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Bullying situations at my school

Chelsea FC

I have experienced bullying at my school and this is known by several people within the school.

A couple of months ago, someone told me about his problems. I managed to convince him to report the issues and I also passed on the information. However, members of staff told the two of us we must not discuss the issues again.

Not only this, he stuck up for himself and the staff said, as he did this, it is not bullying and so only he was disciplined. Also, they do not believe him and so now he tells no one.

However, various year groups have seen it, so it must be true, and have reported it to teachers, but nothing came of these raised concerns either.

Some people believe that we were told not to discuss these issues so that it can be ignored.

I raised my concerns with several members of staff. They would not take back anything that was said and those that considered action were talked down by the other members of staff.

Do you know if the staff had the right to say he cannot discuss these issues with me? And do you have any advice of any action that I could take?

  • Thank you. Do you know of any other of their initiatives that could relate to this?

  • I was thginking more in terms of initiatives like those by Kidscape or Anti-Bullying Alliance (unfortunately the former's bullying intervention training is only with schools in London Boroughs).

    Especially with the level of cyber bullying and also the harm done by some forms of name calling, a lot has been done to get schools to take this seriously. Yours seems to have missed out or ignored these.

    There's so much on this around now, even if too much of it is only targeted at conventional bullying, for schools to have any excuse for doing nothing.

  • Thank you for your response. Do you know of any other guidelines that this is going against?

  • I can confirm from my own experience, when I tried to retaliate I got into trouble, but my persecutors did not. Part of the problem for me was being very tall, so the comment from teachers if I tried to aassert back was "pick on someone your own size".

    Also, because I was awkward and clumsy and having difficulties coping, I was more likely to make a fool of myself trying, and just add to the entertainment value. 

    The trouble is many people's advice, based on conventional bullying, is to retaliate and the bully will go away. But often the odds are you will get into more touble for doing so, especially if the school has run out of meaningful sanctions against the bully.

    Teachers often turn a blind eye to bullying, often with silly comments like "it is character building". It certainly isn't when it is collective exclusion against someone who is different or doesn't fit in.  But it is hard to stop the bullying and easy just to persecute the victim further. And some schools are just plain lazy.

    As to not allowing the younger individual to talk to someone about it, that is truly disgraceful. There is enough guidance around nowadays about the need to curb bullying, and one of the guidelines is about providing buddies or mentors to support vulnerable kids. If the school isn't attending to this it is failing in its duties.

    Sounds to me like a public school or would be snob school that thinks in this day and age that its victoriasn attitudes are anything other than outmoded, ignorant and negligent.

  • Thank you for your response. The bullying is across the board and I do not know if he is autistic.

  • Schools seldom seem helpful with this. It is difficult to challenge a school that isn't addressing bullying, but also bullying tends to be identified as conventional bullying where one or two bullies pick on weaker kids while everyone looks on.

    Some bullying is about difference, however, where often it is collective exclusion and name calling. There have been lots of studies, for example, on the use of tags like "gay" or "***" applied to any kid who is just different (ie often not inferring sexuality).

    I recall one such study 6 or 7 years ago where three schools participated. The poshest of the three, when they saw the results reflected badly on them, tried to have the whole project buried, simply because they were worried about its effect on league tables.

    And that's really the nub of this problem. A lot of schools bury bullying issues to protect their place on the league tables - not nice is it? But I wonder if the school in this case is more concerned about league tables than pupil welfare. There are some real "pits" out there pretending to be good schools.

    There is quite an enlightening book on "Asperger Syndrome and bullying: Strategies and Solutions" by Nick Dubin (Jessica Kingsley Publishers 2007  ISNB 978 1 84310 846 7). This might be quite helpful if you can get help with it.

    Unfortunately charities that address bullying (Anti-Bullying Alliance, Kidscape, etc) don't seem to recognise the kind of bullying experienced by people with ASC. Bizarrely Kidscape lists The Autism Foundation in a section headed Mental and Sexual Health (which is what, a recognition autism is a factor?)

    You don't say whether the bullying victim has autism or aspergers or what kind of bullying, but it is important to pin down the characteristics.

    How many bullies are identifiable, or is it a broader spread of persecutors, or is it a whole class more or less? Is it physical bullying, ostracisation (isolating the individual, not associating, ignoring), name calling (sexual, racial, religious, or physical appearance related), cyber bullying (mobile phone or internat chat/network sites)?

    Is it bullying at school,l with the teachers turning a blind eye, or clearly out of sight of teachers, or is it bullying between school and home? Is it bullying in unattended classrooms, or communal areas (cloakrooms, changing rooms and toilets)? Is it bullying during sports/recreation?

    Pupils with autism are particularly vulnerable to bullying because they act and may look different, they are less socially adept and easily isolated, they may be sensitive to noise or prone to meltdowns, which makes them fun, they may take joke threats too literally, and they may be reluctant to tell anyone. Also persisting ignorance about autism in schools mean teachers are likely to blame the victim, or claim it is up to the victim to sort things out.

  • Incidentally reading the description of the school's actions so far, as described by the original poster, it is clearly a school that needs external investigation or closure.

  • It's awful, I wish there was more I could suggest.  You are very brave for trying to help him.

  • Thank you very much for your response and ideas. Unfortunately, the diary and parent ideas are not possible in this case. We will bear the governers idea in mind. Your ideas and website links are very good ideas, but unfortunately, for this situation, are not applicable.

  • Your parents could write to the school governors, contact the LA about it.

    Tell the boy to record all incidents in a diary in detail.  Can your parents and his not liaise together so his parents get the true facts of what has happened?