7 year old attacked by 14 yr old on school bus

Our 7 year old attends an international school here in HK. Yesterday he was choked and punched by a 9th grade student on the school bus!

The incident started when 2 8th grade students accused our son of starring at them. He said he was not. They said if he looked at them they would beat our son up - our son said his Dad would beat them up. They then starting saying 'well my Dad is Iron man and Batman... etc...

That is when their friend who is either 13 or 14 came up from behind and started choking and hitting our son.


While this was happening our 3 year old daughter was right next to our son !( her first day of school )

and our 9 year old daughter was aaginst the window - screaming for the bus mother who never came until the boys in question got off the bus. She claimed she did not hear my daughter.


We informed the school immediately obviously - we think we know who the boy is, but need to confirm ( The students got off before our stop)


We called the police and filed a report also. If the boys in question is 14 we can pursue legal action.


We had a meeting with Head of Lower school this morning. They need to do their own internal investigation first ( which I understand ) but we did not receieve at this point the response that we thought it deserved.


Ideally we can resolve this in house to our satisfaction, but if not we will pursue legal action against the boy if he is 14.


To say we are sick to our stomachs is an understatement - we no longer feel the bus is safe. This by the way. is not the ony incident on the bus or school

- Last year the bus mother asked our son to take attendance - he asked a 7th grader his name - 7th grader replies my name is shut up. Our son said he was going to tell and the 7th grader punched him in the stomach. There were several witnesses and all the boy got was a weeks detention and had to stay off the bus for 2 weeks. Again a boy over 6 years older being violent- with basically no consequnce.

We have also heard of other incidents.


Our children are now afraid to get on the bus- not that we would put them back on with those students still riding the bus.


My question is if we have grounds for a lawsuit against the bus company or even the school for not protecting our child. Also if anyone has any sound advice on how to deal with the situation?

legal or even public media would scare the schools as they dont want 1 or 2 bad students ruin their reputation. They should have policies and procedures in place of what to do and how to handle problems like this whilst also being able to dish out proper punishments to the students and make their parents do something about their own children.


How big and noisy is the school bus, shouldnt the monitor sit around the middle to keep an eye on most of the children?


Also, if most of these students are from abroad, they have problems mentally, the move away from their own familiar environment, the distance from their parents as their parents need to take up new responsibilities, get acquainted with the new surroundings so the children may feel they need to lash out, parents seem to be lacking skills in keeping their children managed, i see children shouting back at their own parents more often.

am guessing that the bus company is probably a listed company on the HK stock exchange so any negative media would be quite damaging. I am also guessing that this bus company has a list of rules that the bus children should comply with and therefore you should question the competence of the bus company in it's ability to adequately supervise the children. I am also guessing that the school should have strict anti bullying policies and if it doesn't do enough to satify you then i should definitely threaten it with bad media coverage, legal action etc.

unfortunately in HK the international schools are so full with waitlists full to bursting that they probably don't care....