The Aurora School Bullying Project
Related pages:
Supporting documents:
From the local press:
Director of Education and LGBT youth leader
Stonewall case studies:
See Also:
Child Line reports causes national concern for LGBT bullying
BBC News August 29th 2006
School bully complaints 'rising'
More youngsters than ever before are complaining
about bullying to
children's charity Childline.
More than 37,000 young people called for counselling from April 2005 to March 2006, compared with 32,500 the previous year, the organisation said.
Bullying
was the most common reason to request help - accounting for 23% of all
the calls to the service.
The charity's Lindsay Gilbert called for every school in the country to introduce an "anti-bullying charter".
Ms Gilbert, head of Childline in Partnership with Schools (Chips), said: "Right now thousands of children are dreading going back to school because of the bullying they will face."
She called on parents and carers to play a role in shielding children from bullying.
"Not only can parents help tackle bullying, they are also crucial to helping their child through what is often a terrifying and demoralising experience."
As schools prepare to reopen for the new academic year, the organisation has released anti-bullying tips for parents.
The advice includes how to react if a child is being bullied, how to deal with the school, and how to detect the early-warning signs.
Childline cites an area of growing concern as homophobic bullying.
They estimated that 2,725 young people call them each year to talk about sexual orientation, homophobia or homophobic bullying.
A study of calls found youngsters indicated "too many teachers do nothing about homophobic bullying", and many young people fear telling their parents, they said. Those counselled by Childline about homophobic bullying report feeling extremely lonely and isolated and feel that they have nowhere else to turn.