Bullying

[elerrina]

My friends daughter is being verbally bullied at school this has been going on for 2 years now and the school dont seem to do anything about it. its getting to a point now where her daughter is attacking first so she doesnt get hurt and then she is being put in isolation. is there anything my friend can do shes already been to interviews and things and shes now seriously considering home schooling as the school arent listening to anything she tells them. any advice would be greatly appriciated

[nannon]

I dont really have an answer as such, but went through similar thing when i was at school around the same age. The school couldnt (or wouldnt) do anything about the way i was being bullied, apart from put the girls in detention which does nothing at all. My bullying was both verbal and physical and I also started retaliating - and starting things before they did. THEN the school decided to react and suspeneded me several times. My bullying caused me alopecia (hair loss due to stress) and i had to leave school for a while. I cant count the times my parents phoned and went to the school and nothing was done at all. Alopecia caused me a hard time in general and now i have to be careful not to get stressed or unhappy as it could reoccur. My advice would be to change schools if thats possible, or if home schooling is an option... Not that think this is right but schools, even one like mine where they had a no bullying policy, will do nothing sometimes. As someone who was bullied myself i know how much it can affect you and its truly not worth it. If you could change schools, prehaps your friend could send her daughter to some kind of self defence classes - not to encourage violence but to give her back some confidence which has undoubtably been taken away from her to a certain extent. Prehaps if she can change schools - tell her to join some afterschool clubs or clubs not involved with her school just to have chance to meet new and more people. Same if she is home schooled - make it a point to join other clubs, so she doesnt lose contact with people her own age. Sorry to go on but bullying is something i feel ever so strongly about it - my cousin was bullied so badly she tried to commit suicide last year. But she turned everything around - went to collage rather than her 6th form and couldnt be happier now!! (see below)

[nannon]

Tell your friends daughter from me, it may seem bad know and she may feel like retaliating and fighting back - but dont. Cuz the she can look back in a few months and be very proud of herself for not lowering herself to theri standards. Bullies are usually very unhappy and discontented with their lives - she should pity them really. Anyway, ramble over - hope it helped in some way...

[noxlumos]

We home school all of our children because of similar problems we had with schools some years ago.My eldest natural son Danny is deaf so kids being kids naturally he was picked on a bit since he was in main stream school. That remarkably wasn't the eventual reaosn we withdrew them. The reason we withdrew them from school was the schools absolute ignorance and refusal to do anything about it and some of the teachers being unable to take the simplest things on board, like a deaf person cannot lip read if you have your back to them.We went to endless patronising interviews with the school until finally we realised that they were just going through the motions and we were never going to get anywhere so we withdrew not just Danny but all of our other children as well, as clearly if the school was that hopelessly unable to register something that simple and show no common sense or respect to people then in my opinion ( I know I'm going to get shot down in flames by a teacher somewhere here) they are unfit to educate children.

We got advice from "education otherwise" who will happily assist you and the LEA was very supportive surprisingly enough. We had visits to discuss what we were teaching about every 9 months initially and once they realised that the kids were learning the visits tailed off and we see them now far less frequently. Remember if you do decide to home educate that there is no right or wrong way to do it and that all kids learn at a different rate and therein is the beauty of it. Your kids never get left behind or get bored because others are holding them back.It's been really rewarding for us and something I'd recommend to anyone whose inclined, but it does want thinking about as it's a long term commitment.Hope you get on ok.

[Gef]

I'm sorry but the question and answers so far just don't give enough information to be able to comment on them specifically.

As for home schooling then surely that (in most cases) is a joke generally taken on by "nutty" parents. How many parents are skilled enough to teach their children to say GCSE level in 8 subjects or A level in three subjects. I know I am not.

[elerrina]

home schooling as in where you hire a tutor!

[noxlumos]

Gef. I don't consider myself a nutter nor do I consider my wife one either, or any of the other home educating parents I've met. I have two degrees and my wife has one.

Oddly enough I think a large amount of people are able to educate to GCSE standard as truthfully it's fairly basic. My eldest (step son) has just finished his degree(10 GCSE's,3 Alevels), Danny my deaf son is currently working as photographer whilst further studying Art( 8 GCSE's, 3 A levels), Aiden has just finished A levels and is working on a short contract in the City during his gap year(9 GCSE's, 3 Alevels) and Joe is just coming up for his GCSE's(10). The others are younger and have not yet decided what they wish to do with regards to exams etc. but I think my family are reasonably representative of home schooled kids in that they have all achieved good GCSE grades, good A levels and have gone on to take degrees. I think you will find if you bother to research it that most home educated kids go on to University.

The only subject we farmed out to tutors was science as this was niether my wife's nor my forte but that was only a couple of hours per week and cost under �20, so hardly a dent in the budget.

I really wish people would get it out of their heads that because you home educate your kids, there is something weird, or peculiar about you and that you run round with a straggly beard wearing sandals and living off your organic garden in Surbiton hoping your kids never have any friends.

Most of us home educate because we are unimpressed with the standard of education in our schools and we care about our kids future.

I hate sweeping generalisations as they are always rude and unresearched. Have a look at some stats about Education Otherwise then comment when you have some facts rather than vague ideas about what you think might be the case.

[Gef]

ellerina and noxlumos, please accept my apologies. I took home schooling to mean "taught by the parents" and now realise that you meant home tutoring.

[elerrina]

she went to the teachers yesterday about and they told her it wasnt bullying!!!!!!!!!!!

[noxlumos]

Hi Gef, no you were fairly right before, we do do most of the teaching ourselves, but it's really much easier than you would supose, with the internet etc. I think maybe 20 years or so ago it was much harder and perhaps you did get the weirdy beardy brigade who just wanted an opt out of society. We only didn't ourselves teach science as I said, because to do so you need a modicom of understanding of it and frankly I'm scientifically thick so we hired a tutor and sat in on the lessons so that we knew what he was driving at should the kids need extra help with the work he set them for the next lesson.

Elerrina sorry to hear about the incident at school, they are so frustrating.I hope you get it dealt with.

[sonofthunder]

i agree with nannon............hurt people hurt people

[sarah1987]

my sister has been through the same and the school are useless. my sister got put in hospital with internal bleeding thanks to the bullies!so one day she retaliated and hit the bully back, she got kicked out of the school for this and the school have only backed the bullies not the victim. i know this is wrong but my sister took 3 overdoses as she couldnt cope with it anymore