else who takes it very much to heart so I have acknowledged that bullying is how the victim feels. What I have been taking issue with all along is that, at no time during the programme was the word bullying mentioned either by the commentary, by the teachers or by Hadiqa herself. Therefore we do not know that Hadiqa felt bullied. I'm sure she felt pretty shit as anyone would who has fallen out with a friend but we do not know she felt bullied. I would guess she did not by the way she marched down to the dining hall to have it out with them but, again, we don't know. So, if the definition of bullying is how the victim feels about it,how can people on an internet forum make that call? I did not see bullying. I saw girls falling out. If Hadiqa felt it had crossed the line into bullying I don't know, but judging by how quickly it was sorted and they were best mates again I don't see that.

I think we may have to agree that, in watching a programme, being presented with only what the editors want us to see and not knowing any background than what we are told, we have reached different conclusions. That is why we have trial by jury, as it is accepted that people view the same evidence in vastly different ways.

Mr Moses has got his work cut out. Believe me!