Bullying in Schools (Hansard, 10 May 1994)

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, the department has prepared a leaflet offering parents advice on how to approach schools if their child is being bullied and what to do if they are not satisfied with the school's response. Parents will also have the opportunity to raise concerns about bullying with school inspection teams, who must seek the views of pupils, parents and teachers on the incidence of bullying and the school's response. Given these measures, I do not think there is a case for further amending the Parent's Charter.

§ Lord Ashley of Stoke
My Lords, I am sure the noble Baroness will do all she can on this subject, but what makes her think that guidance and advice and inspectors will succeed now when they have failed in the past? Is she aware that when Childline recently set up a bullying helpline there were no fewer than 18,995 calls about bullying? Is not the best way of tackling bullying to require every school to investigate complaints and then take action? If that can be incorporated into the Parent's Charter, fine, but if it cannot, we should bring forward other measures and insist that they are carried out.

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, the noble Lord makes a very important point. More guidance and more words on paper are not going to make a difference unless schools, parents, the community at large and those who should be listening to the silent pleas of young people who are being bullied listen to those pleas and take action. That is what matters—the action taken. The most difficult aspect of bullying is not schools taking action when they know about it but finding a way in which young people in school will admit that they are being bullied. That is the problem. We shall do what we can.
We have produced a leaflet for children saying "Don't suffer in silence". We have produced a leaflet for parents and families. We have produced a package for the schools as well. We are also making a film which will be frequently shown on television appealing to young people to let somebody know—a friend, a neighbour or someone else they trust—so that the system knows that the child has a problem.

§ Lord Elton
My Lords, is my noble friend aware that many of us are much impressed by the effort being made against this sometimes dangerous circumstance? We welcome what is being done by the Government and 1435 hope that my noble friend and her colleagues will monitor what is going on and in a year's time consider whether more is needed.

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, I thank my noble friend for those comments. This is a very vexed issue. It is something which we must continue to monitor and leave no stone unturned to do what we can to help young people to give voice to the fact that in some cases their lives are being destroyed by bullying. In terms of complaints, what we do not want to do is to single out bullying as something which schools must take seriously in the complaints system. Schools are now required to take all complaints seriously, whatever they are about. To single out bullying as one instance leaves a very large number of other issues which are also the subject of complaint. There is a general obligation on schools to take complaints seriously. We would regard a complaint about bullying as something which the school must take very seriously indeed.

§ Lord Skelmersdale
My Lords, I would be the first to agree with my noble friend that schools must take this matter very seriously. Should not all schools have policies for dealing with bullying in the same way as they have to have policies for sex education and various other parts of their operation within the school?

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, that again is a very good point. All schools now must have policies for almost everything. That includes discipline, pastoral systems, sex education, religious education and so forth. These policies must be discussed with the parents. The key here is to involve parents in the process of trying to achieve the aims of the school. So my noble friend can be reassured that that is the case.
The other insurance policy, if I can put it like that, is the inspection system now. Schools are visited every four years. Allowing parents, either individually or collectively, to make their views known to the inspectorate about the school will go a very long way to help. They can either say something publicly or very privately to the inspection team, who can take the matter into account when inspecting the school.

§ Lord Judd
My Lords, in view of the long-term psychological damage and grotesque waste of talent that can result from bullying, will the Minister accept that we are all encouraged by the action which she and her department are taking to deal with the matter? Does she agree that in order to be firm in dealing with bullying, the ethos and the values which are operative in the school and in the community at large are very important? Does she further agree that the best way to provide a favourable environment for dealing with bullying is to emphasise the importance of a caring society in which we are all concerned for our fellow beings and that we are not just one person against another with the devil take the hindmost?

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, the heart of a good society is good individuals. Schools are in the business of concerning themselves with the wholesomeness of young people, and that means concerning themselves with the self-discipline of young people. The ethos of 1436 the school is taken into account when the inspectorate visits a school. It looks to see what is said in the glossy brochure and in fact what happens in practice. I have read many glossy brochures and know that all schools claim to be caring, nurturing establishments, aiming to achieve the potential of all children. But, frankly, some of them are like St. Trinian's on a bad day.
The important thing is that the reality is properly tested by observation. The tragedy when a young person loses his or her life as a result of bullying is that so often the parents, other members of the family and often the school were unaware that there was a problem in the first place. The key is to make sure that young people open up about their unhappiness in school.

§ Lord Ashley of Stoke
My Lords, I should like to congratulate the Minister on the leaflets because they are very good indeed. They are very strong and convey an important message. What we want is for every school to have an anti-bullying policy written into the prospectus, winning the co-operation of parents, and the situation being carefully monitored. If we can get that, it will do even more than the noble Baroness is doing already, on which I congratulate her. We need a firmer hand to stop this awful malaise in schools.

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, I believe that the leaflets and other documents will go a long way to help schools to address this issue. As I believe the noble Lord knows, we have paid for a special study to be done by Sheffield University. Much of the information in these documents has arisen from that research.