Bad day

It was when I picked up J that the day turned bad. As soon as I saw his face I knew something was wrong, he was pale and shaking and fighting back the tears. Then he told me that someone had punched him hard on the ear and smashed him against a wall. I looked in his ear and there was dried blood which was a bit scary so I called in at the doctors and the receptionist said we could see the nurse (they are so good at our surgery). Anyway the nurse looked in his ear and said it was just a cut to the inner ear, nothing serious but watch out for signs of head injury etc and she thinks he can still go on his trip.
As soon as we got home I got J to tell me the full story. Turns out there's this boy (boy 1) who's been teasing him about his hair colour for over a year. J played badminton today against a friend of his (boy 2) and there was a mix up about the score - J mistakenly thought it was a draw but in fact boy 2 had won. Boy 1 then came over and accused J of being a cheat and a bad loser and J erupted with frustration and hit him lightly (he says) on the arm with the racket. Boy 2 then started swearing at him and J hit him with his racket then boy 2 grabbed him up and swung him round (must be a big boy) but stopped when the teacher started walking towards them. As J was walking out of the changing room boy 3 (who has previously been violent to J and is threatened with permanent exclusion if he does anything else) deliberately blocked his way. Boy 2 then smashed him into the wall and tried to kick him. J kicked back in self-defence and boy 2 punched him hard in the ear. This was witnessed by at least 3 other boys, 1 of whom may have filmed it.

I feel so upset about it and I'm trying not to feel really angry with these boys.
I have left a phone message with the year 9 administrator and sent her an email with all the details so they had better sort it out. I said to her that in the whole of J's time at school there has never been a single incident of bad behaviour and he had never been aggressive to another child so if he lashed out at boy 1 with his racket it must have been due to the frustration of being bullied for over a year.

I wish he'd told us about the teasing.