Shocking footage of a young Aberdeen schoolgirl being punched and kicked by fellow pupils has once again brought bullying into the spotlight.
The brutal video clips, reported on last week by the Press and Journal, had many asking if punishments for pupils that prey on their peers are sufficient.
Parents spoken to by the P&J, and whose children have been the victim of bullying, have answered with an emphatic ‘no’.
The mother of the Aberdeen girl in our most recent story claimed the city secondary school did little to deter the bullies. She eventually pulled her daughter out of the school and is now educating her at home.
Two days after our report on bullying at St Machar Academy, we reported on an incident at Alness Academy in the Highlands which saw a pupil hospitalised with concussion.
Last year, the mother of a bullying victim at Bridge of Don Academy accused the school of “brushing the issue under the carpet”. We have reported on similar incidents at other schools, including Inverurie Academy and Mearns Academy.
And, in another P&J report, child safeguarding expert Jeanette Craig said Aberdeen schools were “turning a blind eye” to bullying, adding that the “system is failing” children.
Read on to find out:
- What P&J readers think of existing punishments for bullies
- Why one expert warns of a culture of silence at schools
- How parents can use the courts to combat bullying, according to a local law firm
Why suspension should be the answer
Online, more than a hundred of you answered the question of whether punishments are strong enough to deter bullies.
The vast majority said no, they aren’t.
However, readers offered a range of opinions on what repercussions there should be.
There were a few calls for the return of corporal punishment, a practice that has been outlawed in Scottish schools for almost 40 years.
Meanwhile, many said bullies should be identified and barred from school, while also questioning education chiefs’ appetite for such practices.
“Suspension and then exclusion seems to be a thing of the past,” said Nicci Smith-Ross from Aberdeen.
“If the child cannot be around others safely then exclude them from mainstream school and teach them (possibly at parent’s cost) somewhere else with strict rules and actual consequences.
“Never gonna happen but it could work.”
Craig Collie, also from Aberdeen, agreed that suspension was the answer. But he added that “parents generally don’t seem to care either”.
Craig even called into question how much schools care.
“A worrying trend… is that some schools are trying to distance themselves from incidents,” he warned.
School bully sent to McDonald’s instead of being punished
Tamsyn Henderson echoed recent media suggestions that schools often end up punishing the victims instead of the bullies.
In April, the P&J reported that a bully who beat a fellow Elgin Academy pupil so hard he suffered concussion was suspended for one day, then sent out of school on a series of activities, including a trip to McDonald’s.
“Children are told that it is because they stand out that they are asking people to pick on them,” Tamsyn says. “It’s a joke and it’s cruel as it knocks the confidence out of the victims who are attacked and harmed daily.”
Some of the anger was aimed at inaction by teachers and other staff, echoing experts who have warned in recent months that schools attempt to sit on the problem.
Tom Bennett, known as “the behaviour tsar”, is chair of a taskforce aimed at tackling misbehaviour and told the Sunday Post this year he had spoken to many teachers who want to talk about problems but are afraid to speak out.
He said: “I’ve spoken to scores of teachers who want to speak out about the problems they face in schools, but know that if they did, they would be reprimanded or sanctioned by their line management. Because they would also be disciplined or chastised by their bosses. And so it goes, all the way to the top of education.
“There is an omerta in Scottish education: a code of silence.”
The Scottish Government has previously denied it has a no-exclusion policy, saying it is the responsibility of local authorities to agree exclusion policy for schools.
What legal options do parents have over school bullying punishments?
But some parents of bullied children attempt to go around the school system with legal action.
This can be a frustrating process, as perpetrators are minors and not subject to the same criminal processes as adults.
To find out what options parents have when it comes to legal action, we spoke to Baktosch Gillan, a senior solicitor at Thorntons Solicitors. He said that incidents where children beat and injure victims are a matter for the police.
“The age of criminal responsibility in Scotland is 12 so if police decide to take proceedings, depending on the age of the child, they would likely go through the children’s reporter system, as opposed to court proceedings,” he explained, referring to the system in Scotland that decides whether a child or young person needs to go to a Children’s Hearing.
He said parents could obtain a non-harassment order from the court, but warned that unless legal aid was obtained the legal fees could run into the tens of thousands of pounds.
He also warned that such court orders are “pretty rare”.
Could parents harness the power of a UN convention?
If parents want to take action against a school because they believe it hasn’t adequately protected their child, then Mr Gillan says legal options do exist if, for example, a child’s education has suffered.
In these instances, the legal action would be against the education authority.
Mr Gillan also pointed to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which was incorporated into Scots law in July this year, suggesting that it could potentially be used as a foundation for legal action.
“It’s been subject to legal challenges, so I don’t know the full extent of the law as it has come into effect,” he added. “But in principle, it places more obligations on councils to protect the welfare of children.”
Conversation