November 20, 200619 yr Parents face £1000 fine for bullying children Last updated at 09:41am on 20th November 2006 Alan Johnson wants a 'zero tolerance' attitude towards bullying Parents of bullies could be forced to attend parenting classes or face a £1,000 fine, Education Secretary Alan Johnson warned today as campaigners said 20,000 children were skipping school every day to avoid being bullied. Mr Johnson said he wanted to create a "zero tolerance" culture towards bullying in an effort to stamp out the "despicable" and "intolerable" phenomenon. New powers under the Education Act would allow parenting orders to be imposed on mothers and fathers of bullies, with a £1,000 fine if they failed to comply, he said. He also unveiled an extra £480,000 for a peer mentoring scheme for children in schools to encourage the reporting of bullying. In some cases, he said, pupils found it easier to report bullying to their peers than to teachers. He said: "Children hate the thought of bullying, and they hate being bullied obviously, but they also hate the thought of their friends being bullied. "It is a horrible, despicable thing, so once you ensure that there is a zero tolerance regime on bullying, then you can start to change the culture," he added to GMTV. His remarks come as Anti-Bullying Week begins with research from the charity Beatbullying unveiled today showing an estimated 20,000 children a day skip school to avoid being bullied. The charity has urged ministers and teachers to realise that many truants are victims and not "lazy troublemakers". John Quinn, from Beatbullying, said it was shocking that the charity's report had found that a third of all truancy resulted from children being bullied. He said: "In this report, young people have told us how they want the Government to beat bullying. They want their schools and education professionals to see truanting as a symptom of bullying and not only the behaviour of lazy and trouble-making young people." The charity said children who were not in school were most vulnerable to academic failure, easily drawn into crime and more likely to be unemployed in the future. The report found: • 20,000 children stay away from school every day because of bullying • One in three truants blame bullying • A third of all young people aged 11 to 17 admit to skipping school at least once because they were scared of bullies. The charity launched a TV advert featuring a young boy terrified of going to school because of bullying, and voiced by patron and DJ Sara Cox. She said: "Bullying is not only having a serious social and emotional effect on Britain's young people, but now it is proven that it is affecting the life chances and education of the future workforce of Britain." Under the programme, schools elect pupil representatives to help teachers maintain good behaviour, stop bullying and monitor children's safety. The mentors give advice to younger pupils and report bullying to teachers.
November 20, 200619 yr £1,000?? should be lots more. Bullying at any time of your life can wreck it, esp if your kid. I like this idea.
November 20, 200619 yr Author £1,000?? should be lots more. Bullying at any time of your life can wreck it, esp if your kid. I like this idea.
November 20, 200619 yr Define bullying. I definitely think this is a great idea, as long as common sense is used!
November 21, 200619 yr Author Define bullying. I definitely think this is a great idea, as long as common sense is used! That's very unlikely, I'd say!!:rolleyes:
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