Revealed: the shocking level of bullying in primary schools
Friday 31 October 08
A new study is being conducted by ARK researchers at the two Northern Ireland universities to give children a voice and an opportunity to help influence policies that affect them.
The Kids' Life and Times Survey is an annual survey of all P7 children in Northern Ireland covering what they think about school and other issues important to children today. The majority of the children were 11 years old when they participated in the survey and at the end of their primary school years.
According to the results of this survey, more than 20% of P7 children in Northern Ireland have been physically bullied at school. This shocking figure is just one of the findings from research carried out by academics at Queen's University and the University of Ulster.
Twenty-two percent of the children said they have been physically bullied at school, 39% have been bullied in other ways, 10% have experienced bullying by text message or on the internet and 51% think that children in their school get bullied.
More children said they had been bullied at school in the last two months by getting called names, getting left out of games, or having nasty stories spread about them on purpose than said they had been physically bullied at school -- for example getting pushed around or threatened or having their belongings stolen.
The vast majority of children said their school had a set of rules on bullying (87%) and that they had talked about bullying in their class (88%).
Professor Ed Cairns, from the School of Psychology at the University of Ulster, said: "Bullying can have both a physical and psychological impact on children. In some extreme cases, there is evidence of long term consequences including mental health problems.
"We need to be worried about all children caught up in bullying incidents but the group we possibly should be most concerned about in terms of their mental health in later life is the bullies".
If you want to know more about it, the survey findings will be available at www.ark.ac.uk/klt.
What's your own opinion about it? How do you explain these results? What do you think can be done in order to tackle the problem of bullying? Please visit our forum and let us know!!!
