Q:

How can I deal with stealing at school (by other kids)?

My 5-year-old has just started kindergarten (Australia). Today he came back home and said another bigger child stole a toy he was playing with (a beyblade).

"He is such a bully, dad - he just came and took my toy."
"What were you doing when he took your toy? Didn't you ask him to stop it or tell a teacher?."
"I did, but he didn't listen. Teacher tried to find him, but couldn't."

How do I deal with such a situation - so that it helps my child and I enable him to deal with these things in the future?
P.S.: Due to my conditioning, I didn't, but I could only have told him to - "see the guy next time - ask him for the toy nicely, once. If he doesn't listen, break his nose and forget about the toy" But I am thinking that will be a wrong thing to instill in a 5 year old. However another thing to note is that he will be a non-white kid growing up surrounded predominantly by white kids. He will always wear prescription glasses and have a bit of a speech problem - so I am also inclined to think my approach isn't quite wrong. The school has hundreds of kids, and I do not think the teachers will be able to isolate this kid and help my child.

A:

I'm sorry for what you're going through; bullying is terribly distressing and something that can make you feel really helpless as a parent. Helpless, because it's an acute problem with no quick fixes. I think, however, there are several things you can and should do in this situation.
In communicating with your child
Your top priority is to reinforce your child's sense of self worth. In bullying, there's a real risk that the child will internalize the bullying, and come to the conclusion that they are somehow wrong, or that they somehow deserve how they're being treated. You need to see your child, validate their feelings, and make sure they always realize that what they've experienced was wrong, and that they're entitled to expect fair treatment from others.
I strongly recommend against advocating for fighting back, as you hint at. This will risk undermining my prior more important point. It will skew your kids value system towards violence and bullying, and it will put your kid in harms way. Teach self defense, by all means. Retaliation, absolutely not.
Acknowledge that ending the bullying is ultimately out of your control. Working towards this is the responsibility of the school. Make sure your child doesn't get the impression this is something they should solve. There may be ways to avoid being targeted by the bully, but your child shouldn't own the problem of correcting the bully.
In communicating with the school
The school needs to fix this. Be relentless. Do  not accept that this is out of their hands. Keeping your children safe while they're in their care is their absolute top priority, trumping any educational objectives. Make sure they're on top of this, and make sure they're putting blame where it is due; that they don't try to shift responsibility towards adapting your child's behaviour, as may be appealing when dealing with the bully is a lot more difficult for them as well.
Teachers who aren't taking this seriously cannot be accepted. "Tried to find him but couldn't" absolutely will not do.
Do accept, however, that the steps taken may not look exactly like what you may have had in mind. As a parent of the victim, it is easy to crave vengeance, but this is not their role, and this is not what you need. What you need is for the bullying to stop, and successful violence prevention may well focus more on working constructively with the bully than on exacting punishment.
The balance you need to strike is making sure they're on top of this at all times, while at the same time staying cooperative and not making yourself a part of their problem. Keeping a log of incidents may be helpful in meetings with the school administration, to keep the discussion matter-of-factly.
In communicating with the parents of the bully
Don't. (This section previously cautioned against some aspects of reaching out to the other parents, but it was argued in comments that the risks of this are always higher than the potential benefits, so simply avoiding it always is preferable. The entire discussion can be found in chat for those interested). 

A:

If he doesn't listen break his nose and forget about the toy

Yes, this would be a wrong thing for several reasons, not least the cost/benefit of "playing with a toy" at the age of five vs "eventual expulsion" if he internalises that message.
I've heard stories of kids who were let off of punishments where they'd done something daft, and immediately gone and "smacked the snitch". Congratulations, now you're suspended, who really suffered here?
I'm not saying there's not a time and a place for physical self-defence, but it's at a much later age, when you can make appropriate judgement calls. And even then "he tried to take my thing, so I hit him" is how people end up with sentences for assault.
My advice would be: 
1) Firstly, let your son know he did everything right. He didn't start a fight that might have got out of control, and that would have got him in trouble, he made it clear to the other child that they were doing the wrong thing, and he went to the appropriate authority. If it didn't work out the way he wanted this time, it was still the absolute right course of action to take. You're proud of him.
2) Let him know that if the teacher can't find the bully, that can happen. Tell him that you'll speak to the teacher to make sure they take it seriously, and to let you know if it happens again, especially if it's the same boy.
3) Speak to the teacher. Don't get angry, just say that your son was confused by what happened, and obviously you weren't there, so you're just trying to get more information from the adult in charge. If the teacher did what they could, tell them you'd appreciate if they talk to your son about what happened next time, and that you're annoyed that it seems to have been dropped.

The school has hundreds of kids I do not think the teachers will be able to isolate this kid and help my child

Firstly, that's their job. It's a hard job, but that's their problem. Your problem is raising and caring for a child under on what sounds like a higher difficulty rating than most. You're right to calibrate your expectations in terms of managing your own frustration, but as far as your interaction with the school's concerned, you have a right to be down there every Tuesday until the end of time to discuss how your child's being looked after. Don't get annoyed, just be persistent.
But secondly, it's not clear from what you've written if this is part of a repeated pattern or whether this is an isolated incident. Little kids are like this. My daughter has friends who act like bullies when they've had a bad day, but get along great with her at other times.
A five-year old is basically struggling with everything at this stage, and their impulse control is non-existent. They may have just seen a toy, wanted toy, taken toy, without thinking about the child currently holding the toy. That's really normal at that age. Arguably that's the whole point of early years education, to train them out of that kind of asocial behaviour. But it's therefore literally the teacher's job to help them navigate this situation, and you're allowed to demand they prioritise that over reading the Gruffalo.

A:

I have no kids, however I can tell you what worked for me as a bullied teenager, and may be useful for others. I live in Mexico, where bullying is present from kinder garden to, sometimes, high school:
It is always hard to be a kid with disadvantage over the bullies, most of the times it's all about physical strength. That's how I grew up, since I was average tall and specially slim and weak. By the middle of secondary school I joined a group similar to Boy Scouts, which was way more demanding physically than the Scouts but also had a disciplined enough system as for keep the training, but relaxed enough to not be any closer to soldiers. Every Saturday there was full of workteam from morning to late afternoon. Both workteam and contact sports developed naturally on me the bravery and the strength (if necessary) to face my bullies, and it really worked! They take advantage of anyone they know they can do it with, and unfortunately asking politely to stop being treated like that is useless (my mom proposed me the same solution).
So, I propose you to take your boy to practice any sport that may challenge him constantly against others in a friendly way (tae-kwon-do, football, etc), as for his capabilities and likings. It will make him feel more self-confident and even will be benefited in other aspects of his life.

