Our daughter is in yr 7 this year. She has Asperger’s Syndrome. She has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. She is extremely anxious. She is very depressed. She is very intellegent. She is very mature in her thinking about bullying. She helps protect others when they are getting bullied. She is a really amazing young girl. She can see the harm bullying can do and has experienced it first hand for years, just about every single day of her school life.
After struggling for the past year at her current high school, who assured us their anti-bullying policy was fantastic, her introduction to high school began with getting bullied from the first 10 minutes of starting on her first day, with the school taking 5 months to finally do something about that one particular girl. We have now taken her out of this school for the remainder of the year as she just can’t take anymore.
She is constantly being bullied, both physically and verbally, during class, in the playground, everywhere. The school has not done what is needed to protect her. She is being spat on, pushed into glass windows, having her pencil case shoved down boys pants & thrown back at her, constantly getting picked on because her skin is too pale.. the list goes on.. she may be slightly (or sometimes more obviously) different from the “normal” kids, for want of a better word.. but in no way does she deserve to have this happen to her. She is NEVER mean to anyone, she just struggles to fit in socially in some situations.
Our problem now is trying to find her another high school in Canberra, as she can no longer return to her current high school. They are not doing enough, they have had constant contact from us asking them to help, it is usually met with “we can talk to the students again, but we can’t do much more than that” and nothing changes, there has been a whole year now of too much hatred and learnt behaviour from too many students towards her to even think about letting her return and try to fix it anymore. Enough is enough. We know the teachers are struggling to manage awful behaviour in classrooms, we understand the very hard job they have, but at some point, our daughter needs help and understanding too and is not getting it, even when it constantly is happening in front of the teachers.
We would appreciate any advice from other people on what may be a good high school for her. We can’t afford private schools. She will not be returning to her current school. We are willing to travel anywhere around Canberra if it means she can be safe and happy. We live in Belconnen. Any advice on what schools do actually work with following their anti-bullying policies would be a great start, or ones to avoid also. We are just so desperate for her to be safe and happy and get the education she used to want, until it all got too much for her.. now she just doesn’t even want to learn or go to school anymore.
We have contacted the Dept of Education, and they have suggested we just try contact all different schools and talk to them, but they can all say they don’t tollerate bullying. We would love to hear advice from people who actually know what goes on in the schools, parents, students, teachers etc..
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.. thank you for your time in reading this.
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