Text helpline gives support to victims of school bullies
ADRIAN MATHER AND SARAH HUNTER amather@edinburghnews.com
CHILDREN are being encouraged to report bullies by text message under a pioneering initiative in schools across Edinburgh.
Under the Text Someone scheme, bullied pupils will be able to text any incident in confidence to a database teachers can access before deciding on any action.
Phone lines and e-mail addresses will also be set up in the hope pupils who would usually be put off from approaching a teacher face-to-face will come forward.
Around 90 schools - the majority of secondaries and primaries in the city - are to have the system implemented when pupils return after the summer holidays.
It has been devised by Truancy Call Ltd, the company behind a system that informs parents by text when their children fail to appear for school.
It has been trialled successfully at Tynecastle High School and is set to be extended at the same time as the bullying service. A further service called Call Parents, which will be used to notify parents about school closures, exam dates and upcoming school events, will also be introduced.
The city council hopes all three services will help provide better communication between teachers, pupils and parents.
David Wright, the council's liaison officer co-ordinating the project, said: "It is really meant to act as an ice-breaker between pupils and teachers and will help provide an easier form of communication between them.
"Some pupils who are getting bullied may have problems with approaching a teacher to talk about what is going on, so this system will provide an easier way of reporting bullying to the school.
"All they need to do is text a brief description of what's happening to a special number and it then gets logged into a database, where teachers can look at the message and decide what, if any, action to take.
"We're hoping it will be a preventative thing more than anything else. Some pupils don't report bullying and it eventually gets out of hand. We hope that they will use this service to text as soon as the first instance happens, so the problems don't escalate."
After each claim is logged, teachers will be able to decide whether to address the problem internally - either by speaking to alleged bullies or calling parents - or, in extreme cases of physical violence, calling in the police or child protection agencies.
Truancy Call Ltd added that each incident would be treated on a case-by-case basis, meaning that it would be up to each school to decide on how to deal with their pupils' claims of bullying.
As well as physical violence and verbal bullying, the initiative is expected to deal with the rise in "cyber bullying", whereby pupils are targeted by bullies through text messages, e-mails and posts on internet sites.
Truancy Call Ltd managing director Stephen Clarke said: "Edinburgh council is leading the way by recognising that technology can assist in the battle against truancy and bullying.
"We are looking forward to telling schools more about how our services can help open the lines of communication with school pupils and parents."
Nikki Kerr, from anti-bullying charity Kidscape, said: "I do think this is a good idea as it can be anonymous in a situation where kids could be worried about being seen. Also, kids are so much more adept at using that technology - it is second nature to them.
"The only thing the schools would have to be careful about is that this sort of system can be abused by people pretending they are being bullied.
"However, I welcome any initiative that makes it easier for children to tell somebody they are being bullied."
Related topic
Teaching http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=493
This article: http://news.scotsman.com/education.cfm?id=1109402006
Last updated: 31-Jul-06 11:28 BST
