Disability Bullying at School in South Africa: What Schools Are Legally Required to Do

Children with disabilities are bullied at significantly higher rates than their non-disabled peers. In South African schools, where disability support is already severely under-resourced and many teachers have received minimal inclusive education training, children with visible differences, communication difficulties, or behavioural differences related to their disability are frequently isolated, mocked, or subjected to sustained harassment.

Schools do not always respond appropriately. Some dismiss it as "kids being kids." Some place the burden on the disabled child to adapt. Some are simply unaware of their legal obligations.

Those obligations are clear.

The School's Duty of Care

South African schools hold a strict duty of care toward all learners, and that duty is heightened for vulnerable learners — including children with disabilities. This flows from multiple intersecting legal instruments.

The Children's Act 38 of 2005 requires that special measures be taken to ensure children with disabilities have equal opportunity to participate in educational and social activities. A school environment that allows disability-based harassment to continue unchecked is failing this obligation.

The National School Safety Framework (NSSF) places positive obligations on schools to create safe environments and to respond to bullying through structured, documented interventions.

The South African Schools Act (SASA) requires schools to maintain a code of conduct that protects learners and provides for disciplinary procedures. A code of conduct that does not address disability-related bullying — or that is not enforced — is a governance failure the School Governing Body is accountable for.

PEPUDA — the Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act — is particularly significant here. Bullying that targets a child because of their disability constitutes discrimination on the grounds of disability. Where the school fails to intervene, it becomes complicit in that discrimination.

What Disability Bullying Looks Like

For parents, recognizing disability bullying can be complicated because children — particularly children who communicate differently or who have difficulty articulating social dynamics — may not describe it in those terms.

Common patterns include:

• Targeting the child during unstructured time (break, PE, transitions between classes)
• Mimicking the child's speech, movements, or stimming behaviours
• Deliberately triggering the child — making loud noises near a child with sensory sensitivities, touching without consent, blocking exits for a child with anxiety
• Excluding the child from groups, games, or conversations in ways that are structured and persistent
• Recruiting other children to participate in the harassment
• Verbal targeting of visible differences: communication devices, wheelchairs, hearing aids, support workers

For children with autism, ADHD, or intellectual disabilities, social manipulation is a particularly insidious form of bullying because the child may not fully understand that they are being manipulated.

How to Document It

Documentation is the foundation of any formal school complaint. Before you write a single letter, begin building your record.

Keep a log of every incident: the date, what happened, who was involved (if known), and how your child was affected. Include physical symptoms (stomachaches, sleep disruption, school refusal) as well as direct descriptions of incidents. Photographs of physical marks, screenshots of any digital harassment, and written notes from your child's therapist or psychologist about the psychological impact are all relevant.

Also note every time you raised the issue verbally with a teacher or school administrator, and what response you received. The pattern of the school's response — or non-response — is as important as the incidents themselves.

Formal Steps to Take with the School

Step 1: Written complaint to the principal

Address a formal written letter to the principal, stating:

• That your child is experiencing disability-based bullying
• The documented incidents (attach your log)
• That under the National School Safety Framework and the Children's Act, the school has a legal duty to respond
• That the harassment constitutes discrimination under PEPUDA
• What specific response you are requesting — a formal investigation, a meeting with you, a revised supervision plan, disciplinary action against the perpetrators

Give the principal a deadline (10 school days) and request a written response.

Step 2: Request that the SBST address the issue

The School-Based Support Team is responsible for the child's overall wellbeing, not just academic support. A formal ISP can include protective measures: preferential seating, enhanced supervision during break, an assigned peer mentor, a designated safe space the child can access when distressed. Request that these protections be included in or added to your child's ISP.

Step 3: SGB complaint if the principal does not act

If the principal's response is inadequate or absent, take the complaint to the School Governing Body Chairperson. The SGB is responsible for the school's code of conduct and its enforcement. A formal SGB complaint about failure to enforce the anti-bullying provisions of the code of conduct puts the matter on record at governance level.

When the Bullying Is Also a PEPUDA Violation

If the bullying is clearly connected to your child's disability — and particularly if the school is aware of it and has failed to act — this is not just a school discipline matter. It is a potential PEPUDA violation.

Under PEPUDA, you can file a complaint in the Equality Court using Form 2. The complaint would allege unfair discrimination on the grounds of disability — either because the bullying itself constitutes discriminatory harassment, or because the school's failure to intervene amounts to complicity in disability-based discrimination. Legal representation is not required to initiate this process.

The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) can also receive complaints about systemic disability discrimination in schools. Contact: 011 877 3600, or file online at sahrc.org.za.

The Link Between Bullying and Informal Exclusion

One pattern documented in South African research is that schools sometimes respond to bullying of disabled learners not by addressing the bullying, but by reducing the disabled child's attendance — sending them home earlier, or suggesting the family consider a "more suitable environment."

This is informal exclusion dressed as safeguarding. If the school's response to your child being bullied is to suggest they should attend less, do not accept this. The obligation is on the school to make the environment safe, not on your child to leave it.

Protecting a child from disability-based bullying requires both documentation and formal escalation. If you need a complete framework for managing school safety failures alongside SIAS advocacy, the South Africa SIAS & Inclusive Education Blueprint covers both.

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