UK UK - Andrew Gosden, 14, Doncaster, South Yorks, 14 Sep 2007 #2

[ChatteringBirds]

How would they have bullied him? I was bullied online and never in actual school

Perhaps bullying was taking place in the bus (some think this is a possible reason he walked home at least once), in the school bathrooms, or outside on school grounds. Many kids are bullied in their schools or during breaks between classes.

If teachers see bullying happening in the classroom or hallway then they tell the kids to break it up. They intervene. Why didn't they for Andrew? Doesn't make sense.

I honestly think teachers often don't see it or don't realize what they're seeing. All it takes for a kid to start hating school is for a classmate there to keep saying something mean day after day.

Are you sure that's not just a movie trope? I've never witnessed anyone being bullied physically in school. Not shoved in lockers or punched or walked into.

I don't know how common physical bullying was at his school, but there were physical fights at my high school back in the day.
@submarine7 mentioned social exclusion, which is probably more likely and can feel like being bullied.

 

[Inspector Evans]

It was the start of a new school year, infact might've been the first full week of term going by the dates?

So Andrew could've certainly been of the mentality of can't be doing with a Friday, let's have a three day weekend. Perhaps there was a lesson on that Friday that triggered him a bit? Not sure if police looked at his actual timetable for that day and asked his teachers/form tutor if there was anything troubling him from one of the classes?

However from just skipping the day and staying locally to actually going down to London is a huge step and leaves so many question marks so just brings us to another dead end and all the other theories.

 

[beubeubeu]

If teachers see bullying happening in the classroom or hallway then they tell the kids to break it up. They intervene. Why didn't they for Andrew? Doesn't make sense.

If teachers indeed see the bullying. But if a school is strict and mostly well kept, with teachers "covering" all the available space by sight during breaks and before & after school + every act of physical violence ending up with some sort of real consequences: like parents being called, a bad note being left, possibly even a warning that if repeated could end up with that kid being expelled... then you wont see much of physical attacks going on. Bullying still may be happening but it wont be as blunt and obvious like it could be in understaffed school.
It would more likely take a form of being mean on every occasion and doing stuff that may be brushed off as accidental, like hitting with an arm while walking: can be total accident and no ill will included, can be totally malicious.

Also in general, rougher it is, rougher the attack has to be to seriously affect the victim. Lets say you have a bunch of kids who are always bumping into other people, full speed. They do that every day, to multiple people. It hurts. No consequences. It is unpleasant, it is problematic, but its rather unlikely to be traumatic. Vs. a scenario where there is no group, just one kid bumps full speed into another kid during the break. Week later he does it again, and again. The victim sees that doesnt seem accidental and that it doesnt happen to others. May try to complain about it... and then what? If others experienced just accidental hit on the arm, or maybe even themselves accidentally bumped into someone - will they even buy the claim that someone does that to someone else on purpose? Might not.

In short: more the school is kept "in order", more likely it is that when bullying happens its gonna be hard to notice and tell the difference between accidental encounters, silly jokes and normal disagreements vs. malicious, targeted actions.

 

[vagab0nd]

Perhaps bullying was taking place in the bus (some think this is a possible reason he walked home at least once), in the school bathrooms, or outside on school grounds. Many kids are bullied in their schools or during breaks between classes.



I honestly think teachers often don't see it or don't realize what they're seeing. All it takes for a kid to start hating school is for a classmate there to keep saying something mean day after day.



I don't know how common physical bullying was at his school, but there were physical fights at my high school back in the day.
@submarine7 mentioned social exclusion, which is probably more likely and can feel like being bullied.

My husband's classmate called someone a f--kwit on the bus and he was immediately expelled. The English don't take bullying lightly. This happened in 2007.