St John Vianney’s Primary School accused of failing to provide appropriate and adequate supervision when fight broke out

A seven-year-old boy has undergone brain surgery after he was allegedly punched in the head during a nasty fight at a school in Melbourne’s southeast.

Jayden Pham was struck when a dispute broke out among year 1 students at St John Vianney’s Primary School in Mulgrave on October 17.

His parents, Paul Pham and Julie Phan, claimed their son was left with serious injuries from the fight including a brain haemorrhage and broken teeth.

Jayden was taken to Monash Medical Centre and underwent surgery for bleeding on the brain.

Arnold Thomas and Becker senior associate Jennifer Lay claimed no teachers were present at the time of the fight but the school said “appropriate levels of supervision” were in place.

“We allege that the school has failed to have provide appropriate and adequate supervision,” she said.

“We are concerned about how the school has handled this situation as it seems the incident occurred while there were no teachers present,” she said.

“We also allege that the school was aware of the problematic behaviours of the child that inflicted the punches and that there should have been greater supervision of students.”

Ms Lay said Jayden’s serious injuries will have “lifelong impacts” on him.

“Our priority is to hold the school to account and to ensure that they have appropriate systems in place to protect children from similar attacks on the school premises,” she said.

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