Bullying - Story 2

The school they then went to rarely had new children joining part way through their junior years and wasn't geared for it. A week after starting my son went to a class swimming lesson and by the time he'd found what to do and where to go afterwards was left with a shabby pair of school trousers instead of his new ones and we never saw them again - I wrote a note to his teacher but no action was taken. He was put on the same table as the class troublemaker, who delighted in doing things like jogging the table when my son was trying very hard to write neatly (something he had problems with).

Again, I wrote a note suggesting, very nicely, that he would find it easier to do well in school if he was on a different table, but again no action was taken. One boy found it very funny to sneak up behind him in the playground and then thrust out his elbows and run full tilt into his back - one day he did so with such force that I had to keep him home next day because of neck pain caused by a whiplash effect. The inaction of the teaching staff just gave him the message that the school didn't care about him and nothing I could find to say changed his opinion - he (wisely) opined that his class and head teachers didn't do anything about the bullying (he was not the only victim) because they wanted a quiet life.

The school was only interested in SATs results and getting better marks than the school two miles away, not in turning out well-adjusted, kind citizens. 85% of my son's first two terms was spent in training for the SATs, doing mock paper after mock paper, and 95% of the third term leading up to the test. By this time, with the additional strain of the bullying, he was having migraines every 5-7 days, never had less than two mouth ulcers, slept badly and regularly had nightmares. By the end of SATs week he had dermatitis on the inside of his thighs so badly that he couldn't bear to wear regular trousers because the inner seams rubbed his skin raw so I kept him away from school the following week - our GP said that, since nothing else such as detergent had changed it could well be down to stress.

It's almost a year since we started home edding in earnest (my daughter, now 7, was being held back because she was progressing so well with reading and writing she made the rest of the class "feel they were failing!"). I concluded that if the problems of the children who were bullying others couldn't be sorted out at junior school level the chances of them being solved at secondary level (and I was NOT impressed with my tour of the local school) was completely non-existent.

My son is now healthy, has regained his self-confidence, and migraines, mouth ulcers and dermatitis gradually disappeared within a couple of months. The Council home education officer visits regularly and it entirely happy with their progress (she is, incidentally, an ex junior school head teacher who couldn't stand the direction in which SATs, etc. was moving education!)

Home edding is not an easy option by any means but I believe it's one that will result in my children being happy, healthy, confident adults set on a learning journey throughout their whole life.

Hope this helps.