Since the first Anti-Bullying Week in 2004, Actionwork has taken anti-bullying roadshows to schools up and down the country, using theatre, film and entertainment to highlight issues which might otherwise be ignored, or handled in a ham-fisted, preachy way.
“Children don’t respond well to being lectured,” says Hickson. “Our workshops encourage young people to share ideas among ourselves. We also try to accent the positive, not just produce a long list of things children shouldn’t do or say to each other. Often the best way to counter bullying is simply to form friendships which boost your self-confidence.”
Although the anti-bullying message is slowly getting across, Hickson still encounters ignorance and complacency. “You would be surprised how often people say to me that if you experience bullying and survive it, you are going to be a stronger person. That may be true up to a point, but only up to a point. What about the children – and we have all met them – whose lives have been permanently blighted by bullying?”
Teachers and parents should be natural allies in the campaign against bullying, supporting vulnerable children, but Hickson believes that teachers need to raise their game: many of them have good intentions, but not the delicate personal skills needed to make appropriate interventions. “All schools now have to have anti-bullying policies, but I find it odd that anti-bullying training is not a core part of teacher training,” he says. “I have lobbied successive prime ministers on the issue, but been told that tfunding is not available.”
Even teachers with a gimlet eye for bullying, able to nip it in the bud, cannot beat the bullies alone. As we all remember from our own school days, if pupil A is being bullied by pupil B, it is very, very hard for pupil A to report pupil B to a teacher – it goes completely against the grain of playground culture.
Hence the increasing trend, in schools with enlightened anti-bullying policies, for systematic “peer support”: pupils in years 9 and 10 (age 13-15) say, being trained to be listening posts and counsellors to pupils in year 7 (11-12) who are often most vulnerable – new pupils ripe for targeting.
At Acland Burghley School in Camden, north London, a pioneer in this field, there is a dedicated room where pupils who feel they are being bullied can take their concerns to peer counsellors. The counsellors even visit local primary schools to spread the message about bullying as anti-social behaviour.
The schools with the most effective anti-bullying policies tend to be the ones that recognise that, because of the sensitivities involved, there need to be as many possible conduits as possible for complaints of bullying.
At Dulwich Preparatory School in Cranbrook, Kent, pupils who feel they are being bullied are spoiled for choice when deciding how best to raise the issue. They can put a note in a special “worry-box”. They can email comments on the school intranet. They can talk to their “buddy” – their personal mentor, drawn from the form two years above them. They can enlist the help of their “tribe” – as the school houses are known. Or they can talk to their form tutor, who has overall responsibility for their welfare.
“We are a big, mixed-sex school, so some problems are inevitable,” says Alison Eckersley, the school’s head of pastoral care. “Where bullying does occur, we have found it tends to involve pupils of the same sex. Cyber-bullying is a concern, obviously, although it usually starts with pupils using the internet at home rather than on the school premises. But we work hard to teach pupils to distinguish between thoughtless but hurtful comments and intentional malice. The goal is always to encourage good social skills and considerate behaviour.”
Worried about bullying?
If your instincts tell you that your child is being bullied, trust them.
Tread softly. Don’t rush in with half-substantiated accusations against other children.
Encourage your child not to overreact and to avoid developing a victim complex.
Think of teachers as allies: a successful counter-strategy will need patience and co-operation.
Read the school’s anti-bullying policy and discuss it with the head.
If your child encounters cyber-bullying, keep a record of offensive text messages and Facebook comments as evidence
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