Peacocks

[clootie]

I'm so pleased he's okay. Now he can look forward to his weekend. Chin up - keep going !!

[freddie]

Just picked up this thread... You're all being so Nice about it; this is actual bodily harm, and should be treated as such;

having unfortunately had to deal with bullying at school,

Write everything down, in a letter to the clerk of govenors, copy to chair and to head. That way it cannot be ignored.Request response to your letter by a certain date and time.

ask school for bullying policy(written document) and complaints proceedure(written document).

Read these documents, and it'll say zero tolerance etc etc, so then make an appointment with head, and or governing body/section of, Make notes before you go in,( as I lost the thread when i did this, and had to call a second meeting)of your questions, and what you want to see happening.

Be polite, but dont be nice.

I won for my child, and the situation was fully dealt with; but I'm a visious old bat who will kill or be killed for my kids, and refused to go away.

It took mine6 yrs. from 7 half till now, to go willingly to school after the summer break without getting all upset the day before, and this is a different school!

Good luck with it all but keep notes and copies of everything.

[kitbag]

I was bullied in year 7, 8 and 9 (year12 now!) for having ginger hair. It is horrible when it is happening, and I can't tell you how much I hated having ginger hair. Now my hair is much darker (naturally, not by dying it!) and i would love to have my old hair colour back!

 

I hope the school sort this out quickly for you, as it is a horrible stressful time, and I hope your DS can look forward to his weekend!

[Ain't Nobody Here]

So sorry to hear about this . I think you were right to go to the police. I hope you get some redress (and more than 3 days 'holiday' for the culprit ).

[eranio132]

I hope your son is OK and that the person who pushed him is getting taught a lesson.

Erin xx

Edited September 4, 2009 by Guest

[Guest]

Hi

I am an old faded Ginger and I hated it as a youngster, even the teachers use to call me the usual list of names, the only people that liked my Ginger hair were older(20+ women) who use to constantly tell me I had lovely coloured hair & how lucky I was(it didnt seem that at all at the time).

 

At the time I never appreciated it and dyed it many other colours(like purple etc..toners and shaders must have made a mint from my teenage years)

 

However as soon as I grew up I realised what great hair I had and people pay a fortune to have this colour. I got my hair cut once when it was long and the hairdressers collected it up really carefully to use to make an expensive Wig(I could do with that hair wig myself now)

 

Looking back I think the names I got called was just because they were bored and had little minds, the male teacher that use to loudly make statements about my hair was so ugly old guy in front of the class. His only way of getting anyone to give him some attention was to belittle children like me!

 

I think these children are just thick and your son has risen above them as he has more intelligence, he will have a lot more consideration for others as he grows up in similar circumstances. Please dont let this ruin his enjoyment of being out and about.

Glad you have gone to the police they are there to protect us from scoundrels like this

indie

[jlo]

I am so sorry that you son has been assaulted by this ignorant cretin. It sounds as though your son is a young man who is well brought up and strong in himself. Good on him and I hope that the yob gets some degree of punishment - although sadly, I suspect that even if he gets a caution from the police, it won't mean that much to him!

[peanut12]

As a proud Ginger who had his fair share of hassle whilst at school, you were absolutely right to contact the police.

 

The fact that this happened outside school is of no consequence - it was an Assault. The school have the power to hand out whatever punsihment they see fit if the actions of this student could be deemed to have a negative effect on the ethos of the school as a whole, (even if an incident occured on a sunday morning, if deemed severe enough the school could premantently exclude)

 

I tried to see throughout the thread if the same boy has been involved in all 3 incidents, but might have missed it. If this is the case, fair enough, but if this a one off incident involving this student, then it is not bullying - it is quite simply assault.

 

Only sustained harrassment/intimidation/threatening behaviour or violence could be classed as bullying.

 

Schools do not have many options unfortunately, the responsibility lies with the parents of the child once excluded. By law, they may not be in a public place - they should be at home or with their parent during the exclusion - however, this is very hard to legislate.

 

Sadly, the "3 days off" attitude that children demonstrate towards exclusions are more often a reflection of the attitude of the parent - hence the child's behaviour in the first place.

 

I hope the police are supportive and do issue more than a bit of a telling off - they DO have the power to do more.

 

Hope your son is ok now. As I said, I am ginger, but i am also 6'5" and 17 stone so i don't have hassle anymore In fact, when I do see the people who gave me hassle years ago, they fall over each other to buy me drinks.

 

I can heartily recommend standing him in a grobag or letting him play in the greenhouse!

[Egluntyne]

Putting my hands up as another coppertop and proud of it. I had my fair share of this too. Not only is/was my hair auburn , but it was very curly too. ....and I've got freckles...the full package.

 

You've no idea how much pleasure I had when my main critic had her hair streaked, and it went disastrously wrong.......she lost so much face, even her henchmen backed away as she was no longer 'cool'. Plus Reverend Mother suspended her from school. Those were the days!

 

It says as much about attitudes at the bully's home as it does about the bully.

 

Your son, without realising it, will learn all sorts of coping strategies that will be of major use in the work place/life in general, later on, whereas the bully will not as he will always come across bigger bullies than himself.

 

I'm a great believer in Kharma......and he'll get his.

[peanut12]

great point Egluntine

 

Us gingers are a proud and successful race, whereas the bullies are emotionally deficient imbeciles.

 

Last laugh is always going to be ours.

[Janty]

I am an honorary ginge as all my family on my Mum's side are really orangey gingers. I love the beautiful curly locks my cousins have. I was really hoping that as it missed me, my son might be ginger but it wasn't meant to be.

 

 

The ginger children at school all know that I am jealous of their hair and see me for back-up when they get hassled.

[Chucky Mama]

With so many ginger haired supportive omleteers maybe we could russle up a gang of minders to accompany your son to school of the first day that this bully is back in school - that would make him back off especially peanut12 there, I dont think that I would want to mess with them

[A chickychickychick-ENN!!]

Freaking nora! I've just read your post. That's appalling. I hope the police can help you out here. Is there any word from the school about what this idiot child's parents intend to do with their errent offspring?

[chickenanne]

Putting my hands up as another coppertop and proud of it. I had my fair share of this too. Not only is/was my hair auburn , but it was very curly too. ....and I've got freckles...the full package.

 

Can i jsut say, as an aside, how sickeningly jealous I am? I would love long curly coppery hair.... instead of boring old mouse-brown (the 80's henna put me off dieing it for life!! )

 

happy Chickens - So sorry to hear your son's experience. Hopefully he's OK about it and things are sorted out properly and permanently soon.

[missuscluck]

My daughter has brown mousey hair and is very that her brother has lovley red hair.

She is mithering me to let her dye it the same colour as her brother but as she is only 11 I have said no. However in the hols I did let her have a go at one of the wash in wash out shaders and toners.

 

We used Josh and his lovley hair as a template in the shop to try and match up a colour

[Ygerna]

How did it go with the Police?

[Happy chickens!]

It never rains but it pours - had a friend ill over the weekend, so haven't been online much!

 

Appt with police on Saturday didn't happen as they hadn't booked it correctly!

 

Community officer said he would be speaking to school monday, unless his wife went into labour! Didn't like to chase up yesterday under the circumstances!!

 

Anyway have spoken with him now and we have 2 choices:

 

- He can go into school and chat to this other boy

 

- We can press charges for common assault. This boy has not got a record and is not known to police (hmmm, no other child has a good word for him, and is known to be trouble...) so as they don't like to 'criminalise' young children the best we could hope for is 'restorative justice' where we all sit down together and the bully apologises to my son, or if the bully doesn't want to even do that much, he can apologise in writing.

 

Another interesting fact is that the parked car my son swerved into before swerving in front of a moving car was damaged by my son's bike - the man was sitting in it in at the time and knows it wasn't my son's fault so would like the bully to pay for the damage!

 

Going to have a big chat with OH and son tonight about what to do - doesn't really seem much to choose between. I always think if you force someone to apologise they bitterly resent it and the last thing I want is for this bully to have even more of a grudge against my son, but I can't just let this be, it was such a dangerous thing to do.

 

 

I know OH would really rather have a 'word' with the boy himself, but I don't want him to end up in trouble too!!!!

 

Thanks so much for all your wonderful support - my son is absolutely fine, and doesn't seem fazed at all by the whole thing.

[Chucky Mama]

Is there a way record of this assault can stay of file with the Police so that you can pick it up again if you want to. I don't know how the system works but maybe you could sit down with the idiot AND his parents and say that you would like to give him the option to put things right i.e apologise, pay for the damage and to treat your son with the respect that he is entitled to and that if there are any further incidences you will pick up and proceed with this assault charge. It may be that you have to do it now or not at all.

[Valkyrie]

I would have liked to have had a word with my daughter's bullies, but that would do more harm than good. In our case they set fire to her hair and as it happened after they got off the school bus (and it was filmed on a mobile, but it was too shakey where the oik was laughing - we had the last laugh, the police confiscated it as evidence). The school wasn't interested as it happened out of school time. Nice of them. But it happened after the Easter holidays and I didn't find out what was happening until the following September after repeatedly trying to call and e-mail. Bullying on line was very helpful. Nothing was done because each blamed the other (there were 3 involved) but the ringleader was told that if she did anything to my DD again she would be taken into custody - arrested for harrassment at a time which suited our policeman and put in the cells late at night with all the other drunks and troublemakers. She was also told that we would issue a restraining order if she so much as looked in DD's direction. Our poor bobby was so inundated with cases that our one took a back seat, so I felt sorry for him, but very angry that nothing could be done. But you have the driver as a witness, so proceedings should be made in court. Your boy is so lucky he wasn't killed. Attempted murder? Assault most definitely. Life endangerment? Rotten little monster. I wish you good luck in your persuit.

 

And my first boyfriend was a redhead and I always shone a torch for him even when we were at school. DS's best friend is ginger - and he has the wavy hair. I carry the genes, but coppery tints are only seen in some light in my hair. My aunt is ginger but she dyed it so often that hers is damaged now. DD used to have a little more ginger than me - but since she dyed it, the natural colour has also been damaged. My great grandfather was a redhead and remained that way until he died at 94 - no grey at all. Hmmphh.

Is that handed down from the Vikings?

[Chucky Mama]

Koojie, your story is horrifying.

[Valkyrie]

Luckily she had long hair and it didn't have hairspray in it. Thankfully she only lost a little - mostly singed - and the smell of burnt hair when she got home is something I won't forget. Neither will I forget the threats that the bully's mum (the main one) made to my OH. They were originally our friends. I haven't spoken to them since. Even after all that I still get Christmas cards and birthday cards from them. I don't reciprocate (oooh I found a big word in the grey matter - amazing what comes up when I get cross about things). I'm glad we've had done with it all now. Both my two had problems and are happier now it's all finished with. The only way to get anything done is to keep badgering the authorities. We took the soft approach and I regret that to some extent. Oh, and we weren't the only target - we were just added to the long list of complaints against that girl. Extortion, coercion, abuse were some of the things that she had already done to other children - and yet she still was allowed to stay at that school. Hampshire Authorities were great and made her use another school bus and if she misbehaved she would be banned. Of course her mother then accused us of bullying her daughter. She also hurled abuse at the man in charge at the HA - so he really got stuck into the case. And she was on the PTA and she was a governor at the infants school.

[clootie]

A position in government beckons for her then

 

naughty clootie

[Valkyrie]

Probably working on it as we write she has "connections" you know! I'm not voting for her. As she upset the neighbourhood watch (she was also on that), I don't think she'll get far - word travels quickly in this village.

[clootie]

Why don't we all save up and buy an island somewhere? Peace man

[Valkyrie]

Plum Island?