New school
It is with much sadness that we’ve decided to move The Kid to another school. Although we firmly believe that St Augustine’s provided her with excellent opportunities for education, their policy (or rather, lack of policy) regarding schoolyard bullies has left us with no choice but to move.
One of the boys in the year ahead of her started picking on her from the moment she arrived at school last year. This included mostly physical assault: pushing, punching, trying to tear her t-shirt off and even putting his hands around her throat and threatening to kill her. We did all we could to work with the school to try and resolve the problems, and sincerely hoped that this year would be different as they would be in very separate class levels. You have to expect some push-and-shove in the playground (after all, school is the most hostile environment on the planet) but this regularly went too far.
Sadly, it started up again as soon as school resumed. The Kid was waiting quietly in line to go back into class after lunch last week when the bully ran past and punched her in the arm and stomach.
As soon as I found out I spoke to the school principal about it. It was more of the same talk as last year (distracting him, getting his integration aid to blah blah blah blah blah). When I suggested that legal action was only a few months away — he turns 8 in June — he changed his attitude really quickly, and decided he’d take it seriously. The idea of a Catholic Church school being involved in legal action around a student who’s been allowed to regularly physically assault other students (our Kid isn’t the only one) didn’t seem palatable for some reason. I can’t imagine why.
In the meantime, we explored the option of moving The Kid to another school, and that’s the path we’ve decided to take. The primary school at Carisbrook has every bit as good a reputation as St Augustine’s. It’s a 12 minute drive instead of a 3 minute drive, but on the plus side they have a strictly defined Code of Conduct that takes bullying very seriously. We can’t guarantee that any school is free of the problem (obviously) but at least going to a school that has no tolerance for it whatsoever is better than one that takes 12 months to act and only then does so when the suggestion of legal action is raised. At Carisbrook if you physically assault another child you’re immediately pulled aside and your parents are called in. You don’t have to do it too often before you’re shown the door.
We were loath to have to move her, but once we made up our mind and told the principal at St Augustine’s that we were going it became obvious that we’d made the right choice. I was quite sad about his response. He suggested that The Kid will find the same problems everywhere, and if she’s struggling that much to deal with it then perhaps she needs some professional help. I’d like to suggest that it’s the little so-and-so that keeps physically assaulting her that needs the help.
I also think that if Saints want to keep their reputation as an excellent school where students can enjoy learning in a safe environment they need to put the political correctness aside now and then and take a much tougher line on kids like this. Any school that tolerates physical violence to the degree they have shown themselves to do isn’t doing the right thing by their students.
Update: Since posting this and phoning a number of The Kid’s friends to let them know what’s going on we’ve heard from at least three other people that The Bully has been picking on their kid too. “We thought it was just us” was the response from at least one. Hmm…
Who said what?