Do schools REALLY do anything about bullying?

I just had no trust in anything the school did from then on, it never stopped right up until my final day, and now the sixth form is begging me to stay because of my grades... nope, I have a right to get out of that hellhole now I have the chance

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Teachers are there to teach, not childmind. Maybe if societal values didn't go to **** and people brought up their children with respect and morals then such behaviour would be less common.

This whole notion that teachers are there to stop bullying and be child minders and social workers is ridiculous. Teachers are there to educate. Maybe if politicians invested in education more and had the right people in place to deal with such there would be a better system overall but please do not blame teachers for the failings of governance.

Schools legally have to guarantee the welfare of their pupils at school, as such it is completely the responsibility of teachers to ensure bullying isn't tolerated. Besides, its a moral duty really to help someone in need when you're clearly in the position to help. Often teachers are the only ones who can. I don't see what is so ridiculous about this - nobody disputes this as being part of their role, so I don't see why you do.

Frankly, discipline is a core part of your wider education, in any case...

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To be honest, if the teacher doesn't know "whodunnit" that's they're only option. It's irritating, but I'd rather know that my teachers took bullying seriously and miss an hour of a day than think there was no-one who would take my complaints seriously, if I needed to make them.



These sorts of Facebook posts don't actually do anything to prevent bullying.

No. Politicians should fund schools enough so that they can afford to hire the appropriate people to deal with such. Teachers are there to educate. Yes teachers do often try to stop such because they are decent people most of them but that should not be their responsibility. In many other countries teachers educate and that is it. The rest is left to other school staff.

Yeah it's really annoying how they did nothing, and its the last thing you want when you report someone for bullying etc for the teacher to turn round and turn it against you, yeah they refused to listen to my parents too, luckily i went to a different college so didnt see them much after year 11
Yeah im doing good now no problems since leaving school , sorry to hear your school was exactly the same, unfortunately i think many are, how are things for you now?

Damn, I wish my sister's primary school was like this... two of my younger sister have been SERIOUSLY bullied, until very recently, I'm not even going to tell the story.
But OP, to answer your question, no they do not, at least this particular one doesn't. My mum has visited the school multiple times and the last time was threatened by one of the teachers who started screaming at my mum... a make teacher as well! My stepdad went up and he the teacher started crying saying sorry... that night his house got set on fire, hmmmmm.

I appreciate you making this thread though, I feel talking about stuff like this makes it feel better somewhat.

Yes, my school was quite good with regards to things like bullying. In a way it was a good thing because when I moved tutor groups I made a lot more friends and felt more accepted there, so I didn't even bother thinking about my old friends. One of them ended up leaving and the other one I'm ok with now.

No. I don't think a lot of schools do to be honest with you. In fact, my school had a habit of joining in with it - one of my teachers mocked me for being gay and told me to buy a dress for whatever, completely retarded, reason, and my deputy head put me in isolation for 3 weeks because I came out and it was apparently "not the type of thing to do in school". A few years ago, just after I came out, I was quite vulnerable - lost friends and everything suddenly just caved in on me. I tried to kill myself and my school decided that was all my fault and I was an idiot and it's my fault I felt that way and isolated me again for apparently influencing people into things like suicide and self-harm... when like one person knew about it. A teacher heard about it because they saw rope marks around my neck and so on but yeah.

Primary school was worse, the teachers used to gang up on the pupils quite literally. Spread rumours amongst the staff, make sure everyone knew about the sudden occurrences they all so fondly bitched about. I had someone break my thumb in primary school, on purpose, and the teachers decided to blame me for it and say I did it myself and I was just trying to get the pupils in trouble.

However, this is all behind me now and I'm nothing like that anymore and don't have these experiences BUT...

To answer your question, NO. I do not believe schools, or at least most of them, do anything about bullying. I think that there's a lot of selfishness when they're faced with cases of bullying and they think of how awkward it maybe for them to follow up the lead.

It must be pretty difficult for the schools, in fairness. In my experience, getting disciplined by school/teachers is only gonna make the bully/s act even worse towards the victim.

Really the blame should lie with the parents, and at a private school you would expect the parents to be better at raising their kids to have respect for others. I'm sure all GOOD parents would be horrified if they knew their kid was bullying someone.

Schools only do something about bullying if it's extremely blatant (like physically abuse) and so obligated. I was bullied for a year, had a lot of absences because I had to sit next to them in a few classes until one day I just broke down during lesson. The teacher literally did nothing. Later, I had to write a statement about what had happened but there was no follow up or anything. People in my class were more helpful by informing various teachers that I couldn't work/sit next to them if they paired us up (which they always did because putting quiet kids with the worst of the worst is apparently a good idea......).

They don't go out the way to find out if there's a problem, they'll only help if someone asks for it to which they're obliged to interfere but that's not enough because bullies tend to target those who aren't the most self-assured/keen to avoid confrontation. They don't even do much anyway because they always try to solve things in such an impersonal, standardised way. Also, they don't consider verbal bullying as serious as physical which I really abhor but I guess they're just reflecting society's ingrain views. Instead of crying when someone says something mean, our brains should just explode and -us. To add a degree of seriousness to the effect it has since people love visuals and we undermine crying now. Bullies could be arrested then too ..... lol.

But a school/teacher's particular stance on bullying probably varies a lot though.

My school was terrible, they didn't even do anything. They claimed to be excellent with bullying but when it came to it they did nothing. Some teachers even witnessed it and walked past.

at my old secondary (y7 to y11), it was a typical case of victim blaming. I was pushed down stairs in the November of y7, and our head of house asked me what I'd done to provoke it, while I was crying and bleeding from my face.

wonderful.

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My school expelled a few students for bullying. The trick seems to be to constantly kick up a fuss about it so they have no choice but to take action.

Because the education system is stupid, teachers actually get told off by higher up teachers for punishing too many students (at least at my school they did). This meant our teachers would avoid sending kids out of class (because god forbid the bullies lose 10 minutes of their lesson even though they're too busy bullying to actually pay attention to anything anyway) or giving them referrals or anything.

So I was bullied a lot (I'm mostly talking about secondary school, as I remember it more, but my middle school was even worse, hence why I left to go to the secondary school), when you were bullied at my school and the teachers decided to actually acknowledge it, you'd go talk to the councilor (who always spoke to me like I either was 8 or had a mental problem, or so it felt. I'm not suggesting any similarities between the two by the way) and she'd ask like who said what and you'd have to write down WORD FOR WORD what the bullies say.
Now there's a fault. It's more often than not, the context as opposed to the actual words. And even then, I never would remember exactly what they say, I remember how it makes me feel.
By the way, all this takes place during my lunchtimes, so I miss out on my spare time because I'm bullied, totally fair, yes? Of course I'd give up a lunchtime if it actually resulted in anything being done...

So, after all this, the bully is brought in (separately), probably has to tell the teacher their side of the story, and then the teacher gives them a warning, and that's it. They tell the student not to do it again, but that never stops it.

After a while I just gave up trying to tell the teachers anything. I had an awesome GCSE Physics teacher though who would actually notice the guy picking on me and send him out, but he didn't have an opportunity to be mean to me much in physics.
In biology however, the teacher blamed me for having my stuff stolen, telling me I let them (what, should I not bring my pencil case to lessons? I'll then get told off for not having any stuff!), and she encouraged me to hit them back with a ruler when they hit me (I don't care if it doesn't hurt, it's the principle, teachers should NOT encourage violence).

In general actually it felt like teachers liked to blame me for getting picked on. I must've done something to piss them off. Yes I did do stuff, here it is:
1. Being fat, this usually caused my bullying up to year 8 or so. It influenced the GCSE bullying though.
2. Liking non popular stuff, basically cause for bullying from years 9-11, I wasn't into popular things, so must be weird.
And there are probably other minor things which apparently I did to cause my bullies.

So OP, whilst my situation is no where near as bad as yours (I feel so sorry for you by the way *hugs*, it's great you have awesome people with you now ) LOADS of places never deal with bullies, it really does suck.

(So my story also got a somewhat positive ending, started at a grammar school sixth form and absolutely love it! No bullies!)

Well my school basically does a LOT about bullying- but only if the victim opens their mouth and takes action. Its a pretty rough school, so theres a whole unit for kids with bad behaviour and everything.

I know this from personal experience, so if anyone wants to know my story- just quote me! Its actually a funny story from my point of view lol

If only my school had had that policy! They seemed to have the policy of rewarding the bully and punishing the victim.

There has been times last year and this time in 2012 when I had flash backs of my school life, and I very, very nearly committed suicide!

Yeah, getting an apology did nothing, it's too easy to just say sorry without meaning it at all. Same thing with my parents, my parents even got mad at me for being upset sometimes. I'm doing well now thank you, nobody's given me any trouble all the way through sixth form, thankfully some of the nastier characters left me alone towards the end of year 11 when I started insulting and mocking them right back, I'm generally a nice person but I won't take people being nasty. How are you doing?

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This year is the 15 anniversary since it all started for me! It even happens now when I am out in the streets or sometimes on the bus.

I just had no trust in anything the school did from then on, it never stopped right up until my final day, and now the sixth form is begging me to stay because of my grades... nope, I have a right to get out of that hellhole now I have the chance

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No I was bullied for having MH problems

Schools legally have to guarantee the welfare of their pupils at school, as such it is completely the responsibility of teachers to ensure bullying isn't tolerated. Besides, its a moral duty really to help someone in need when you're clearly in the position to help. Often teachers are the only ones who can. I don't see what is so ridiculous about this - nobody disputes this as being part of their role, so I don't see why you do.

Frankly, discipline is a core part of your wider education, in any case...

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"Talking" doesn't work; it's just wishful thinking on part of adults who really should know better.

Ideally, peer pressure should be used to fight bullying, i.e. the peer group (which mainly consists of bystanders) should ostracise the bullies. That would be very effective. Unfortunately, in most schools peer pressure works the other way because teachers make no effort to shape it. (It is difficult and time-consuming and not really considered to be their job by anyone in control.) Most children don't pick up a peer group conscience by themselves - you need to guide them while appearing not to, and you need a critical mass of good children who also have natural leadership ability to act as seeds for it to work. This could be a matter of careful interference by adults, but in most schools, it's a matter of chance. That's why I think some schools are really unhealthy places.

Yeah schools do nothing to stop bullying except their 'don't do it next time and apologise' approach which we all know just makes things worse.

The only solution there ever was, was to fork it out until you're able to move schools or until the end of secondary. Unfortunately for me I had to fork it out until the end of secondary.

That's absolutely horrible. I'm sorry to hear you had such a bad school experience. It actually makes me angry because one of my best friends is gay, and he was also tortured throughout school, but not to the extent that you were. It's like you can't even be yourself in this world without being judged and bullied. I can't imagine what that must have been like, especially with "responsible adults" joining in on it. Can you not report them or file a complaint, because that behaviour is absolutely sickening?

In my case the teachers just did nothing. They acted like they were deaf and blind.

I'm glad that you've managed to put it behind you now, though. Are you doing okay? I hope you're at a better school/college now.

Things are great now, thankyou x

People in my class were more helpful by informing various teachers that I couldn't work/sit next to them if they paired us up (which they always did because putting quiet kids with the worst of the worst is apparently a good idea......).

Our school had an iron-clad policy on discipline, including bullying. We didn't have anonymous reporting features, but once you reported something it would get dealt with incredibly seriously.

I think in general the less bullying there is at a school, the more severely it gets dealt with because a single incident stands out, similar to traffic policing in the UK compared to somewhere like India

My school has quite a strict anti-bullying policy, but from what I've gathered, most don't seem to care :L

I wish my school was like that, but I disagree with you. I was the only person bullied in my school, as far as I could tell, and nothing was done about it. I think it's the opposite, actually. If there's more bullying then there's more pressure on the school to stop it, i.e. more parental complaints, more scrutiny, etc.

Generally its pretty ****. They do an awful job. I ended up hitting the guy that use to do it to me and things esculated. I almost got expelled.

But if you assume that a certain % of bullying exists in every bubble of school population, then the schools with below-average numbers are typically the ones who take a more hard-line stance in order to stop it propagating - I would've thought

At the end of the day neither of us have anything beyond anecdotal evidence and it's fairly irrelevant, but you'd react differently if something was spilled onto a pristine surface compared to spilling something onto an already-filthy surface