Student refused to play “bison” and was hit on the head. The case ended at the police station

A bell rang at the school, calling students to class. The teacher who was due to teach the seventh grade had not yet finished her supervision duty in the schoolyard. The teenagers waiting for the teacher suggested playing “bison.”

The game was inspired by a beer advertisement in which a bison plays the leading role. It involves one child belching loudly, at which point the others place their hands on their heads, thus showing the horns of a bison or moose. There would be nothing wrong with that if not for the game’s next rule, which required hitting on the head those who did not show such horns—in other words, those who did not join the “game.”

And that is precisely why, during the several minutes when the children were without teacher supervision, a student was harmed by his classmates.

“We were sitting in the corridor,” the boy recalled. “The class started playing some stupid game; someone belches and then everyone has to show something above their head with their hands. I did not show it. I do not play things like that, so they started hitting me on the head. I covered myself with my jacket to protect myself from the blows. Two classmates hit me. At the end, when I was by the classroom door, a female classmate also hit me in the stomach. My nose started bleeding and I went to the toilet,” the boy added.

When the boy left the toilet, the teacher had already reached the classroom. Seeing that his nose was bleeding, she provided him with assistance. The student was taken to the office, where the school principal was already looking after him.

The mother, who came to pick up her son, was extremely upset and did not hide her anger. She had been in frequent contact with the school because of the negative remarks her son had received. She admitted that she had had enough of him being labelled “the worst child in the school.”

“I had barely reached Bolesławiec, where I work, when I received a phone call,” the mother recounted. “The secretary called and told me to come to the school because my son had been beaten and that it did not look good. I came and said that my husband would report it to the police. And then I heard the principal say: ‘But you know, it was a game; they only nudged him.’ I replied: ‘And in a week they will start playing like this and what then? Will they push my son out of a window?’” the upset mother added.

After reviewing the CCTV footage of the incident, the principal confirmed what the injured student had described. She secured the recording and took it to the police several days after the incident.

The principal speaks of her school as a place close to her heart, while also acknowledging the staffing problems it faces.

“The homeroom teacher of this class is on sick leave,” the principal said. “The school counsellor is also on long-term sick leave, and the school psychologist is on sick leave as well. Because I am trained as a special-education teacher, I fulfil all these roles to some extent,” she added.

She also admitted that she had already spoken with the teacher about why she had not reached the seventh grade on time.

“We have a large area: a sports field, playground, yard, ground floor and two upper floors, and basements, while we have a little over twenty teachers, who are on supervision duty constantly,” the principal explained. “The teacher was supervising the schoolyard and waited until all the children had left it and reached the building. She arrived at the classroom late, but as soon as she saw that the boy had a nosebleed, she immediately attended to him. I must add that this student sometimes has nosebleeds, also complains of frequent headaches and sometimes leaves lessons early because of them,” the principal added.

She said that, as with other students, there had been situations involving him in which intervention was necessary.

“There are various conflicts and rivalries in this class, and several students have family problems, but I never sweep anything under the rug. I may have said that it was a game, but only to place the incident in a broader context,” the principal explained. “What I meant was that the students had not acted intentionally. I understood that the child felt wronged. We treat every student individually and try to tailor our methods and forms of work to each one as much as possible. This student is not an easy child, but it is possible to work with him,” the principal said in describing the student.

She also stressed that discussions had been held with the students in the class and that they had been told what they had done wrong. The perpetrators also received reprimands. Their parents were informed of the incident.

Two of the three students who had hit the boy apologised to him for their behaviour. The children also reportedly said that they themselves felt the game had gone too far. The police confirmed that information about the incident during a game played by students at a school in Bolesławiec County had been received by the Police Station in Nowogrodziec and that they would clarify the circumstances of the situation.