Strange

Text to beat bullies

by LotusFlower | November 28, 2007 at 09:58 am

382 views | 7 Recommendations | 2 comments

Children are to be encouraged to text a helpline when they are bullied at school - great idea except that many UK schools don't allow children to actually take a mobile phone to school or if they do they are not allowed to get it out and use it even in break and lunch times. Some are more enlightened and allow use outside of lesson time but until all do this then this new text service will be of limited use.

Children will soon be able to send a text message to report being bullied.

Education bosses are investing in a £20,000 system to help pupils who are too scared to tell their teachers about incidents.

They will be able to text, e-mail or even send a message through a digital television to Leicester City Council's anti-bullying team, which will feed it back to the school.

There has recently been a surge in "cyber-bullying", where children are victimised by mobile phone or in internet chatrooms and the system will use the same technology to try to turn the tables on tormentors.

Joe Dawson, principal educational psychologist at Leicester City Council, said the scheme would be an extra weapon in the battle to eradicate bullying.

He said: "We are on the way to winning the battle, but we believe this system will be able to help us further.

"Some children are worried about telling their teachers for fear of being labeled a grass or getting more trouble back.

"We think this system will enable children to let us know what's happening even more easily by a simple text message."

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Rob Peters

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 13:47 on November 28th, 2007

Thanks LotusFlower. You make an interesting point about the existing rules banning electronics in many schools. Perhaps they'll have to make some concessions and risk an influx of electronic distractions.

Kaitlin

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 15:58 on November 28th, 2007

Thanks for this, LotusFlower--I'd be curious to know about these incidents of "cyber bullying" and how they are being perpetrated. How does a bully get his victim's mobile number, for instance? When does "prank call" become "bullying."

Good stuff.