Testimonial From the 1990s

By S. Macdonald

Our family attended the Titirangi Rudolf Steiner School in its infancy. I took a well adjusted 5 year old child to that school and took back a shell of a boy. I have to live with my failing as a parent because I trusted the wrong people.

My child experienced bullying at the school, he suffered a fractured skull. As a parent I was never told how this happened, I was lead to believe it was a playground accident - this was by failure to tell me what happened and letting me believe that a child wouldn’t be so disordered as to hit my child across the head with a cricket bat on purpose. Lying by omission I guess you could call it.

My child was playing cricket, and one of the boys came up and took his bat off him and pushed in to play instead.

Next thing my child is on the ground, he had been hit on the right side of the head with his bat. If they were playing cricket and it was as a result of being too close to the stumps or batsman, my child would have been struck on the other side of the head.

My child had been trying to retrieve his bat off this other boy.

About 18 months later - this must be around 1993 - we had another incident which ultimately led us to leave the school. I look back on this as a lucky escape.

It was nearly the end of the day of an Advent fair, a boy had taken something off my child, that my child had won at the fair, the other boy refused to give it back.

This boy was known to everyone in the school for his disruptive behaviour, even my child’s kindy teacher told me she didn’t think it was a good idea for them to play together.

This boy was disruptive in class and would be sent out into the corridor. There he would open all the children’s bags, take what he wanted and eat their lunches.

Most of parents were upset at this boy’s behaviour, and couldn’t understand how he repeatedly got away with things. When I approached him and asked for my child’s property back, he refused and gave me attitude, I told him, in no uncertain terms that he was dealing with me now and that I wasn’t going to back down, I told him everyone was sick of his behaviour, that adults wouldn’t get away with it, and for once, he wasn’t either.

My partner comes over turns the boy around and takes back our child’s property.

We call his parents that night, and their response “We want you to apologise to our son”.

The next day I had the carpool in the morning, I told my child to “watch his back, because […] will try and get even with you today.” At which point, the children in my carpool said, Oh that kid brings a knife to school. So I told my child to be extra careful and stay out of his way.

My child spent the break times hiding under the decks of the class rooms, until one of the teachers told him to get out from under there. This boy had brought a knife to school, and it wasn’t a bread and butter knife, it was a hunting knife.

After school, before my son had arrived home, I got a call from another parent: apparently her son had narrowly missed injury because this boy had thrown the knife at my son and nearly hit hers. The school once again failed to let me know. My child told me how he’d spent his day under the decks and about the teacher, my son was withdrawn and didn’t say much else. I phoned the teacher and promptly removed my child from the roll.

I had a meeting with the school about two days later to discuss the accident, Rhys Thompson - a teacher - was visibly shaking with anger at me, his eyes were fired up and he was sweating, as he accused me of calling the boy a thief.

At no time did they mention the knife being thrown at my son or how they would address the bullying problem, although they did admit the kids were bored at lunchtimes and they should organise some games.

A few months later, the police contacted, someone had complained to them of an assault at the school, they had received a complaint about a child being stabbed in the head with a pair of scissors in class, the alleged offender was the same boy who threw the knife at my child.

Over the years my child had suffered from debilitating headaches as a result of his injury. It wasn’t until years later my child told me how his skull was fractured. To think I apologised to the boy’s mother and not be too hard on herself or her son because I had been told it was only an accident...