A fair question
In the first, that's what they repeatedly told my folks - there was virtually no way to permanently exclude someone. Like the Capt Placid story linked to, they were big on buzzword laden plan involving at times the use of a timeout room for a few days so as to prevent them going around the school at break and lunch times, to suspensions being doled out with the more serious assaults.

When Keith did his number on me however that morning, the words timeout, suspension and exclusion featured nowhere in the discussion of punishment, only expulsion. Did they have a policy? Sure they did, it was even written in the welcome pack that was given just prior to me starting there. But that doesn't mean they followed it consistently however.

Consider that if they did follow it every time they would have had to remove 3 or 4 of the ringleaders to really stamp it out. That's an awful lot of black marks against them, enough perhaps that the local education authority might start paying attention if done at once or close together. Verses removing 1 person who up until that Spanish teacher and form tutor stepped looked to be bang to rights (the brother had a 'witness' don't forget) and would stop some of the pressure to remove the others.

Keith's brother was two years below us whereas the physical bullying I received was by people in my own year group (the only time older lads got involved was on one occasion where I was restrained so to allow the members in my year to take free shots).
(the_leander, Mon 6 Aug 2012, 10:15, Reply)