Could anybody offer any advice re bullying in schools. I am interested to know of any Wirral girls or mixed sex school that has an effective anti bullying policy. We have considered Ridgeway but would love to hear of peoples experiences across all the schools. I accept that every school will have bullies but would like to find a school that supports the victims.
thanks for any advice.

I went to St Mary's in wallasey village and while bullying occurred it was very well dealt with. I was there 00-08 but i believe since it's gone a bit downhill quality-wise... ofsted reports have gone from 'outstanding' down to 'good' so it's worth thinking about but can't say what it's like currently.

Upton Hall Convent. None of it there and a brilliant school even if you aren't Catholic.

I would refute that any school has no bullying, some schools are more effective in the treatment of it, some schools virtually ignore it and some schools make the right noises.

It is extremely difficult for school staff to identify bullying, generally it is done sneakily, the more interviews they do, the more the confusing the responses are.

Children have biases and allow them to influence the way they see things, many traveller children are immediately discriminated against, not necessarily because of their lifestyle but of their sudden appearance changing the perceived stability of the classroom, they are seen as outsiders. There are many other discriminations that easily influence children such as cleanliness, dress, accent, colour, sex, attitude etc. They may defend a bully because they are more of their clique when the victim isn't, staff cannot second-guess incase they get it wrong.

Its not unheard of for bullies to claim they are being bullied, in fact its often the first words out their mouths when accused.

Upton Hall Convent? I have it first hand that there is bullying, the response was "of course their is - its a girl's school".

Thanks for replies much appreciated

DD, I have never heard of any bullying at Upton Hall. The headmistress is spot on, and would deal with it there and then, if there was. The girls always respected their head and behaved accordingly.
Unless of course, she has moved on in the last couple of years.

Granny said rather naively "Upton Hall Convent. None of it there and a brilliant school even if you aren't Catholic."


Do the victims come forward? All schools will have anti bullying policies because its good for Ofsted.

I usually do the school crossing for Upton Convent once a week and would say that most of the girls are polite.

I asked the first person I could think who left Upton Hall about two years ago. I got similar answers for other girls schools. Schools without bullying are exceedingly rare, if indeed there are any.

Bullying is about persistence, kids are creatures of habit, one-off incidents easily become repetitive.

It is the denial problem that doesn't help, god knows how many bullies parents have stormed into schools because their little "innocent" darling has been accused. Quite often these are the same parents who come literally crying back to the school a few years later because they can't cope with their little "innocent" darling.

There is often no real proof, other kids won't speak out sometimes because they want to stay in the "clique" or they are plain scared or because they have been brought up not to "snitch".

Many schools try really hard, they try to instil in the kids that bullying is a despicable act, once you get the ethos that bullying is disgusting then you stand a chance but there are always a hardcore of parents that bring their child up in some sort of permanent competitive atmosphere; physically, mentally and/or emotionally.

The balance between competitiveness, fairness and humility is an extremely difficult thing to get right if indeed it is possible. You only have to look at adult sports, its a competitive environment and many adults can't cope and they have behaviour problems, you can't expect immature kids to cope with it either. The few successful adult people that are humble stand out like a sore thumb and are considered amongst the greats even though they may not be the most successful - because it is an achievement in its own right and is a very rare skill.

Where do you go from there? eliminate competitiveness and you get many people underachieving? No!, accept bullying as a natural thing? No!, ah, we have run out of options, a compromise has got to be made, bullying will continue to occur - there isn't a complete answer.

Its very easy to blame schools but they don't have anywhere near the supervision time per child that the parents can. The best results are generally (I'm not saying its wrong or right or even works 100%) by punishing the parents instead of punishing the kids. The schools that haul the parents in every time an incident occurs get better results of behaviour control.

On top of all that is the problem of "labelling", you tell a child that they are a bully or that they have ADHD and they will have or become it. There are ways round this, but to most people it is counter-intuitive and you really can't expect most parents to have that skill, it generally has to be taught.

The associated topic is punishments or corrections, there is no universal punishment/correction and what one person would see as a punishment another person would revel in. Unfortunately our people-at-the-top don't recognise this. Some kids do respond to physical punishment without life lasting damage, some respond to isolation, some respond to additional work, some respond to loss of privileges, some respond to loss of kudos, some respond to praise, some respond to responsibility and there are many other techniques. Staff often find out what combination works best for individual kids, but then you get some parent interrupting the process by saying "my child got a harsher punishment for a lesser offence than some other child" and this can appear to be true but the seriousness of the offence for that child and the measure taken for that child was right but the parent refuses to see it that way and the staff member is undermined.

It needs collaboration between parents and school but where is the time to do that and do you get cooperation from all the parents?, No!

All I can go on is the fact that my daughter went to Upton hall , for however many years. Qualified as a teacher, has taught in Wirral at various schools, also Liverpool, Sussex, Kent and abroad.

Certain schools in Wirral and Liverpool would be eye opening for you to know about. Not only do kids bully kids, but they also bully teachers !

Kent, Sussex seemed to be well conducted schools. She has also worked abroad where bullying is simply not part of school life style.
So bottom line to me, is the control of the heads and how it is actioned.

My daughter hated bullying, and if she came across it, which she did on a daily basis from the schools in the North West area mentioned above ,she would dish out the punishment, but always contact parents before even for bad behaviour and inform them of what was going on. Most parents were concerned and supportive of the punishments to be incurred.

Unfortunately, when you get kids together who have to prove to their peers that they are as good as, it only takes one or two bad eggs to disrupt a whole class.

Teachers can only go so far and apart from giving punishment, informing the parents and staying behind school to implement such, their hands are tied.

Latchkey kids are pretty open to going adrift, but saying that , once accepting bullying as part of everyday life within the schools, I think we are on a downhill slope. It should not be accepted as being part of life in schools, in any form.

I have to ask, how some schools are virtually free of it and in such schools the pupils do in fact ignore the prospective bullies. Where as other schools seem to have an abundance. Is it to do with upbringing, location or maybe they all live in a far too close proximity ?

It is fairly recognisable that pupils who travel a distance to their schools and do not have the same friends outside the school as they do in the school , seem to be void of the same threats and dangers.

Ironically, the children whom she dealt with in such matters, were the ones who made a point of saying that they would miss her and thanked her very much for all she had done. Many still keep in contact with her .

That to me, proves that they want the control and boundaries set .

Your daughter is not the only teacher on wiki. There are at least two more that I know of.

meaning ???

Meaning your reply is not as a spokesperson for the teaching profession, here, on Wiki.

We are talking about bullying in schools, are we not ?
Therefore, I can relate the experiences of my daughter within the teaching profession, but if you don't want to hear it, that's fine. Maybe you don't want to hear about the kids and what triggers them , that to me is a pure example of closed ears from parents of which she hardly ever came across.

Small world in the teaching profession, she probably knows them anyway !

Yes. Will leave you with Last Word

A friend of mine had a horrendous case of bullying regarding her son in Caldy it was handled terribly and the lad ended up leaving, the school chose to deny it was taking place to keep their bullying rates down. Only 6 years later and another friend with a son at the same school was bullied and it was handled top class, all sorted and sorted well.

My daughter had terrible bullying in Primary school that took me and the parents to sort out as the school refused to acknowledge that kids so young could do what they were being accused of doing. The anti-bullying policy at the time did not exist.

She now suffers bullying in senior school, by teachers. And believe me it has been a constant battle to sort out, after all (no offence to the teachers here) but teachers are never wrong are they? They would never do what they have done to my daughter would they??

Bullying is disgraceful.

This is the face of a nine year old boy who is being bullied relentlessly at school... He is at a point where he has told his mom he doesn't want to live anymore. His tuck money gets stolen and he has stones thrown at him every day. He is in a well known school and his mom has approached the principal on many occasions to no avail. She is told that she is over reacting. If you are, like me, a mom who can understand this type of pain, please share this and let's help this child find solace... Thanks to all

From FB.

....and any other child.

OMG his little face is so full of sadness.
really upsetting to read about this.
Will share it now Granny x

Might be worth a look and consideration:

http://www.antibullyingpro.com/