'Seven in 10 schoolchildren are bullied'

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The biggest survey of bullying has produced some shocking statistics

The largest ever investigation into school bullying has revealed thousands of pupils across the country are suffering extreme misery at the hands of classroom bullies.

The National Bullying Survey 2006 has also revealed teachers want more training to help bring an end to the problem.

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Bullying Online surveyed 8,574 children, parents, teachers and adults in the first six months of 2006 in the UK's biggest probe into school bullying.

The survey was widely publicised on national TV, radio and in newspapers as well as in young people's magazines and on youth, charity, police and council websites.

Director of the charity, Liz Carnell, said: "We reply to thousands of emails a year so we knew the problem was a big one, but even so we were shocked by what we found out.

"This is a scandalous situation and it needs tough measures to sort it out.

"If assaults were happening in the workplace the attackers would be prosecuted, but in many cases the bullies are getting off scot-free without any punishment at all."

The charity believes there should be urgent research to find out why so many children are being bullied repeatedly, despite their parents making numerous complaints to schools.

"There have never been so many trendy methods of dealing with school bullying but the results of our survey are shocking and it's time to find out which methods work and ditch the rest," added Ms Carnell.

"Parents will be shocked to learn bullying is big business but that none of the anti-bullying methods being used in schools have been evaluated in independent long-term trials."

Of the 4,772 children who completed the survey, 69 per cent complained they had been bullied with each bullied pupil saying they had suffered an average of six different types of bullying at school.

Name calling was the biggest problem and 56 per cent of abusive remarks referred to weight and appearance, while more than 50 per cent of bullied pupils said they were physically hurt and 34 per cent of those needed to see a doctor. A total of 3 per cent of attacks had involved a weapon.

Cyber-bullying was an issue for 7 per cent of young people who reported suffering internet abuse, receiving abusive emails or instant messaging and phone bullying by text message.

Bullying on the walk to and from school upset 4 per cent and problems on the bus affected 2 per cent.

Homophobic bullying victims said more than 28% of them had suffered violent attacks and where racist bullying had occurred 43 per cent of pupils had suffered violence.

Most bullying happened in the playground 30 per cent, followed by the classroom 25 per cent, corridors 21 per cent.

The distress caused by bullying was very high with 76 per cent of children saying they were mentally hurt, 49 per cent felt very upset and 30 per cent said they were suicidal.

A large number of bullied children (65 per cent) said they were sometimes afraid to go to school while 21 per cent of those who said they had taken time off school had done so on five or more occasions.

Most children, 74 per cent, reported bullying to a parent, carer or teacher and 48 per cent said they had told their teacher more than five times that they were being bullied.

Where bullying was reported to a teacher in 55per cent of cases it did not stop and 60 per cent of pupils did not feel their complaint was taken seriously. In 31 per cent of the cases nothing happened to the bully.

Counselling was considered to be the most effective anti-bullying method at 53 per cent followed by peer support 51 per cent, restorative justice 50 per cent, circle time 45 per cent, mediation 40 per cent and no-blame 34 per cent.

Ms Carnell said: "It's worrying such a large percentage of children didn't consider that their school anti-bullying methods are working."

Only 30 per cent of children had been bullied outside school and 20 per cent admitted to being a bully but of those 43 per cent said they had not been punished.

A staggering 85 per cent had seen someone else being bullied and 82 per cent said they had tried to help. More than 90 per cent of pupils claimed to feel upset, angry or scared when they saw someone being bullied and 61 per cent of pupils were sometimes afraid to leave their home.

A total of 2,160 parents took the survey and 87 per cent of them said their child had been bullied in the last 12 months and 77 per cent reported their child was bullied more than five times.

Almost two-thirds of the parents (60 per cent) said their children had taken time off school due to bullying, 65 per cent had kept their child at home for safety reasons and 63 per cent of those children had missed more than five days at school.

A third (33 per cent) of parents whose child had been bullied were worried their child might be suicidal and 32 per cent sought help from a doctor or health visitor with 84 per cent finding the doctor helpful.

A total of 323 teachers also took part in the survey and 83 per cent said they hadn't seen bullying at their school. Where teachers took action 56 per cent of them said the bullying had stopped.

Only 40 per cent of teachers were confident they had all the skills they needed to tackle bullying while 82 per cent thought trainee teachers should get more advice on tackling the problem and 78 per cent thought there should be more in-school training.

Bullying Online was founded in 1999 and its website at www.bullying.co.uk has been visited by more than 1.3 million people in seven years. More than 8,400 people emailed the charity for help last year and another 337,000 visited the website looking for information and advice.

 

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