Kayleigh had Ms Strangward for year 6, and as I have previously mentioned before Kayleigh did not have a good time in Year 6 and this came out in her attitude at school and at home.
Kayleigh constantly came home angry and many times in tears becuase of the way that the other girls in her class treated her. Many times she told me she wanted to die because there was no reason to live. As a Mum, that really was distressing to see her like that. We had so many discussions with her teacher and the principal but nothing was ever done. Kayleigh was teased about her asthma, told she was fat and ugly, told she was anorexic and stupid. Kayleigh found the boys were OK to talk to - several times Brandon Jackson told the other girls to leave her alone, he was always asking Kayleigh how she was going with her asthma and looked after her. She also talked with the boys about TV shows like Doctor Who and Top Gear. Unfortunately, the other girls in her class then turned on the boys that talked to Kayleigh and teased them until it was easier not to talk to Kayleigh, so she ended up with no-one to talk to in class. And then someone thought it would be amusing to steal all of Kayleigh's connector pens which she had been collecting, and put rotten food in her bag, and to kick her bag off the portable deck into the weeds and mud.
Outside of class, Kayleigh would either go to the library or hang out with Natassja and her friends. Unfortunately, Natassja also had a bully problem and this bully also got Kayleigh in her sights. This particular bully was not verbal, but physical and would hit and push Kayleigh and Natassja. She came up behind Kayleigh in the library and cut her hair. She smashed Natassja head against the sink in the girls toilet and pinned her to the ground punching her. It got to a stage where the school was not doing anything and we stopped the kids going for a week to see if we could move school. Calwell primary was too full to take them and other primary schools were to out of area to accept them. We had no choice but to take them back, after discussions with the principal who assured us that things would change - but they didn't.
Kayleigh hated school in Year 6 - she didn't get higher than a D (yes even in PE) and she was glad to see the end of it. The start of Calwell High saw such a change in attitude in her and that was mainly because most of her bullies went to MacKillop instead of Calwell so she had a chance to make new friends.
I went through the same problems with bullies through out my whole schooling life... Year 4 was the worst. I was to scared to go to school, when we pulled into the carpark i would cry and my mum had to always walk me to class. It got to the stage where we spoke to the principal and she blamed it on me. That's when we decided that school was worthless. I then moved to a different school. I still had bullies but the bullying was no where near as bad. I loved going to school after I moved. The only problem, one of the bullies from my second school went to Calwell High and is also going to Tuggeranong College with me...
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