Bullying (Schools)

Robert Buckland Excerpts

Wednesday 16th June 2010 Westminster Hall

[Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

I start by congratulating the Minister on his appointment. We have had many exchanges in different guises, so this makes a little change today. I am extremely pleased to have secured the debate, so that I can raise further issues relating to the tragic case involving one of my constituents and also by chance—this is very timely—raise further awareness of a recent report from Beatbullying.

The significance and impact of bullying are undeniable. Indeed, it was the most frequently raised issue in calls to ChildLine in 2008-09, with a total of 26,134 calls. I am sure that that remains the case. There were considerably more calls from girls than boys, and it has been pointed out to me that boys possibly wait until they are very desperate before seeking help. Interestingly, the latest research from Beatbullying suggested that there was a higher tendency towards suicide among young girls aged 10 to 14, with 65% of bullying-related suicides committed by girls. Beatbullying concluded that bullying accounted for up to 44% of child suicides and further estimated that the actual number over a nine-year period could be as high as 78 in the 10-to-14 age group. There are undoubtedly many more cases in the 16-to-19 age group.

In the report, Beatbullying notes that in every child suicide case related to bullying, school was cited as the main place of persecution. In four cases, cyber-bullying, in which bullying takes place online by e-mail and on social networking sites, was also named as a factor leading to a child taking their own life.

The Minister will be aware that Beatbullying is campaigning for greater openness about and research on the causes of child suicide, so that our society can better understand why children feel driven to take their own lives. We can reflect on the depth of the issue with the number of tragic suicides, but of course if we add in the acute misery caused by bullying but not resulting in suicide, we are looking at simply enormous numbers. How many people in this room can remember not being able to sleep at night as a child because of cruel verbal bullying? I certainly can.

Parentline Plus, which receives thousands of calls and e-mails from parents concerned that their child is being bullied, points out that not only can bullying be harmful to children in both the long and the short term, but parents whose child is being bullied often also find the situation very traumatic and difficult to manage.

We shall never eliminate bullying, but we can do better. I visit schools and see excellent work with peer mentoring and other schemes. I have been very impressed by the work of CyberMentors. I understand that since its launch in March 2009, more than 600,000 young people have used the site. There is a great deal of excellent work by the voluntary sector—I apologise for mentioning only a few organisations by name today—and I ask the Minister to do all that he can to protect the funding of effective anti-bullying schemes. Indeed, we need to aim to have such schemes in all schools and, of course, to protect funding for services such as ChildLine and Parentline.

Like many other people, I am heartened by the coalition’s commitment to help schools to tackle bullying, especially homophobic bullying, but today I am hoping that the Minister will outline exactly what his plans are. Consistent recording by schools of instances of bullying is very important, but what action should follow on from that recording? Having policies in place is all-important, but what checks are there on their implementation? Should a specific governor have prime responsibility for this area? Is there a lead teacher, well trained in dealing with all aspects of bullying? What checks will there be on outstanding schools, which will not be inspected regularly in the future and could become academies? In the case of academies currently and in the future, who do parents complain to if they feel that the school is not responding to their concerns?

Often, we attribute the reasons for being bullied to some difference from others. Perhaps a child or young person has special educational needs. Autism comes immediately to mind. The behavioural characteristics and social naivety that accompany the autism spectrum disorders—for example, overly formal speech, unusual behaviour and obsessive interests—can make pupils with autism very vulnerable to bullying. Pupils with autism are particularly vulnerable to backhanded bullying, because they take friendship at face value and find it difficult to discern ulterior motives. It is the case that 40% of parents who have a child with autism say that their child has been bullied. The figure is even higher for children with Asperger’s syndrome, rising to 59%.

I should like to refer to a few stories from the Parentline website.

[Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)]

For children and young people with autism and related disorders, systematic bullying in schools can often lead to mental health disorder as well. The two conditions often run in a coterminous way. I wonder what the hon. Lady thinks about my view that schools, particularly mainstream schools, may need to develop more awareness of and more policies on autism and related conditions among students and pupils in their establishments.

[Annette Brooke]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention; I agree with his sentiments. This is a question of having a well trained work force all the way through. I become concerned when we talk about cutting the length of training courses, because we must allow more time for training in special educational needs across the board.

One parent said:

“My daughter is different—I think she has ADHD”—

attention deficit hyperactivity disorder—

“or autism, she just doesn’t seem to be OK around people. She is loving and trusting but the girls at school are tormenting her. She doesn’t complain—she goes back for more because she is desperate to make friends.”

Another person said:

“My granddaughter has been bullied over the last year at school and it got so bad that she took an overdose and was lucky to be alive…it took a long time for her to be gently integrated into school again but she was just getting on better and there was another incident this week where girls were threatening her. She has not been back since”.

The girl is now in a terrible situation: does she stay away from school and have her parents risk prosecution, or is she sent to school for more unhappiness?

I have a case in my constituency in which the parents in the end removed their child from a secondary school because they lost all confidence in the school dealing with the bullying that the child, who had autism, was facing. In sheer desperation, many parents end up home educating because of the bullying that their children experience, so support for home educators, not legislation and regulation necessarily, is all-important.

I have received a representation from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, which is calling on the Government to do more to raise awareness of type 1 diabetes after a survey revealed that a high proportion of children with diabetes are bullied. There is evidence that young carers are bullied. The list goes on and on with health conditions and disabilities, home situations and homophobic bullying. Homophobic bullying is worryingly prevalent. The issue affects all young people in every type of school. Just like other forms of bullying, it continues beyond the school gates on school transport and into young people’s homes through cyber-bullying with mobile phones and the internet.

Recent research by Stonewall with significant numbers of young people and teachers across the country concludes that homophobic bullying is almost endemic in Britain’s schools. Almost two thirds of young lesbian, gay and bisexual pupils have experienced direct bullying. Half of secondary school teachers who are aware of homophobic bullying say that it happens outside school premises. Secondary school teachers also say that homophobic bullying is the second most frequent form of bullying, and one in five say that pupils who experience it are subjected to cyber-bullying.

It is a complex subject, but we also have to look at the other side of the coin: the bullies, and the parents of bullying children. The parents of children who are being bullied often feel that too much attention is given to the bullies in schools, but, clearly, we have to tackle such behaviour. Why is it occurring?

As part of a programme of work to tackle bullying in schools in Stevenage, Parentline Plus works with the families of children who display the challenging behaviour of bullying. The project is enormously successful, and the organisation believes that part of the solution to bullying is providing parenting support to the families of children who bully, so that they can help their child change their behaviour.

The constituency case I wish to refer to involves a young man who was extremely good at sports, which was perhaps his difference. I must stress that the incident did not actually take place in my constituency—the parents have moved into my constituency. Ben, aged 11, committed suicide after being persistently bullied on a school bus taking pupils to and from school in a rural area. The bus driver joined in the verbal bullying.

Ben’s parents now live in my constituency, and I have been supporting them as they pursue changes so that, hopefully, a case like Ben’s will never arise again. They repeatedly raised the problems with the school, the local authority and the bus company before the dreadful tragedy occurred. Ben’s father asked what other situation exists in which an adult who is expected to be responsible for 50 or more children receives no training and has nothing more than a Criminal Records Bureau check.

In rural areas, children can be on a school bus for periods of an hour or more. When schools take pupils on educational trips, they are required to carry out risk assessments, provide first-aid cover and ensure the appropriate ratio of adults of the appropriate sex to pupils. Local authorities are expected to provide transport for school children, and there is a great deal of difference in provision among the various authorities. There are excellent authorities, yet our experience with what happened to Ben shows that some local authorities expect the bare minimum from their transport providers.