Help and advice required on 12 year old moving classes in year 7 due to bullying

[nortonmumoftwo]

Hi there

I'm struggling here and help/experiences/advice welcome.

My daughter has just started Year 7 at local comp.

On her school friends choices form she put down 3 names of friends she would be happy to be with and 1 name of someone she would prefer not to be with (X). She's in a class now with this girl X who she has never got on with. (They had to be separated in year 5 at primary school due to bullying by X against my DD). Girl X is a good foot taller than my DD and is maturer in mind and body than most of her peers. I think DD is intimidated and a little frightened of X.However we knew all this and talked about it before starting in September and daughter said she was happy as she felt all unpleasantness with X was in previous years and she felt she could deal with it. She has other friends in the class. BIG MISTAKE!

There was an incident with X (whom she knew from primary school) out of school. Ever since this incident she has been on the receiving end of endless low level bullying from this girl. The kind of stuff I am talking about is name calling, talking outloud about her so she can hear, turning all her friends against her with lies, silly stuff like flicking water at her, squaring up to her, constantly bothering her and so on. All minor stuff but it got to a point last week where she couldn't take any more and burst out crying. She doesn't want to come to school in the mornings and is becoming anxious and slightly withdrawn.

I am reluctant to get involved in friends disputes normally and prefer to arm her with advice to get over these situations herself. However as I mentioned before it reached a level where I had to intervene and then eventually contact the school. I want to get her moved to a class where she has friends - the same friends she put on her choices forms.

School have been pretty good and spoke to both girls and stopped them from sitting next to each other. But they are still in class of 30 and this bullying is still happening. X is a very clever girl and knows she is being watched and has wound her neck in it somewhat. The mother of X is known to me and she is one to believe that her DD is an angel and couldn't possibly do anything like this. So no go there to try and reason with her.

Last conversation with the school resulted in the decision that DD wouldn't be moved and she must work through her problems.

So I guess the thing I want to know is considering X was someone she chose not to be with, it's only 7 weeks into 5 years of secondary, DD isn't happy, I'm not happy, worried about her concentration with school work, etc - do I have any right to demand her change of class?

I am meeting with the Headmaster next monday for a final decision.

help!!!

[NanaNina]

This sounds like quite heavy bullying to me and not at all trivial. What is the school's anti-bullying policy - you need to ask to see it and put the responsisbility on the schoolk to deal with it. My dil is a primary school teacher (year6) and parents are always coming in asking for A to be moved from B and C is upset because D is no longer her friend etc. Mostly my dil does not accede to the parents' requests because there is a lot of falling in and falling out in the friendship groups with girls of this age, but she saw this post and said that was in a different league and the school should be held responsible.

[yummumto3girls]

My DD has just started secondary, she chose not to be with anyone from her primary school and luckily the school honoured this. Why on earth did the school ask for preferences and then completely ignore your DD, that's worse than not asking at all, I would certainly have issues with the school over this. As this bullying has been going in for a long time I would not accept them being in the same class together, you've got 5 years of this! It's not fair that your DD should have to move, the school should address the one that's doing the bullying, however if your DD is the easier to move I would insist in it. You have my sympathy, hope if turns out ok, your poor DD.