Bullying stories

Parenting courses?
My middle child, who is quiet and sensitive, has been bullied physically and verbally throughout junior school. The school took tough action on each occasion, and I felt they were doing all they could to protect him. But the senior school in our catchment area has a 'well-earned reputation' for not dealing with bullying. They have no effective methods of disciplining the perpetrators and no methods of protecting victims, and I was naturally reluctant to send my son there. So, when my appeal failed to get him into a different senior school, I chose to home-educate. It was the best decision I could have made - my son has gone from being behind academically, to being ahead of his peers. Schools need to have more effective strategies for dealing with bullies, they must be allowed to exclude pupils that do not respond to other methods. The Government needs to back schools and not protect the bully by keeping them in mainstream schools. Parents of bullies could be 'requested' to attend courses - often children who are poorly disciplined at home will be unruly in school. Children need boundaries to teach them to behave.