Lord Ouseley – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Ouseley on 2015-12-01.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of how many children move schools each month because of bullying, and what assessment they have made of the implications of such moves for the education system and the children affected.

Lord Nash

The Department does not collect information on the number of children who move school each month because of bullying.

All bullying is unacceptable and every school is required to have a behaviour policy including measures to tackle all forms of bullying. They are held to account by Ofsted and inspectors will look at records and analysis of bullying, discriminatory and prejudicial behaviour.

In 2015-16, the Government is providing £3.3m to charitable organisations to help tackle bullying and to provide support for those who are bullied. This is further to the £4m provided over the period 2013-15.

Levels of bullying have reduced as a consequence of the efforts of schools and anti-bullying charities. The Longitudinal Study of Young Peoplein England published by the Department in November 2015 compared experiences of bullying among two cohorts of 14 year olds (year 10 students)from 2004 and 2014. It found that 30,000 fewer people in year 10 in 2014 said they had been bullied in the last twelve months. This represented a decrease from 41 per cent in 2004 to 36 per cent in 2014.