BULLYING – FACTS AND FIGURES

All schools are likely to have some problem with bullying at one time or another. Now all schools are required by law to have an anti-bullying policy, and to use it to reduce and prevent bullying. Many schools have already successfully done this.

What is Bullying?

Bullying is the repeated and harmful behaviour used by a single bully or a group to establish dominance over one or more victim/target s. It is common and different from random acts of aggression because it is based on a continuing relationship between bully and victim/target.

Bullying in schools can include the following:

• Name calling and teasing;
• Threats and extortion;
• Physical violence;
• Damage to someone’s belongings;
• Leaving pupils out of social activities deliberately and frequently;
• Spreading malicious rumours;
• Bullying by mobile phone text messages or email.

ChildLine reports that:

• From April 2003 to March 2004, the main problems children contacted them about were: bullying (22% of calls); family issues (12%); physical abuse (11%); concern for others (8%); facts of life (8%); and sexual abuse (7%)

• Most children (63%) who called about bullying said that they were bullied in school

In a survey that it conducted through the Thomas Coram Research Unit, Institute of Education in 2003, ChildLine found:

• Just over half of both primary (51%) and secondary school pupils (54%) thought that bullying was “a big problem” or “quite a problem” in their school;

• Just over half (51%) of Year 5 pupils reported that they had been bullied during the term, compared with just over a quarter (28%) of Year 8 pupils. Considerable variation was reported in the level of bullying between schools;

• Girls were almost as likely as boys to have been bullied in both age groups. In Year 8, a higher proportion of Black and Asian pupils (33%) reported that they had been bullied this term, compared with pupils of other ethnic groups (30%) or white pupils (26%).

SOURCES: DfES website on bullying www.dfes.org.uk/bullying;
Childline www.childline.org.uk

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