'Don't expel bully victims' for fighting back

Children should not be expelled from school for fighting back against bullies, MPs said today.

The Commons Education Select Committee expressed concern that some victims of bullying were being thrown out for retaliating.

They said pupils should help decide how to punish playground bullies and called on ministers to tell schools not to exclude children who have been victims.

In a new report, the said: "We are concerned to hear that some schools are excluding the victims of bullying on health and safety grounds.

"Violence in retaliation against bullying is unacceptable and schools are right to discipline the perpetrators of violence.

"However, we would expect previous bullying to be taken into account when deciding on appropriate disciplinary measures."

The report said ministers should send new guidance to schools making clear that victims of bullying "must not" be suspended or expelled.

"We recommend that punishment regimes are reviewed to incorporate where permissible 'pupil-suggested' punishments," the committee said.

These could include litter picking and "school clean-ups".

"This will bring pupils to the heart of the process and they will feel they have had a real influence in the measures to tackle the issue.

"It also means that the pupils will have determined what they feel is a 'fair punishment'."

The MPs said ministers should give guidance to parents on stopping "cyber-bullying" - where children are targeted on the internet, by email or text message.

They also called on Catholic schools to do more to stamp out homophobic bullying.

Ministers should require all schools to develop specific policies against homophobic, disability and race-related bullying, the committee said.

The report followed the Catholic Church's refusal to follow Government guidelines that urge schools to set up specific policies against homophobic bullying.

The committee said: "Unless specific kinds of bullying are explicitly included in anti-bullying policies, we believe there is a danger that they will not be adequately addressed.

"We believe the Department (for Education and Skills) should require schools' anti-bullying policies to specifically mention disability-related, race-related, faith-based and homophobic bullying."

In earlier evidence to the committee, Vincent Nichols, Catholic Archbishop of Birmingham, rejected the idea that all schools need a separate policy on homophobic bullying.

In response to the committee's report, Oona Stannard, chief executive of the Catholic Education Service, said she agreed with ministers that "any form" of bullying should not be tolerated, including homophobic bullying.

"We are very clear that all forms of bullying are intolerable, whatever their focus and to whoever they are directed," she said.

"We would expect all schools to have tough anti-bullying policies, to monitor these and to keep them under regular review.

"It is likely that within this overall structure anti-bullying policies will make reference to different types of bullying so that all types of bullying are guarded against."

Schools minister Jim Knight said: "Next week, teachers will get stronger legal powers as part of our continued fight against bullying.

"These will allow teachers to confiscate mobile phones which are being used to film bullying or text hurtful remarks.

"Teachers will also have clear powers on using force to break up fights or restrain violent pupils.

"New parenting orders mean that parents have to take action against their child's behaviour or face a hefty fine.

"We have asked an expert team to identify schools with weak and ineffective anti-bullying strategies and to provide support and challenge to these schools to ensure they are tackling the problem.

"In addition, updated guidance on cyber-bullying and on homophobic bullying will be issued to schools shortly to nip these arising problem areas in the bud."

Children's charity NSPCC said bullying has, for the past decade, been the number one reason youngsters phone ChildLine, and counsellors received more than 3,000 calls a month on the issue.

A spokeswoman for the charity said: "It is concerning the Government does not know the full scale of the problem. More research is needed to assess what works best in preventing and changing bullying behaviour.

"Bullying continues to devastate children's lives on a daily basis. It is vital that the Government acts on this report.

"NSPCC welcomes the call for additional support for schools. We recommend that teaching pupils positive relationship skills and mutual respect through PSHE should be a compulsory part of the school curriculum."

The spokeswoman added: "Tackling bullying doesn't just happen within the school gates. We also welcome the emphasis the report places on the vital role parents play in understanding how their schools anti-bullying policies affects their children."

Labour MP Barry Sheerman, who chairs the committee, said there was evidence that bullying was being reduced.

But he said it was still "too easy" for heads to ignore what went on outside the school gates.

"There is light on the horizon in one sense in that we found evidence that bullying is actually going down.

"What we found is that anti-bullying policies work and when they work they work very well indeed.

"Some people make excuses: it is too easy for heads and schools to say that 'bullying is outside the school'.

"There used to be a view that your oasis of calm was your own bedroom when you got home, that whatever happened at school you had that peace of mind in your room."

But the "very disturbing trend" of text bullying, especially by girls, had shattered that, he said.

Schools had to make clear that any bullying, inside or outside the gates, was "intolerable".

And that included bullying of teachers by pupils and fellow staff members, including heads, he added.

"There will always be bullying but life can either be tolerable or intolerable and it's tolerable if you have a culture that says this school does not tolerate bullying and if we find evidence of it we move very, very quickly indeed and very decisively.

"Where schools really do this well, they drag it out into the daylight, they accept that bullying happens in every school and they don't try to hush it up to please parents or new entrants and they have an anti-bullying policy that involves all the students and is articulated by the students - even the punishments where students can suggest that bullies pick up the litter or clean up the school or whatever.

"And where we saw that culture imposed, a combination of involving the students with good, strong leadership from the head, then it could work."

He said one of the report's "most disturbing" findings was that 38% of autistic children were bullied.

The MP for Huddersfield admitted during his committee's inquiry that he had made two boys' lives "a misery" during his own schooldays.

"I was talking to an old school friend of mine and I said 'There was no bullying in my school, I don't ever remember any bullying'," he recalled during one evidence session.

"And then he said 'Well, what about those two boys who couldn't march in step when they were in the cadet force?'.

"We made their lives a misery and I had totally forgotten that. It is very interesting that you can assume your school days were bully-free and it brought me up very sharply."

He said he had no idea at the time that what he was doing was bullying and that he would love to have a chance to speak to the pair.

"I would love to meet them and talk to them and say that I understood, looking back, just what I and my mates may have made them feel."

Copyright Press Association 2007.

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