Tackling playground bullies

Many disabled children are regularly subjected to abuse at the hands of school bullies. Sunil Peck reports

One term into secondary school, Joshua Muggleton (pictured below) almost killed himself because he could see no other way to end the bullying that he was being subjected to by other pupils.

Joshua, who has Asperger’s syndrome, was taunted, kicked and frequently tripped up in the corridor.

“I just could not stand living anymore because it was so painful. It seemed the only way that I could stop the pain,” he says.

But he found that when it came to the crunch, he was always “too scared of death” to go through with it. Despite a subsequent nervous breakdown and repeated attempts by his parents to convince teachers to take action against the bullies, Joshua says nothing was ever done by the school and he and his family were continually “fobbed off”.

He says the “trauma” he underwent at secondary school in Surrey prevented him from concentrating in class and achieving the good GCSE grades that teachers had predicted for him.

Disability organisations say Joshua’s experiences of school are not unique and the bullying of children with all impairments is widespread.

The National Union of Teachers (NUT) says there is often a “wall of silence” which makes it difficult to build an accurate picture of the extent of the problem.

An NUT spokesman told DN: “One of the difficulties with bullying is that the bullied child does not always tell the teacher. They keep it silent because they are scared that it could lead to worse bullying.”

But in June, Mencap published a report revealing that 80 per cent of children with learning difficulties are bullied; the National Autistic Society (NAS) has also said that 40 per cent of children with autism and 60 per cent of children with Asperger’s syndrome have been bullied.

There seems to be a consensus among disability groups that the bullying of disabled children is not taken as seriously as sexist or racist bullying.

Children’s minister Kevin Brennan rejects this, though.

He told DN: “There is absolutely no hierarchy of bullying in my mind. I want to stamp out bullying in all its forms and clearly the bullying of children with disabilities needs a special focus.

“Already, schools have a legal duty to establish measures to prevent all types of bullying as part of their behaviour strategy and our anti-bullying guidance makes clear that schools should address bullying of disabled pupils.”

But Richard Rieser, director of Disability Equality in Education (DEE), says the main problem is the pressure that schools are under to achieve excellent exam results.

He says: “If they are all about standards and raising levels of achievement at the expense of developing the school for all the learners there, they will not be able to deal with bullying. In fact, the competitive ethos creates bullying.”

Steve Broach, campaign manager at Every Disabled Child Matters (EDCM), thinks there is some way to go before the bullying of disabled children is taken as seriously as bullying on the grounds of race or sexuality.

But he adds that EDCM will be highlighting the bullying of disabled children as one of its key themes in its campaigning at the Labour Party conference later this month.

“It’s about changing attitudes and changing how society treats disabled people generally.

That is a big challenge, but every organisation has a part to play in meeting that.”

Broach also wants to see disability equality issues incorporated into the citizenship curriculum to push the message that disabled children should not be treated badly just because they are disabled.

Rieser agrees that non-disabled pupils need to be involved in anti-bullying strategies. In fact, he says that unless schools develop systems like peer mediation and buddying schemes, the bullying of disabled children will not be stamped out.

Kevin Brennan says the government has begun working with charities and anti-bullying experts to develop specialist guidance for tackling the bullying of disabled children, which will be published early next year.

He adds: “We also continue to work hard through our National Strategies team to help schools that have weak or ineffective anti-bullying policies, and have recently given all schools stronger disciplinary powers, which allow them to punish children for bullying outside the school gates.

“Taken together, this suite of measures will give heads and teachers the support, advice and knowledge to clamp down on this abhorrent behaviour which is blighting too many young people’s lives.”

But for Joshua Muggleton, now 18, the memories of the bullying he endured still linger.

“It was so traumatic I have now got a mental block of most of the worst bits,” he says. “I still occasionally have nightmares about it. It was…inhumane is the only way I can describe it."

Ciara Evans

Ciara Evans has learning difficulties and was bullied at primary school.

She is now 27 but says the experience was so bad it will live with her for ever. She says: “This gang of girls always bullied me by saying nasty things like I was stupid and ugly and I wasn’t allowed to hang around with them. This made me feel really upset and soon they started to hurt me physically as well. One day I had to walk past the gang to get to my classroom and one of them stuck their foot out and tripped me up so I fell and hit the ground. The girls all started laughing at me. I was so upset and scared that I ran away and cried in the bathroom.”

Ciara used to make herself sick by putting her fingers down her throat so she would not have to go to school.

“I remember one really horrible day in the summer term. I was sitting in the playground on my own. I saw the gang of girls walking towards me so I got up and started to move away, but one of the girls caught me and started pushing me against a wall. She pushed me so hard that I banged my head badly and it started bleeding. The gash was so bad that I had to be taken to hospital to have 18 stitches in my forehead.”

Paula

Paula*, who has a severe hearing impairment, started to self-harm after being bullied at school.

Paula, then about 13, was targeted by a small gang of girls. They would tease her constantly, leave threatening notes in her desk, hide her books and pencil case and “accidentally” knock her down the stairs.

Paula went home one day with bruises on her legs. When her parents asked her what had happened, she collapsed in tears.

Paula’s family met the headmaster and teachers several times, but the bullies insisted that they had done nothing wrong.

Meanwhile, the bullying increased and the gang targeted Paula in areas of the school away from teachers.

She became withdrawn and would spend hours alone in her bedroom. Eventually, she refused to go to school and her parents learned that she had been cutting herself.

When Paula joined a workshop run by the anti-bullying charity Kidscape, her self-esteem improved and she began to make friends.

She went back to school, and now says things are “better”.

*Paula’s name has been changed

Alice Cornhill

Alice is 11 and was bullied by pupils who poked fun at her brother Tommy. Tommy uses noises and facial expressions to communicate.

Their mother Michele used to take Tommy when she went to pick up Alice from school in the West Midlands. But she stopped when she found out that children were bullying Alice by chanting, “Alice’s brother is a spac, Alice’s brother goes ‘Uh, Uh, Uh’."

Alice says: “It made me feel really upset and I used to lock myself in the toilet so people couldn’t see me crying. I would like it if mum could bring Tommy to school because some of the kids really like him and enjoy meeting him, but she can’t because a few kids laugh at him.”

Eleanor Monday

Eleanor Monday is taking a gap year after finishing at a sixth form college in London. She was bullied at her mainstream primary school. She says she had few friends to stick up for her when she was teased. Other children used to pretend to play tag with her but then run off and leave her in the playground, tie her to the school gates and steal her trousers.

Eleanor says: “There was one time when I needed the toilet and the boys said that I could use the boys’ toilet. When I went in, I was found by a teacher. I did not have the courage to say what [the boys] were doing so I got into trouble.”