Pretoria News - Parents of some children at Rachel de Beer Primary School in Pretoria North on Friday demanded action on bullying.
The parents claimed the school management had continuously failed to act against bullying despite repeated reports, sometimes involving the same group of perpetrators.
“We are unhappy because nothing is being done to protect our children,” said one parent, who asked not to be named in order to protect her child.
Most of the approximately 15 parents who went to the school complained, because their children had become despondent and often refused to go to school for fear of facing their aggressors.
Said another mother: “We discovered a common trait among our children as we spoke together – that they came up with all sorts of excuses to avoid going to school.”
Four parents had already been to the police station to open cases of assault against the alleged bullies.
“Some managed to lay charges, but others were unable to because their children were too young,” Yvonne Penney, of Mad Rage Against Child Abuse, said.
The parents took up the matter after a report of an 11-year-old Grade 5 pupil appeared in the Pretoria News at the beginning of the week.
The boy’s parents had spoken about repeated attacks he suffered that started in January this year, and which had gone on until they laid a charge with the police two weeks ago.
The case was opened after the boy was attacked with a blunt instrument on the side of his face. When he fell, he was kicked by three other schoolchildren in the playground and in full view of their peers.
The parents said attempts to get the principal to act for the eight months since the attacks started had failed dismally, and they opted to report the matter to the district education office and were laying charges in a desperate attempt to get intervention.
Mad Rage stepped in to assist the parents and to get counselling for the little boy, and to look at the possibility of getting him into another school to avoid the bullying.
The parents were invited into the staffroom for a meeting by the principal, and with him was the school lawyer and the head of the governing body.
Gauteng Education Department spokeswoman Phumla Sekhonyane said the meeting had been satisfactory for all parties concerned.
She said the principal explained the disciplinary processes taken so far and the parents had been satisfied.
Penney added: “He promised us a full report on his intervention in two weeks’ time, so we will wait until then.”
@ntsandvose
Pretoria News