“Our 11 year old son has only just started
secondary school and has come back almost daily with accounts of being bullied
by older boys during the lunch-break. His shirt was torn on one occasion on his
way home. This never happened in his primary school. My husband thinks it is
part of secondary school life for boys and says Tony should fight them all
back. I want to speak to his class teacher as I think the school should deal
with it. It is not just a personal problem. However, Tony thinks this will make
it worse. I think it will be worse both for Tony and the bullies to let it
continue”.
Mrs F
Starting a new school, whether infant,
primary or secondary, is not a casual experience. Beginnings can send us back
to earliest feelings of uncertainty and newness even if we are also excited and
pleased about the new start. Moving to secondary school after top juniors is a
particularly significant change. Some schools aid the induction process by
providing visiting days and giving older pupils pastoral tasks. However, there
are points in every school day where a new pupil has to face his peer-group on
his own. It is those relatively unprotected moments that reveal the underlying
strengths and weaknesses of the institution. Indeed, before choosing a school
it is worth observing the children at breaks or hometime.
When Childline began a Bullying Line they
found that most moments of violent bullying (75%) took place precisely at those
unprotected moments. Breaks, the lunch-hour and the journey to or from school
are the times, as Tony has just learned, when some institutions do not or
cannot maintain an adequate supervisory structure. Sometimes this is due to
fear. Without adequate support, the teaching staff themselves can be the
victims of school bullying.
“I was just grateful when I got inside the
staff-room”, said one teacher from a large comprehensive. “I was as frightened
of passing some of the older violent boys in the street as my young students
were”. A serious joke that circulated in her staffroom went “Mummy, I’m
frightened of going to school. The children frighten me and the teachers don’t
support me.” Mother: “Now just pull yourself together, son. Remember, you are
the headmaster”.
Educational psychologist Lesley Holditch
points out, “Only a short time ago discipline in school was often only
legalised bullying by teachers (in the use of corporal punishment). Now it is
the children who have taken on this role. However, there are also big
differences in bullying levels in schools according to the morale and nature of
the staff group.” Where violence is only held in check by fear the reasons for
it cannot be examined.
The sight of some new pupils can be a red rag
to bullying feelings in older pupils. The shiny new uniform and hopeful faces
of the “new babies” can evoke direct rivalrous anger.
John, aged 15, was expelled for his violent
behaviour to new first year pupils like Tony. He was co-leader of a gang which
specialised in damaging the clothes of new boys. “Milksops”, he mockingly
called them. “Coming all clean in their pretty new uniform!” It took him some
time in treatment to realise that the abusive term “milksop” conveyed his sense
of maternal loss as well as his jealousy of cosseted younger ones. His
co-leader Ivor had a violent father and sympathetic teachers had hoped his
school experience could provide an alternative model. However, Ivor either
sought out violence from other children or became a bully.
A victim of bullying may actually provoke
anger in others yet be totally unconscious of their part in the process…there
can be a thin line between being a bully and being a victim in some cases.
In the first 3 months of Childline’s Bullying
Line 2,054 children were counselled. 50% of the reported bullying was
perpetrated by groups of bullies rather than individuals and most children
seeking help were, like Tony, in the 11 to 13 age-range. Hereward Harrison,
Director of Counselling for Childline UK commented “The big surprise even for
Childline was that children said bullying hurt and was wrong, whilst adults,
because of their own past experiences, said it was a part of growing up.” There
is an important distinction to be made between acknowledging the existence of
bullying and accommodating it as an inevitable fact of life. If children sense
that their teacher knows of the existence of bullying but will not do anything
about it, they will give up asking for help.
Mrs F is quite
right in thinking that without action bullying will continue. Whether it is a
group or individual issue, it is not something that can be grown out of if it
is ignored. Indeed, bullying continues in the adult workplace.
What can Tony’s parents do? It is very easy
to have a fight over how to deal with bullying! Ideally, they need to come to a
consensus together and discuss it with Tony and his teacher. There is a task
the school needs to accomplish in creating a structure that will guarantee the
physical safety for all its pupils. With the help of his parents and teachers
Tony needs to insist and assert that bullying is not acceptable. It takes
individual courage when isolated to deal with threats but this is feasible if
he knows he is backed at home and by the school.
Childline emphasise that schools where the
whole class and staff work on the problem deal with bullying far more effectively.