St Benedict's School in Khandallah, Wellington. Photo / Mark Mitchell
A mother says she is starting to see her daughter’s light shine through again but the damage caused by bullying at a Wellington primary school will be there forever.
Three more families have spoken out about their experience of bullying by students at St Benedict’s School after the Herald revealed other parents had taken their concerns to the Education Minister’s office in their battle to be heard.
They are concerned little has changed since they all decided to remove their children from the school in recent years. “Persistent bullying and harassment” led to some of their children becoming so anxious they required counselling.
The school board says these incidents were not ignored at the time, investigations were undertaken and there were consequences where appropriate.
“The board, principal and staff remain committed to continual improvement in this space”, school board presiding member Lucy Woollaston said.
“We continue to welcome concerns questions and feedback and will work through these carefully so that each family feels fully assured about what we have in place to safeguard health, safety and well-being for each and every child.
“This remains our highest priority.”
Parents the Herald has spoken to wanted to remain anonymous to protect their children.
One mother removed her youngest child from the school in 2022 after another child allegedly isolated them from friendship groups, made “nasty” comments, and pushed them on one occasion.
The situation came to a head one day when her two children physically lashed out at the child.
The siblings spent lunchtime in the principal’s office and were later made to write apology letters.
The mum told the Herald she acknowledged her children were wrong to lash out and agreed there should be consequences for their actions.
However, she felt there should also be consequences for the other child involved in the incident.
She and her husband complained in writing to a teacher and principal Tania Savage but they say they never received a response.
“We do not believe the school dealt with our concerns in an appropriate manner”, the mum said.
“In our opinion, they didn’t take into consideration the wider issue and behaviour leading up to this event, instead laid the blame entirely on our children acting like they were the issue.”
The mum said she didn’t escalate her complaint at the time because she felt after several conversations with the principal, it wasn’t being taken seriously.
“Like the incident was an inconvenience and extra admin issue for her to deal with and it was easier for her to lay the blame on our children as opposed to looking at the wider issue of bullying playing out in the background.”
Their eldest child also planned to see out the school year and they didn’t want to “rock the boat”, the mum said.
However, they removed their youngest child from the school for mental health issues that developed after the incident.
“Our child couldn’t sleep and was withdrawn, we had to seek counselling for them.”
“They couldn’t understand why they had stood up to someone who had tormented them and their sibling, and while they appreciated the way they reacted wasn’t the right thing to do, they couldn’t understand why they were being punished but there was no apology to them for enduring the bad behaviour that led up to this event.”
The parents said they deeply regretted not advocating more for their children at the time.
“I wanted to share what happened to us and am hoping others come forward, surely the more people who speak up the more it will be taken seriously.”
Another mum wrote to the school board earlier this year to complain about separate instances of “persistent bullying and harassment” at the school between 2016 and 2022.
Her daughter was bullied from the age of 5, she said.
“An older child would take artwork from her bag and rip it up in front of her. He physically assaulted her by knocking her to the ground. Would shove her in after-school care.”
The mum said her daughter was later bullied by two other children who were not reprimanded for their actions.
“Threatening her with telling on her and that she’d be in trouble. Blocking her path so she could not get to class after breaks.”
She alleged her daughter, who has learning disabilities, was also bullied by teachers.
One teacher would purposefully exclude her from lessons by handing out worksheets to everyone in the class apart from her daughter because she “wouldn’t do the work anyway”, the mum claimed.
Woollaston said the teacher denied ever making that remark and was “deeply saddened” to think the child had misheard.
The teacher wished the matter was raised with them at the time by the child or their parents so that the matter could be quickly clarified and assurances given, Woollaston said.
Teachers adapted learning tasks to suit individual students, Woollaston said.
“All of our teachers adapt learning tasks to suit individual students. The teacher will often say: ‘You don’t need to do all of the tasks’.
“We give students ‘must dos’ and ‘can dos’ (choices) or when particular tasks cause stress, we may say: ‘You can choose whether you do this’”.
The mother alleged the principal wrote down notes about her concerns but failed to act.
Her daughter developed an anxiety disorder, she said.
“After a year of therapy and medicine at a financial cost of thousands of dollars, we are starting to see her light shine through again. But the damage of bullying will always be there. Forever.”
When she saw the same bullying happen to her younger son, she immediately removed him from St Benedict’s.
“The difference in him is like night and day. He is safe at his new school. He has a great group of friends, and is well supported by teachers across the team.”
The mother said her complaint to the board was spurred by a report she read that families were leaving the school to line up other education pathways.
She wanted the school to know that was not true, she said.
“Families are leaving because bullying is out of control and no one cares. It is not because they want different schooling options for their children.”
The mother said she was full of rage when she read the Herald’s story earlier this month about allegations of bullying at the school and wanted to speak out about her own experience.
“We don’t want to see more kinds go through the same s**t as my kids have gone through.”
Another parent removed her child from the school five and a half years ago before Savage started as school principal in 2022.
She said she raised concerns verbally and felt the school did nothing to protect her child from another child who was targeting them.
“This included being throttled and coming home with scratches around on their neck; we were only told what had happened when we raised it.”
The parent claimed the same child reportedly brought a knife to school at one point.
She said the school’s senior management appeared to ignore the problem.
“St Ben’s is a school that did mainstream well but seemed unable to get the best out of kids who didn’t fit into a perfect box. It would seem little has changed since our experience, sadly.”
Removing her child from the school was the best thing she could have done, and they have been thriving since, she said.
The mum called the school hoping to talk to the principal after the Herald’s story was published.
She wanted to share her family’s experience and raise concerns that it seemed nothing had changed.
The principal passed on a message that she was sure the mum would understand she was very busy, the mum claimed.
“I felt I then had no choice but to speak up in the hope our experience can help effect change.
“I wish we had done more at the time but we were focused on getting our child out of the situation.”
After the mum’s second call to the school, Woollaston returned her calls to explain what action was being taken against bullying.
The Herald sent a detailed summary of each parent’s concerns to the school board.
Woollaston, who started her position as presiding member of the school board this year, said the incidents were not ignored at the time and were investigated with consequences where appropriate.
The board believed everyone should be learning and growing and upskilling and that is what they were trying to encourage at St Benedict’s, she said.
The Ministry of Education-supported Positive Behaviour 4 Learning framework was introduced last year.
The KiVa programme was introduced this year- an approach to bullying prevention developed by the University of Turku in Finland.
“These programmes are challenging to introduce in part because they require a shared understanding and agreement as to what constitutes unacceptable behaviour and other defined terms”, Woollaston said.
“This has meant, as a school, we have had to have robust discussions about these shared definitions and we believe this has made us stronger as a team.”
The new framework has been introduced to the school community including the shared definitions and consequences, Woollaston said.
This has allowed the school to have open and honest conversations with families with whom they will continue to foster a partnership relationship, she said.
“We rely on our families to trust us to look after and teach their precious children and we rely on our families to reinforce the values we teach in their homes, playgrounds and communities.
“We are in this together and we continue to strive to provide a safe exciting learning environment so that our children leave St Benedict’s as empathetic young people with perseverance, integrity and creativity.”
Georgina Campbell is a Wellington-based reporter who has a particular interest in local government, transport, and seismic issues. She joined the Herald in 2019 after working as a broadcast journalist.
The 19-year-old disappeared without her wallet or mobile phone.