§ Mr. HoyleTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many incidents of bullying have taken place in schools in(a) Lancashire and (b) Chorley in each of the last three years. [148372]
§ Mr. Ivan LewisData on bullying are not collected centrally and there is no reliable basis for an estimate of prevalence. However, any level of bullying is too high and we are determined to help schools to tackle the problem. Our guidance pack "Bullying: Don't Suffer in Silence" and the anti-bullying website: www.dfes.gov.uk/bullying offer detailed advice on preventing and addressing bullying. I have also recently launched our anti-bullying Charter, which I hope schools will sign and use. It is accompanied by a summary of effective practice to help schools review and enhance their anti-bullying policies. We are also currently running a series of England-wide regional anti-bullying conferences for schools and other partners to share good practice.
§ Dr. PughTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills (1) what research his Department has commissioned on bullying in schools; [148102]
(2) what data his Department collates on bullying in schools. [148103]
§ Mr. Ivan LewisIn March 2003 I launched a DfES-funded report summarising recent research on children and young people's views on bullying. This is available on the Department's website at www.dfes.gov.uk/ research. Rather than collecting data from schools, which would add to their workload, we are concentrating on helping schools to reduce bullying. Disseminating good practice is crucial to this. So we have made our anti-bullying guidance pack "Bullying: Don't Suffer in Silence" and the anti-bullying Charter which I launched in November available to every school in England. And we are currently running a series of England-wide regional conferences for schools and other partners to share good practice. This is in addition to staff training materials on bullying which we are making available to all secondary schools through our Key Stage 3 strategy.