Last resort?

I really thought we could trust the Headmaster/Principal of DD’s school to uphold his part in the no-bullying-agreement. Sadly, not. DD told him that the bully had started again in class last week, in front of the entire class. He replied that he’d talk to the bully after school, or if not, first thing on Monday morning. It didn’t happen.

So – He’s a busy man, with a great deal of responsibility. I appreciate that, but my child’s safety at his school comes before meetings, surely?

Her right to an education should be among his top priorities, no? In my opinion, yes.

If he can’t act on it himself, should he then delegate? YES…

Did he do that? NO.

Consequence: The Police are now involved in the whole sorry state of affairs and the school looks dreadful. If I was a parent looking for secondary (high school) education for my child, I would think twice about Budehaven Community College. There are a few highly supportive staff in the Pastoral Care Department who should be praised, because they do their job and they care. There are a lot more members of staff who appear NOT to care, or not to have the training necessary to be aware of/deal with, bullying.

Looking at the situation from the perspective of an outsider, the school appears not to be able to identify, contain and deter bullying. If you make an agreement with a child/pupil, you should honour that agreement. If you do not, then you should not consequently be surprised that said child/pupil no longer respects or trusts you. It should also come as no surprise that the children/pupils decide to take matters into their own hands to protect their friend(s) and that it will ultimately result in Police action.

IF you had KEPT to your part of the agreement, and taken TIMELY action and RIGHT action, things would not have spiralled out of control. Maybe you should look at retiring?

Or at the very least some “Outside Specialist Agency” involvement to help the victims of bullying and deter their tormentors. We really don’t need any more injuries or worse, suicides, as a direct result of persisitent bullying and your lack of action to stop it.

 

Beating the Credit crunch!

Before Christmas, I popped into our local library to change some books and there were 2 titles on the “Books in” shelf that caught my eye. One, which has proved extremely useful, is “100 Ways to Beat the Credit Crunch” – by Annie Shaw, Laura Howard and Simon Read.

Like a lot of people, I have strategies in place for most things (bills, etc.), but it never does any harm to read up and see what else you could be doing to make your money go a bit further. So, the book is divided into various sections, covering personal finances, shopping, utility bills, etc.

One of the most interesting sections for any woman has to be the Shopping section! Here I found the following links to recipes and vouchers:

Food Freebies – Free food, free vouchers for money off food and wine…

Love food, hate waste - recipes for leftovers (and much more!)

I’m sure there are loads more, but that’s a start. On to Fashion:

What’s Mine is Yours - Buy and swap exclusive designer and/or vintage clothing, high street fashion, etc.

Big Wardrobe – the world’s biggest online fashion recycling website – swap and sell clothes for FREE!

That’s just the tip of the iceberg… I also discovered that Comet have a discount and clearance section where they auction off refurbished and ex-display electricals! Check it out HERE, especially if you’re looking for larger/white goods, etc.

We’ve just started our own friendly auction site – Heavenly Auctions – to sell off unwanted items. Check it out – the fees are way lower than the bigger sites, like Ebay. The more people come and register, the bigger it’ll get and the more we’ll all save!

My own favourite has to be Freecycle.org – a completely non-profit organisation which is dedicated to passing on good stuff that shouldn’t end up in landfill. I’ve managed to offload an unwated single bed and a freezer so far and received a printer for DD in good working order. I should think practically every large town in the UK has a Freecycle group in it or nearby, so go register!

And don’t forget your own local library – so useful! In Bude, the service is fully automated, you can renew online too and it also houses a Cornwall Council “One-Stop Shop” for all things benefit-tax, etc. related. They are super-friendly and will photocopy any documentation you need to send the council free of charge!

If you’re intrigued by what I’ve written – sparked by reading this book – then go borrow it from your local library, it’s definitely worth a browse! In the “Making Money from Home” section, there are a number of options listed – I’m thinking about home-tutoring. After all, I have the language skills and a qualification, plus I’m going for an interview at the Adult Education Centre this coming week. It’s such a pity I hate ironing…

I shall be putting links to Money-saving sites in my sidebar as and when I come across them. If you have any you’d like to share, please let me know. We need to be more resourceful now and if we can do our bit towards helping the planet, even better!

NB: Edited: Found this one one over on an artblog…

Cash for Clothing – reduce, reuse, recycle your clothing in exchange for cash. They will collect and pay you up yo 40p per kilo…

 

Looking ahead…

Well, Christmas is over, just New Year’s to go and then back to all things ‘normal’ again. Hopefully DD will just chug on and get through next term. If not, measures are in place. She seems a lot happier now, so we have been able to enjoy the peace and harmony together this Christmas.

Nick is busy building new sites and promoting Reels on Wheels globally. We’re looking forward to the coming year’s fishing too. He’s trying to get over to the USA in 2010 so that we can set up a Buddy System there too. We also have a new auction site running now – cheaper than Ebay and friendlier, too! Check it out HERE.

I have given up smoking and started baking again – probably fatal to my waistline, but what the heck!! At least I am still smoke-free and likely to remain that way. The patches are excellent and whenever I get the odd craving, I just get out the microfibre cloth and go do some cleaning. If that doesn’t work, I potter about up in my artspace or read!! Sometimes, I even go online!!

I have an interview lined up for January 7th too – to get back into teaching English to non-native speakers. I shall need some retraining and a good old CRB check, but there’s a chance that for some hours of volunteering, they’ll see to all that for me – nice!

Happy New Year to you all.

 

Good news, I think…

Firstly, thank you so much to all of you who have read and commented on the ongoing saga we’ve had to deal with. Personally, I believe it’s one of the worst things we’ve ever experienced. Here’s what happened this week.

On the Monday evening, DD was distraught again – something else had kicked off and she was really worried about repercussions and more possible violence at school, so she asked if we’d let her stay home and meet Anna Thomas here instead. We said we didn’t mind, but if she wanted to go to school and see what happened, then that was okay too – she could always walk out if it all got too much.

At 7am, she came and woke me – she’d been awake, crying all night and was too exhausted to go in, so I told her to go back to bed and I’d let school know that she wouldn’t be in, etc. and then contact Anna, to advise the change of venue.

I telephoned school first and had a pretty long conversation with the Head of Pastoral Care (also taking the opportunity to ask for their Anti-bullying Policy). I explained all that had been occurring and she was amazingly supportive. I did then name the 2 main players and left it at that.

Anna phoned to say she’d be coming to the house earlier than planned as her morning meeting had been cancelled. We met her, had a brief chat and then left a very tired DD with Anna to talk everything through, including strategies for remaining safe at school until they dealt with the situation. Anna left at about 1pm and went straight off to the school to see the Principal, saying she’d contact us later the same day.

DD was a little more positive and confessed that she had liked Anna and found her visit helpful. She was still dreading going back into school the following day, because everyone would know b y then what had happened…

I was out at market the whole day, but I got a brilliant text from her telling me what had happened at school: She had had a meeting with the Principal first thing in the morning, followed by a meeting with her main aggressor, invigilated by the Principal. They had talked a lot, she said, and although no apology had been forthcoming, the girl had signed an agreement NOT to become physical with DD in any way, to avoid eye contact and verbal slurs, name-calling and mean behaviour in general. Part of that agreement states that if she breaks it, she will find herself back in front of the Principal, with her parents, facing possible permanent exclusion.

To me, that’s a pretty mature outcome, provided the parties concerned stick to it… We’re relieved that she will, at least, be safe at school. DD also gained a few allies along the way, once they knew what the entire situation was, so we are also grateful for that.

I’m sure that ABC’s intervention helped immensely and I don’t think we’d have had the same outcome without Anna’s mediation. Thank goodness we had recourse to this invaluable resource. This particular charity does a fantastic and sadly, a very necessary job. Long may they thrive and keep their funding.

 

No word yet…

Unbelievable! Over a week has passed since we informed DD’s Form Tutor that she was being persistently bullied. We have still heard nothing from the school yet and the harrassment continues. Are these girls ‘untouchable’? Is anyone in school concerned? It certainly doesn’t seem so…

On the plus side, I had a call from Anti-Bullying Cornwall’s Project Manager, Anna Thomas on Thursday. We had a long discussion and she was pretty disappointed that we still have had no contact from the school. She told me she was phoning the school to speak to the Headmaster and would call me back if she managed to speak to him.

She has also arranged to go into school on Tuesday herself, and have a meeting with DD. She will explain that she’s there on her behalf, to help her to get through this and has informed the school that she will be going in, with full parental consent. I wonder what they will think, or if they’ll even care? In circumstances like this, the ‘ABC’ workers teach children coping mechanisms and psychological defenses to help them to deal with bullies, which is more than the school are doing, so I am incredibly grateful for the support from an outside agency. At least we’re not on our own.

I received an email from Anna, saying that she hadn’t managed to get hold of the Headmaster, but that she was looking forward to meeting DD on Tuesday… I have told DD and I think she’s warily looking forward to meeting Anna too. Wouldn’t it be great if the school would take their heads out of the sand, (to be polite), and bloody well do something?

This has got to be one of the most stressful periods we have ever experienced in our lives. The hardest part is seeing your child go off to school in the morning, both of you filled with a sense of dread, not knowing what crap the day will bring, and then just being so relieved that she comes home safe that afternoon. It really shouldn’t be this way, should it? I mean, the school have a duty of care to your children; they are supposed to make sure they are able to receive an education whilst in school. Kids are supposed to be safe when they’re at school, aren’t they? They shouldn’t dread going into lessons, knowing they’ll be ridiculed and humiliated at every available opportunity, should they?

I’m at the stage now where I know this is going to take time to fix, but I’m not backing down. My child has the right to study and learn and achieve. She has the right to be safe at school. She has the right to a proper education and that is what we are fighting for.

Of all the battles I have waged in my life, I never thought stopping my DD being bullied would be the hardest one of all…

 

 

Still being bullied…

This evening I had the horrible task of documenting all the stuff that we’ve found out and seen on the Social Media networking sites, for what I can only refer to as an “Abuse Report”, for the school. I phoned earlier this afternoon to ask if any progress had been made, and sadly, the answer is No.

I also had to record all the nasty incidents that have taken place during the last 4-5 weeks. There has been a spitting of something into my daughter’s hair today – how disgusting is that? Another spate of abuse and language you wouldn’t want to read over on Facebook – still, at least I have a clear, full colour printout of that one.

I did report the spitting incident to the Form Tutor when we talked this afternoon and he assured me that he’s mentioning it to his Line Manager in an email. She may be able to call me on Wednesday… how reassuring (not!)

It’s still a very stressful time for us and I know that it won’t be over quickly. I have emailed Anti-bullying Cornwall though, and attached a copy of all the documents and the report for their reference too. I am covering all my bases this time – and taking no prisoners.

My eventual aim is to help make the school a safe place for everyone – make it Bully-Proof…

 

 

Kind over matter…

This is a really interesting blog – it has a real community feeling and there’s a lot of warmth and genuine kindness over there. Plenty to read, eye-candy and links galore. Every Thursday there’s a cool giveaway and it’s really simple to enter.

Check it out HERE.

 

Being bullied…

There’s a lot in the Press and Media at the moment about Bullying. We, as a family, are living with that right now. Our DD has been sytematically and persistently bullied at school for at least 6 weeks… She has been called “slut” and worse in the corridors, in the classroom; she gets barged into her locker a couple of times a week, stared down and intimidated on a regular basis.

This week, she finally gave in and agreed that it has to stop and we should do something about it. So, I contacted Anti Bullying Cornwall and spoke to one of their advisors. She gave me sound advice and put their booklet in the post. It arrived yesterday and I went to a scheduled “monitoring meeting” with her Form Tutor. After discussing DD’s academic progress, we looked at each other, she nodded, and I told him what was happening to my lovely, bright daughter.

To say he was shocked at how ‘organised’ the bullying is, would be an understatement. He was appalled that no-one (staff) had noticed what was happening. But, these girls have been at that school for years and they’re good at what they do. They know where the CCTV cameras are, they know which teachers are intimidated by them and will look away, they know all the angles. The ‘bitch pack’ surround the victim and verbally abuse her. If she has the ‘front’ to answer back and they don’t achieve their objective, they run for the ‘enforcers’.

The ‘enforcers’ are the 2 or 3 really violent girls who take no prisoners. They’re the ones who do the barging and bashing, the punching, kicking and tripping… One of them is supposedly on her last warning. So who would you rather have in your school, Mr. Headmaster? A bright achiever with goals in life, who’ll make your Ofsted report look good? Or a bully, a thug, with a foul mouth and a really bad attitude?

You have a ‘duty of care’ to our child. You have a duty to educate and provide safe surroundings for her to learn in. That isn’t the case, is it? So it’s got to stop and it’s got to stop NOW.

Oh and this goes beyond school – social media networking attacks via Facebook and MSN are also frequent. But, we too are technologically able… yes, we see what you write, what you say and we have screenshots of your nasty, vicious words. So, when the day of reckoning comes, and you sit there denying it all, we shall produce our proofs, our evidence, our chatlogs and screenshots. We may also produce the Police if any more bruises appear on our daughter’s arms.

This is wrong and it stops NOW…

If you need help, try these resources:

Students

Anti-Bullying Cornwall

Beat Bullying

Cyber Mentors

Anti-Bullying Guidance for Healthy Schools

Utterly Global - (NY NJ, anti-bullying)

Youtube – N-Dubz Anthem

Having just read Georgia’s story on the Cyber Mentors site, I am in tears. This is the thing I fear the most. I can so identify with her mother and Georgia had a very similar experience to what is happening to our daughter. I am hopeful that this can be resolved – and quickly. xo

 

The objective

The objective of this blog is to have a personal weblog or journal space where I can be just me – unartfully! It’s for me to share how I feel and most importantly, what I think about various aspects of my life…

Often, I want to rant or vent, like lots of other people. So here’s my chance to put in writing the things that make me laugh, make me sad, incense and outrage me, etc. If you feel a connection, leave me a comment. If you want to join in – leave me a comment. If you want to trade links we can do that too!

Suffice to say, this my personal space and many topics will be frankly discussed and hotly debated. You have been warned!!! =)