Bullying - Story 11

The form of bullying was mental, and started with the children in her class, (exclusion, name calling,) then phyisical (pushing, sly hair pulling,and punching).

When the teachers were informed they first denied that there was any bullying going on at their school, (I now understand this to be standard policy).

Eventually they said they would talk to the whole class, so as not to name anyone, and the teacher spent less than five minutes saying don't bully.

When I asked for the school written policy on bullying they did not have one. I said they should by law and I wanted to see it. They could not do this.

They said they would speak to the parents of the two main girls. I found out later after I had removed my daughter that they never even rang the parents or spoke to them in any way.

This went on for about 6 months before I removed my daughter from school.

It affected her in a way that she became very introverted and would not sleep worrying about the next day, crying because she did not want to go to school and so on.

Her school work went from being nearly top of the class to low to middle.

I am a single dad and the frustration of watching my daughter go through this with little or no help from the school was very hard for me. All the time one hears about how the Government or schools are on top of bullying, but I can assure you from people I know they are fighting a losing battle.

One case I am aware of personally, where a young 15 year old lad was taken out of school because at lunch break, the excluded children were breaking into the school so they could beat him up. They even came to the school with knives on one of the days. The mother of this lad went to the Police who said it was not their problem as it's on school property. The school said not our problem, get the police; but would not do it themselves because that would mean admitting that bullying went on at their school.

The mother in question removed her son from school, and he is now home educated.