Calendar An icon of a desk calendar. Cancel An icon of a circle with a diagonal line across. Caret An icon of a block arrow pointing to the right. Email An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of the Facebook "f" mark. Google An icon of the Google "G" mark. Linked In An icon of the Linked In "in" mark. Logout An icon representing logout. Profile An icon that resembles human head and shoulders. Telephone An icon of a traditional telephone receiver. Tick An icon of a tick mark. Is Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes. Is Not Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes with a diagonal line through it. Pause Icon A two-lined pause icon for stopping interactions. Quote Mark A opening quote mark. Quote Mark A closing quote mark. Arrow An icon of an arrow. Folder An icon of a paper folder. Breaking An icon of an exclamation mark on a circular background. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Caret An icon of a caret arrow. Clock An icon of a clock face. Close An icon of the an X shape. Close Icon An icon used to represent where to interact to collapse or dismiss a component Comment An icon of a speech bubble. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Ellipsis An icon of 3 horizontal dots. Envelope An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Home An icon of a house. Instagram An icon of the Instagram logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. Magnifying Glass An icon of a magnifying glass. Search Icon A magnifying glass icon that is used to represent the function of searching. Menu An icon of 3 horizontal lines. Hamburger Menu Icon An icon used to represent a collapsed menu. Next An icon of an arrow pointing to the right. Notice An explanation mark centred inside a circle. Previous An icon of an arrow pointing to the left. Rating An icon of a star. Tag An icon of a tag. Twitter An icon of the Twitter logo. Video Camera An icon of a video camera shape. Speech Bubble Icon A icon displaying a speech bubble WhatsApp An icon of the WhatsApp logo. Information An icon of an information logo. Plus A mathematical 'plus' symbol. Duration An icon indicating Time. Success Tick An icon of a green tick. Success Tick Timeout An icon of a greyed out success tick. Loading Spinner An icon of a loading spinner. Facebook Messenger An icon of the facebook messenger app logo. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Facebook Messenger An icon of the Twitter app logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. WhatsApp Messenger An icon of the Whatsapp messenger app logo. Email An icon of an mail envelope. Copy link A decentered black square over a white square.
Schools

Schools ‘turning a blind eye’ to bullying, says Aberdeen woman who worked 3 decades protecting kids

Jeanette Craig spent 27 years standing up for children as a safeguarder. She says bullying in secondary schools is worse than ever, and schools are failing kids by not dealing with it.
Calum Petrie
Secondary schools are failing kids by not dealing with bullies, a recently-retired child safeguarder told The P&J. Image: Shutterstock
Secondary schools are failing kids by not dealing with bullies, a recently-retired child safeguarder told The P&J. Image: Shutterstock

An Aberdeen woman who stood up for bullied kids for 27 years says secondary schools are “turning a blind eye” to bullying.

Jeanette Craig worked as a safeguarder, first with Aberdeen City Council, before she came under the auspices of the Scottish Safeguarders Association.

A safeguarder is an independent person who gets involved in cases concerning a vulnerable child, liaising between families, schools, psychologists and social workers.

Part of her job was to write reports to present to children’s panel hearings. She retired five years ago.

She thinks bullying in secondary schools is more prevalent now than in the past, and has decided to speak out about the issue after reading story after story after story of parents feeling powerless against bullying in The P&J in recent months.

The biggest problem, according to Jeanette, is that schools are no longer taking bullying seriously.

Bullying in schools – ‘the system is failing kids’

“It’s widespread, and the fact is it’s a huge problem in secondary schools. But the system is failing kids,” she told The P&J.

Jeanette corroborated almost point-by-point the complaints of parents at the end of their tethers who have approached The P&J in recent months.

The mother of a bullying victim at Bridge of Don Academy accused the school of ‘brushing the issue under the carpet’. Image: Basia Wright/DC Thomson

The mother of an Inverurie Academy pupil told us she had been left frustrated by the school’s insistence that it doesn’t have a bullying problem.

This, despite her daughter being bullied so badly that the family are considering leaving the area. And the fact that other parents have accused the school of having a ‘culture of bullying’.

And the mother of a bullying victim at Bridge of Don Academy accused the school of “brushing the issue under the carpet”.

Something Jeanette said she saw at first hand…

“When I tried to address it in my professional capacity, the schools just wouldn’t admit it was a problem,” she said.

“You’d contact the school, and they’d tell you to contact the police. You’d contact the police, and they’d say they can’t deal with it because it happened in school.

“It’s not good for the school’s reputation so the schools would play it down.

“Meetings with the school never seemed to deal with things, it was just faff and flannel.

“‘There’s no bullying in our school’ – that was the generic response. They turn a blind eye.”

Repeatedly asked schools for copies of their anti-bullying policy – ‘Not one was able to give me proof of it’

The mother of a bullying victim at Lochside Academy in Aberdeen told us that in meetings with the school, senior management repeatedly referred to its ‘zero-tolerance’ anti-bullying policy.

The mum felt this to be no more than words, with no substance whatsoever. Something Jeanette agrees with, and said was a particular “bugbear” of hers when intervening in schools.

One Lochside Academy parent said the school repeatedly referred to its ‘zero tolerance’ anti-bullying policy, despite the bullying continuing unabated. Image: Kami Thomson/DC Thomson

“Each and every school that I asked for a hard copy of their ‘zero-tolerance’ anti-bullying policy just referred me to a website.

“Not one was able to produce a copy for me despite me asking repeatedly. That was a bugbear of mine.

“They always talked about their anti-bullying policy but when I asked for proof of it, I never got it.”

Several of the parents The P&J has spoken to in recent months accused their child’s school of isolating their child, rather than dealing with the bullies.

Again, this is something Jeanette recognises.

‘Isolating the victim is totally wrong. Deal with the bullies, not the victims’

“The biggest issue I’ve got with the teachers I’ve dealt with is that I’d hear things like ‘oh that doesn’t happen in our school’, or ‘there’s not much we can do about it’, or ‘let’s take the victim out of their class and put them in the library over lunchtime.’

“So the bully swans about like they’ve done nothing wrong while the poor victim is sitting on their own in the library having their lunch, terrified. Or they’d get an adapted timetable, or start school a bit later or leave a bit earlier.

“Why? They’ve not done anything wrong.

“That isolation of the victim is totally wrong and I’ve seen it again and again.

“But they won’t exclude the bully because that gets recorded and affects the school league tables and so on.

“And perhaps some teachers feel bullied, because they’re under pressure to not say too much.

“But they should be dealing with the bullies and not the victims.”

Inverurie Academy has been accused of having a ‘culture of bullying’. Image: Shutterstock/Inverurie Community Campus

Today’s secondary schools lack “discipline and consequences”, giving bullies free reign

Jeanette said she often felt up against it when dealing with schools, all the while fully aware of the lifelong damage bullying can do.

“I didn’t feel powerless but at times I felt powerless for the child.

“And parents feel helpless too, they don’t know what to do.

“They think they’re doing the right thing by going to the school, but they’re met with a brick wall.

“In the cases I worked with, quite often the underlying problem with the child was bullying at school.

“The impact bullying has on teenagers stays with them for the rest of their life.”

Jeanette feels today’s secondary schools lack “discipline and consequences”, allowing bullies free reign.

“There needs to be more support available in schools. I know it comes down to funding, but there’s not enough support in schools. There’s not enough education on bullying.

“And there needs to be acceptance – from every school – that bullying is a problem and that it needs dealt with.

“There’s not an easy answer, but there needs to be discipline and consequences in school that you just don’t get now.”

She added: “I’d absolutely say the education system is failing kids at the moment when it comes to dealing with bullying, without a doubt.”

Conversation