YOU’RE THE BULLY THE BULLY
Unbelievable response from crisis school after plucky mum Donna presents them with hundreds of messages from parents worried about their kids being attacked by bullies
WHEN Donna Jaffray started a petition to protest about violent bullying at her son’s school, she hoped it would make officials sit up and take notice. She didn’t expect the local council to hit back by claiming
SHE was bullying THEM. But that was the astonishing reply Donna received after hundreds of pupils and parents at the Nicolson Institute in Stornoway signed her online petition, with many describing the harrowing attacks they or their children had suffered.
In a written response, the council’s director of education, Bernard Chisholm, told her it was difficult for staff and pupils at the Nicolson not to consider the petition a “personal attack”.
He added: “As previously indicated, I feel, whatever your intention, that the petition has attacked the school, individual staff and the authority.
“Unfortunately, this type of communication can be perceived as a method of bullying and a poor example to our young people.”
Chisholm’s attack stung Donna, not least because she had been bullied herself as a girl. Her daughter, now 22, was also bullied at the school and, when her son started telling her that such abuse was still rife, she decided she had to act.
The Daily Record has spent this week reporting on concerns about bullying at the Nicolson, where two teenagers committed suicide in a year and several others have tried to take their lives.
We also told how pupil Finlay Whyte and his family battled to get support from the school after an attack on him by bullies outside its gates was filmed and put online.
And when Donna started her petition – days after another video appeared of a pupil being attacked – it did not take long for the responses from kids and their families to flood in.
One parent claimed that her son was kicked so hard in the groin that his doctor said it could stop him being a father. A pupil said they had tried to take their life on multiple occasions because nothing had been done about the bullies.
Now, with the backing of more than 850 parents and pupils, Donna has set up an online group for those affected by bullying at the school. And she has vowed to fight on until she sees a positive change.
She said: “My daughter was bullied in first year. I was bullied myself, and when my son is coming home and telling me horrific stories, I thought, ‘Why isn’t anybody doing anything?’
“There have been videos going around of boys hitting other boys in the school grounds. The school aren’t doing anything about it and it’s getting worse.
“Some of the parents’ and pupils’ stories are horrifying. There’s one woman messaging me whose daughter’s hair was set on fire. Another boy was attacked outside the school grounds and hospitalised.
“My son tells me quite a few of the kids are self-harming, and that has become apparent through the petition. No child should be made to feel that way.
“I want them to take a stronger stance on bullying. They need to impose harsher punishments instead of just saying incidents didn’t happen on school grounds. Regardless of where incidents happened, these bullies are still wearing the uniform and representing the school.”
Donna admits she has been surprised by the strength of the response to her petition. She said: “I was only looking to get to 500 signatures and it has gone way past that.”
But it is clear from Chisholm’s reply to
her, and the stance of the council as a whole, that there is a yawning gap between the concerns of the families and the council’s perception of what life at the Nicolson is like.
A letter was sent to parents stating that there had been only six cases of reported bullying in the last three years, of which two were upheld.
Donna is convinced the problem is more serious than school chiefs want to admit. But the council, Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, are holding the line.
They said a recent questionnaire in the school indicated that “almost all students feel nurtured and safe, responsible, respected and included”. They added that the school was working hard on identifying young people requiring “specialist intervention” and taking steps to improve support for pupils with mental health issues.