Looking for advice on child being bullied in primary school

mo_65981

Hello,
My son, now 10 has been having problems with another child in his class for the past 2 years. Up to recently it has mostly been getting him into trouble by telling all sort of made up things to the teacher. This child has the habit of doing so with a number of other kids but because our son takes it at heart more than others, he seems to be the main target.

We have of course considered than it could be our son causing trouble and have enquired with other kids and parents and it seems quite clear that it is not the case. In fact, it has mostly revealed that the child in question has had problems with many other kids, not only in school but also clubs such as football etc.
This is to the point where this child has extremely few friends whereas our son seems to getting along with just about everyone else in the class.

More recently the boy got a couple of kids, including my son, into trouble on the way back from school when he was throwing pebbles at them and ended starting to cry when he seen his mother, telling her they were picking on him, in other words, reversing the roles. A number of older kids having witness this have assured us the boys had done nothing wrong and were victims of a good actor. On this occasion, the mother went to the kids screaming at them, warning them to stay away from her son. It seems she can see no wrong in the actions of her child.
Our son is terrified of her and as a result we ended talking to the guards to seek advice. Their advice was to leave it for now as if they get involved things could get worth.

Last week, during a game of football in the school yard, our son went out to collect the ball and the boy in question started a fight and proceeded to try to strangle him. His neck was covered in red marks and nail marks. The incident happened at 12 and we were never called. I remember being called over a scrapped knee a couple of years ago and am therefore surprised on not being called.

Overtime, I have met with the school principal regarding the issue and always find her supportive. I always felt she was looking out to insure no further incident would occur.

We have met her again following the incident but her attitude was changed, basically saying that they could not be sure the incident actually happened, than none of the boys ever got in trouble in school and therefore they could not really take a side. On the day, she asked in the class who saw the event, a number of kids raised their hand but it appears the only one interviewed was our son’s best friend. She is explaining the red marks by our son rubbing his own neck and apparently did not see the nails marks. We have a number of picture taken over 3 hours after the incident and they are clearly visible.

Meeting her the following day she said she had to dismiss the boy that was witness as he is a good friend of our son. We happen to know (since) that at least one other boy has seen it and he was not asked.

The school has since put a number of practices in place in the yard so there is more supervision, however, they are ignoring the incident completely. The boy has not been punished and the principal is not responding to us about the incident at all, in our opinion, hoping it will go away.
Our feeling is that the school is doing its best to cover up and therefore their stand is that nothing happened. It seems any incident would not look good on them so they are just trying to push it under the carpet.

We have no intention of letting that go, if anything, for our son’s and other kid’s safety in the future.

I am skipping on further incidents over time as it could take some time but the result at this stage is that we can see it is affecting our son, he does not want to go to school anymore, looks stress and have already asked several times why was the other boy unpunished for what he had done to him, how fair is it and how dangerous school can be. This is also affecting us as a family.

We have also tried to approach the other parents (before the strangling incident) in order to bring this to an end but it is not possible to speak to them, their child is a little angel, victim of a school full of bullies according to them.

Does anyone have any advice on where to turn if we do not get a satisfactory response from the school?

ShamoBuc

It's a horrible feeling to be in your situation - horrible for all of ye. I presume you have spoken to the class teacher - they would have a better 'day to day' feeling of the boy in question. Ask to make sure they are not seated near each other in the class at least.
Re: the incident, did you ask the principal why the other children were not questioned as to what they saw? They should have been out of best practice if they saw it.
RE: the mother...some parents are just like that, but they reap what they sow...it will catch up with them eventually and they will wonder where it all went wrong.
Is it possible to change his routine with home time, get collected by someone, after school clubs etc, it might help.

Document everything. Bring your concerns to the principal again, stressing that he is unhappy to go to school as a direct result of the boys actions.
Have a look at their Bullying Policy and procedures and ask how are they being implemented regarding to your son.

Hopefully this will pass without any more incidents.