A father has taken his 12-year-old daughter out of an Aberystwyth school amid claims of bullying.

Thomas Scarrott said he had removed his daughter from Ysgol Penweddig. He claimed bullying at the school was “unacceptable”.

Mr Scarrott told the Cambrian News: “Due to various incidents that occurred over a prolonged period of time, my wife and I felt it was best for the welfare and wellbeing of our child to move them to a different school.

“After speaking to other parents it doesn’t seem that this is an isolated incident.

“The governors and the local authority need to be made aware of this issue.”

Mr Scarrott’s daughter started Year 7 at Penweddig in 2018 but is now studying at Ysgol Penglais where she moved half way through Year 8.

He said his daughter suffered from bullying. In one instance she was threatened with physical violence, Mr Scarrott claimed.

Mr Scarrott told the Cambrian News that, to help deal with the bullying, she had been offered a place on the Emotional Literacy Support Assistant scheme in Year 7.

But he said it wasn’t until her first term of Year 8 that these sessions began. Even then, he claims, the person running the ELSA sessions was unable to attend most sessions.

Mr Scarrott said: “I do think the teachers are trying their best, but there is a lack of structure at the school. I believe the education of the children is suffering because of poor management.”

He added that on two occasions, his daughter’s chest felt tight during a lesson and she asked the teacher if she could retrieve her asthma pump. The teacher refused, Mr Scarrott claimed.

“In the end, my daughter went and got it herself. She called us in floods of tears as she was having a panic attack,” Mr Scarrott said.

“We called the school to report it. They called us a couple of weeks later to say they had investigated it and that it had been sorted. But they didn’t tell us what action they took.”

Mr Scarrott said he was informed via email that the issue had been resolved, but it was not appropriate to inform him of what action had been taken.

He added: “The thing that stuck with me is that they tried to turn it around on us, saying that the children should keep their asthma pumps on their person all the time.

“They tried to turn it around on a 12-year-old girl.”

The school was asked to respond to the allegations.

A Ceredigion council spokesperson said: “Standards at Penweddig are broadly in line with national expectation, and the council continues to work with the school on a clear set of priority areas.

“Neither the school nor the local authority will comment on individual cases, and any concerns made by parents should be escalated through the schools’ complaints policy.”