Birmingham mother took on bully teacher.

When Amanda Robinson's son Tyler complained that his teacher was makinging his life miserable, she took it seriously but Coleshill Primary School in rural Warwickshire did not.

Although Tyler insisted that he could deal with it himself the final straw came when the teacher in question called Tyler a 'monkey show' and Amanda was forced to intervene.

Despite repeated complaints the school failed to act and viewed Tyler as a problem child rather than a victim of racist bullies. As a result of his problems at school Tyler started misbehaving and became depressed at home.

Finally out of desperation Amanda contacted Warwickshire Council's race equality support worker and that's when things really started moving.

'I went through every procedure I could think of before I went to race relations,' said Amanda. 'I wasn't being listened to. They just thought I was an irrational mother. They thought I was playing the race card because Tyler had been suspended. But it had nothing to do with that. I was fighting the racism way before he was suspended.'

On interviewing the head teacher, the race equality support worker was said to be appalled the school did not have a race policy or an antibullying policy. His intervention helped turn things around for Amanda and Tyler and shortly afterwards the school's head and the teacher in question left.

'The new head teacher is fantastic,' says Amanda. 'The head teacher I was dealing with then didn't believe there was such a thing as racism or such a thing as victimisation against one pupil.'

Amanda said she was 'disgusted' to hear of the level of racist incidents reported in Birmingham's schools. 'I think it lies with the schools how they deal with it. If a child feels victimised to the point where they feel it is racism it must be resolved. As soon as you hope it will go away it will get worse. Children need to report it to someone they trust as soon as possible. They must tell their parents. If they don't get anywhere they have to bring in race relations.'

Some Teachers make racist assumptions about mixed-race children
read the related news artlicle here:

How do you deal with name calling?
Click here to read our helpful feature:

Source: