Bullies make half of pupils fear school return

ALMOST half of children have worried about returning to class after the school holidays because of bullying, research has found.

As 10 million children return to school this week, a Yougov poll for The Diana Award found that four in 10 had been so badly picked on at school it affected their grades and over half said they were frightened of putting their hands up in class.

Experts warn that despite laws and procedures being introduced to stamp out bullying in schools, it has become “normalised” and remains a major issue.

Dr Elizabeth Nassem, whose research at Birmingham City University focuses on the topic, says that bullying tends to be oversimplified and those in authority seek to punish the individual rather than addressing the root causes.

“The way it is being dealt with is by children being put into isolation, into detention, but they are not being asked what they have done wrong or why, the root causes are not being addressed,” she said. “We need to listen to the children.”

Dr Nassem argues that schools “need to change their entire culture” as the hierarchical way in which they are run, including children being streamed into sets based on their abilities, encourages bullying.

The poll, which questioned 1,003 secondary-age children, found that 46 per cent said they have worried about going back to school after a holiday or half-term because of bullying. More than half (51 per cent) said it meant they were afraid to put their hand up in class while 40 per cent said they had been bullied for their academic ability.

It also found that 39 per cent said bullying had affected their grades and 38 per cent said they had missed school because they were so frightened. More than a fifth (22 per cent) said bullying had become so intense they had been forced to change schools.

Despite multiple campaigns to crackdown on bullying, seven in 10 parents still believe head teachers are not doing enough to stop bullying in their schools. Almost half (46 per cent) of children said they were worried about going back to school after the summer holidays because of bullying. The anti-bullying campaign by The Diana Award, set up by the Dukes of Cambridge and Sussex in their mother’s memory, has been backed by more than 20 celebrities and personalities who have told of their own bullying torment at school to encourage pupils to speak out and report the abuse.

They range from former England footballer Rio Ferdinand, who suffered “racist abuse”, to actress Tracy Ann Oberman, the daughter of a family of Russian and Polish immigrants who suffered anti-semitism including Holocaust jokes. Champion diver and Olympic medallist Tom Daley reveals how the bullying when he returned from the Beijing Olympics at 14 almost deterred him from continuing with the sport. “They took the mick out of what I was wearing on the diving board, they would throw stuff at me at lunchtime,” he said.

Alex Holmes, deputy chief executive of the Diana Award, said: “Bullying is something we haven’t got a grip on as a country. It’s a problem that we know won’t go away, but there are things we can put in place that show you can make schools easier and happier places to be.”