Bullying - Story 18

My son entered primary school with a diagnosed speech and language disorder (expressive language delay) - he was put on the SEN Register, but received no support either from the school or through speech therapy. Baseline assessments at that time showed that he was 'performing' (visualising a circus seal here!) at the level of a Year 3/4 child - ie. a very clever boy unable to express himself effectively - how frustrated he must have felt. Bullying started immediately, and by much older (Year 6) children - a 'gang' of these boys would verbally abuse him every time they passed him - this was on a daily basis. Within a year, 4 boys in his own class had singled him out and were pushing him, tripping him up etc. His expressive language problems are always more pronounced when he is anxious or frightened, thus he could not verbally deal with these incidents and instead would hit back or push these children away - resulting in all involved being grilled by the teacher (or more often the headmaster). Of course, the guilty fingers would point at my son, and his silence (expressive language) would be taken as guilt and he would be punished - usually being sent to the headteacher for a telling off - terrifying for a 4 year old. This was the pattern throughout his time at this school. After a particularly bad bout of bullying lasting several weeks in Year 1, the headteacher decided that C needed the Behavioural Support Service's involvement. At the meeting to discuss this, the headteacher expressed astonishment that my son had a diagnosed speech and language disorder - I had told the teachers many times that it was because of his special needs that he was unable to articulate his experience, but this information had evidently not been given to the head. Despite Behavioural Support finding that C's only 'problem' was low self-esteem (surprise, surprise) nothing changed and the bullying continued.

Despite the bullying and the lack of support with his SEN, C would still skip to school to see his friends. However, this changed dramatically when he entered Year 3. His teacher took an immediate dislike to him (I subsequently found out that she had a 'history' of singling out vulnerable children, and a history of hitting children) and subjected him to emotional and physical abuse. Overnight, he became extremely anxious and frightened to go into school. I should have taken him and run for the hills, but I think I went into shock and instead wasted precious time trying to persuade the (new) headteacher of this teacher's abuse, and fighting to get support for my son's SEN - thus, he remained in this woman's classroom for almost 5 months. Once I realised that the headteacher and Governors had 'closed ranks' and I would get nowhere with them (my son was being sent home on a daily basis - it was open season on him once the children realised that this teacher condoned and encouraged their bullying and he was being bullied openly in class and on a daily basis on the playground - physically assaulted by both his classmates and older children) - I contacted the LEA - both the SEN Dept and the Head of Education. I was told that they could not interfere in the running of the school, but could only advise!!! Finally, I managed to secure 10 hours per week emergency one-to-one support for my son's SEN - this person acted as a 'buffer' between my son and this teacher, but as soon as she left the classroom the abuse would begin again. I also managed to secure a meeting (with support from IPSEA) with the manager of SEN and the manager of the Educational Welfare Service - both of whom promised that this teacher's abuse would be investigated. However, I then heard no more for many weeks and found that neither of them were available whenever I phoned. I finally got through to Educational Welfare to be told by this manager that she only investigated the 'more serious' abuse cases! (This teacher would punch my child on the arm and say 'sorry, that was an accident' or drag him by his collar). I finally saw sense and C was removed from that school. He was quickly placed in another school, but was basically a mess - very frightened and anxious, running out of school - throughout his time there (2 and a half years) he only ever attended part time and this was far from successful. There has been no support from CAMHS - we have been on their waiting lists for over 3 years now.

I refused to send C back to school following a number of incidents in Year 5 and in the first weeks of Year 6 - thus, he has been at home since October 2005, and is much, much happier for it. He is still very much recovering from his experience, and I wouldn't say that there is much conscious 'education' going on!! I had suspected that he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of the Year 3 teacher's abuse (CAMHS assessed him 20 months ago and said he wasn't) - but I have involved a solicitor, and she recommended a private psychiatric assessment which has found that he is indeed suffering from PTSD, as well as school and social phobia and anxiety disorder - the first school were instrumental in having my son diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder, but the psychiatrist refutes this.

Phew! This is just the tip of the iceberg really. One of the most shocking things for me was the continual refusal of the headteacher, the governors and the LEA to address the bullying and abuse. It seems to me - not just from our own experience, either - that they prefer to further victimise the victim of bullying than to deal with the bullying itself. My son was basically fighting for his survival - he says 'nobody was looking after me' and they weren't - and this was a particularly vulnerable child with special needs.

Submitted February 2006