Im in grad school to be a teacher and recently subbed in a 5th grade class. The class had some students with disabilities but there was one student, I’ll call him “Adam” who was bullied so hard. Every single kid hated Adam, no one would go near him, they would taunt him and belittle him any chance they got, if the class was being scolded for any reason they would collectively scream at him even if he had nothing to do with it.

I have a brother who was bullied like that for getting speech services and it broke me. I’ve spent 5 years getting education degrees and I’m in horrible amount of debt all because I thought I could be a teacher that helped students like Adam and nothing I did changed anything.

During my MEd a lot of things made me feel frustrated with the education system but that classroom so far has had the most extreme negative impact on my professional goals.

So to basically answer your question, there’s not much you can do unless you form a classroom environment that doesn’t allow it. Responsive classroom is good, but it’s a lot of training the first month of school and most teachers don’t have time to devote to classroom management like that.