School removes bullying

[bgmnts]

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-56568473

Thought this was brilliant. One of the rare good news things.

Although I suppose this means children can never be left unsupervised and engage in anything unstructured? Unsure if that's a good thing.

[Fambo Number Mive]

I do wonder though what percentage of children being bullied at school report it. I never reported any of it, not even the time I was beaten up by two older boys in the changing rooms or when I didn't even feel comfortable going into the sixth form common room because of the relentless abuse from various people (including a kid in the year below who was clearly dangerous). Maybe times have changed but it did feel at the time like reporting bullying was something most teachers didn't take seriously and most pupils felt wasn't the right thing to do. If you were "different" and/or not good at sport you were just expected to put up with being bullied and made to feel like there was something wrong with you. Have things changed since I left school in the mid-2000s?

[Sebastian Cobb]

Wandering around aimlessly was the best bit about school.

[El Unicornio, mang]

I do wonder though what percentage of children being bullied at school report it. I never reported any of it, not even the time I was beaten up by two older boys in the changing rooms or when I didn't even feel comfortable going into the sixth form common room because of the relentless abuse from various people (including a kid in the year below who was clearly dangerous). Maybe times have changed but it did feel at the time like reporting bullying was something most teachers didn't take seriously and most pupils felt wasn't the right thing to do. If you were "different" and/or not good at sport you were just expected to put up with being bullied and made to feel like there was something wrong with you. Have things changed since I left school in the mid-2000s?

Yeah it always seemed a bit pointless as nothing would really be done and you'd then be tarred as a "grass" and possibly get bullied even worse. I never felt like I was a victim of bullying but I was roughed up/verbally abused 2-3 times by this one lad who liked to just pick on anyone weaker than him (which was most kids in our year), with his gang of thick as pigshit goons in tow. I never really reacted at all so he moved onto other prey. The thought of telling anyone about it never even crossed my mind.

[Blue Jam]

Winchester College were set to admit female pupils to their sixth form for the first time but now might be doing a U-turn on the move because of this whole school rape culture scandal and concerns that letting girls in may lead to a "toxic culture":

https://twitter.com/Manda_like_wine/status/1376844240467157004

Can't find a link to a non-Tory rag reporting this story, seems they're mostly running with the angle that this is Common Sense and boys need protection from an epidemic of false accusations.

Also no boys are ever sexually abused by other boys. Posh boys' boarding schools definitely aren't known for that sort of thing.

(could start a whole thread about the school rape culture scandal but it'd depress me too much)

[GoblinAhFuckScary]

Weird because it does sound pretty terrible on paper depriving children from independent breaks in long fucking school days, but I would so have preferred this as my sister and I's experiences of school breaks were absolutely hellish.

I always say to myself that no matter how bad life gets for me in my adult years it is overwhelmingly an improvement on experiencing school breaks permeated with violence and fear. Not something I could wish on anyone.

[turnstyle]

A school claims to have almost eliminated bullying by banning games like football at break times. Instead, students at Hackney New School participate in supervised quizzes, poetry recitals and other activities, including chess and choir clubs

I like it. Make the whole school a collective of boffs and dweebs, that way nobody gets bullied. Pretty smart.

[Zetetic]

Winchester College has not been implicated in the scandal,

This is an odd claim, because there was definitely at least one mention on Everyone's Invited. (In a testimony by a Swithunite.)

Edit: On a quick search, there are at least three mentions. Edit: Five.

[Blue Jam]

Maybe times have changed but it did feel at the time like reporting bullying was something most teachers didn't take seriously and most pupils felt wasn't the right thing to do. If you were "different" and/or not good at sport you were just expected to put up with being bullied and made to feel like there was something wrong with you. Have things changed since I left school in the mid-2000s?

At my schools we were always encouraged to report bullying, then if you did you were told "just ignore them" (translation: "I don't care"). Some of the teachers that were aware of bullying even joined in with it, that whole "side with the powerful" thing. I never really fitted in at school, never understood The Rules Of The Playground or why people were so eager to befriend bullies, jocks, Mean Girls etc but seeing grown adults siding with bullies always struck me as especially pathetic.

I also never understood why people were so respected for being good at sport. Why is it that if you work hard at any other subject, something actually useful in life, you're a nerd and a swot, but people who make a real effort to be good at sport get a pass? Why is being good at rounders seen as being so much cooler than being able to play an instrument when being a musician is much sexier?

[lankyguy95]

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-56568473

Thought this was brilliant. One of the rare good news things.

Although I suppose this means children can never be left unsupervised and engage in anything unstructured? Unsure if that's a good thing.

I admire the intent of trying something new to eliminate bullying, and the structured/unstructured observation seems a reasonable one - I think it's logical that bullying is more widespread or can grow more readily in an unstructured, less stringently supervised environment, if left unchecked.

The emphasis on more cerebral activities is the bit I'm unsure of. Depending on how it's emphasised, you can easily end up promoting a view that sports/competitive physical activities = bad, cerebral and creative thought activities = good. Instead of fostering healthy, positive attitudes in different areas, you risk undermining children who don't think in such ways and tarring  activities that they may be better suited for which provide them skills and confidence. Additionally, a lot of social bonds are formed during unstructured school time.

That's the way the article is framing it; it's very possible that the school are finding a balance.

[Zetetic]

The school says there have been only five reports of bullying, including cyber bullying, in the last year.

Really we need several charts to start making sense of this.

[Fambo Number Mive]

Are there still people who claim that bullying at school "toughens people up for the real world"? In my experience it just traumatises people and makes them struggle even more in the real world.

Still, I'm sure a few retirees will write into the Telegraph or Mail claiming that bullying at school is an important part of life, or some such utter rubbish.

[Kelvin]

Sounds like the wankiest school on the planet. I'd rather get kicked till my ribs were dust than spend my lunch breaks reciting poems in a falsetto.

[idunnosomename]

Sounds like a puff piece for some corporate academy to me.

Reciting Tennyson and Shelley? lol

[Camp Tramp]

If your break activity is structured, then it isn't really a break at all. Fair enough if you enjoy reciting Tennyson, but I'd rather have a bit of time to myself to read in private rather than have my free time structured.

[Kelvin]

Cab Backs Bullies

[Indomitable Spirit]

They have memorised poems Ozymandias and The Charge of the Light Brigade and recite them as they line up for lessons or when they are eating lunch, Ms Whelan said.

[sevendaughters]

article is very credulous. suspicious. can't eliminate base instincts in young boys with poems.

[billyandthecloneasaurus]

Bullying is shit but this sounds shit as well.  I should probably check my privilege as I liked playing football and didn't get bullied, and also went to a school too dorky to have proper psychos, but I feel like maybe the loss of freedom isn't worth it.

God, I'm just a few more logical fallacies away from becoming a proper div libertarian moaning about the nanny state, sorry lads.

[Bazooka]

In year 7 a lad who had been blessed with a very premature growth spurt in primary school tried crushing me against a fence, the biggest bully in year 7 saw this and came and started wailing on him. Then me and the big lad sort of became friends.

Had he tried to crush me against a fence with prose and soliloquys, well it doesn't bear thinking about.

[markburgle]

Yeah I got bullied quite extensively at school but I don't like the idea of this. I liked break times and it's not as if bullies confined their activities to then, in fact a large proportion was during lessons. German was particularly bad, when two of the worst offenders sat behind me. Music lessons, with their "grab a keyboard and everyone go off to different areas unsupervised" was great for bullies. P.E had various games that gave perfect cover, with Australian Rugby being the worst - basically normal rugby only you could be tackled whether in possession of the ball or not, so was just a license for wanker kids to follow me round kicking the shit out of me.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Are there still people who claim that bullying at school "toughens people up for the real world"? In my experience it just traumatises people and makes them struggle even more in the real world.

Still, I'm sure a few retirees will write into the Telegraph or Mail claiming that bullying at school is an important part of life, or some such utter rubbish.

It is neither necessary nor preferable, though I do think leaving school without a good sense of limits, day to day threats and how some people are out there is likely to end in trauma and struggle too.

Where things do kick off, that need to be identified really early and stamped out. School should be constantly trying to emphasis children's self-worth and self-respect and be identifying bullying campaigns and the shitty tyrants that are generally allowed to run amok because teachers are too busy to be managing them.

The trouble is that a lot of bullies are already themselves victims of bullying in their families and already traumatised and unable to socially interact without resorting to bullying power behaviour. It must be extremely difficult to keep these people from boiling over.

[Paul Calf]

I got bullied at school and it was far preferable to this bollocks. Free time is supposed to be free time, not being forced to memorise verse written by dead homosexuals.

[shiftwork2]

Despite my school being a cold hard Liverpool comprehensive where a bustin' 30% of kids got 5 grades A-C with all the teaching inspiration that implies, I wasn't bullied.  Not sure why really.  But I suspect it's why I've been a little too adept at keeping a low profile throughout life.

There was plenty of bullying going on of course, and the teachers knew it and didn't think tackling it was part of their job.  The only real question about the teachers at my school is whether they should have been sacked or arrested.  A couple were arrested.

Weirdly I do miss the scraps.  Good buzz hearing 'scrap, scrap' and running over to join the circle while someone got his head stoved in.  It's not exactly Dead Poets' Society but they are my memories.

[Inspector Norse]

article is very credulous. suspicious. can't eliminate base instincts in young boys with poems.

Particularly surprising given that it's just 18 months since this article about the same school.

[Dr Rock]

Hackney New School
317-319 Kingsland Rd, London
Write a review

1 star/5 
My personal experience with the school is one of pain and mistrust, four head teachers in the last 18 months, paperwork not done, lost chances for my son, great damage done to him and others, not much more than lip service when it came to real issues within the school.

Real issues are in need of being addressed, a troubled environment for both the teachers and students.  It was a great idea but has been poorly executed and sadly now just a poor school with no real goals in place.

Having tried to engage with the staff and governors found there lack of concern stunning, the school Governors have little interest in the school or its students

Please think long and hard about sending your child here

1 star/5 
I hated it there and when I decided to leave, they excluded me every day for a week before I left, so that it wouldn't look bad on their record. They also didn't let me say goodbye to my friends. WOULD NOT RECOMMEND. If I am ever successful I will not be remotely mentioning them

1 star/5
Very bad teachers are horrendous and they leave half way through class...

1 star/5
If there was an option I'd give 0 stars

1 star/5
The rules are all so bad that they locked all he toilets so some kid shat on the floor.Disappointed and smelly.

[Zetetic]

Are all of those reviews more than two years old?

[Dr Rock]

Yes

[peanutbutter]

The only times my bullying was actually observed and marked down was when we'd be playing football at lunch. The rest of the time it passed by unnoticed. After a while it became the one outlet where I actually fought back too, cos I was able to cover up my obvious vendetta a bit.


School buses were the real fucking nightmare, several years of a 40 minute journey twice a day with one particularly rotten cunt that fixated on me and would rally the other cunts to focus on me too.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

Mates, I really miss the bullying happening in the school. Can someone put it back? I was having a bad day and could use some cheering up. Making me sad thinking about the bullying not being there anymore.