ChildLine Scotland

Every day children and young people phone ChildLine Scotland and tell us the terrible impact bullying has on their lives. We campaign to raise awareness that bullying is a serious issue. We do this by using children's experiences to tell it as it really is.

Bullying is the issue that ChildLine Scotland hear about most. Nearly 9000 children and young people spoke to our volunteer counsellors about bullying last year.

Every call is a call too many. Bullying is a soul-destroying experience for youngsters. No one deserves to be bullied and our counsellors are there to listen to children, support them and help them think about what to do about it.

ChildLine Scotland offers a dedicated bullying helpline, part-funded by the Scottish Executive and various local authorities, which is open seven days a week. The Bullying Helpline (0800 44 1111) was relaunched in October 2003 with wallet-sized information cards being distributed to all primary seven and first year pupils.

As well as this service we have training and outreach workers who visit schools and other organisations to raise awareness of ChildLine's work and provide training in areas such as anti-bullying, peer support and child protection.

Anne Houston Director Childline Scotland

Do also use the search facility at www.childline.org.uk to find 'Setting up a Peer Support Scheme', a 12-page guide for teachers and other professionals.

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Ethos, Anti-Bullying and Positive Discipline within Initial Teacher Education
ABN and SSEN seminar

The ABN and SSEN seminar in December 2004 considered the place of bullying, ethos and positive discipline in the Initial Teacher Education (ITE) programme. Elizabeth Buie of the TESS highlighted the HMIe findings regarding pupils' and teachers' perceptions of bullying. At the seminar Morag Gunion, HMI lead inspector for additional support needs, told participants that 14 per cent of the primary pupils asked compared to 26 per cent of the secondary pupils felt that staff could do more to tackle bullying. When teachers were asked whether they felt their school dealt effectively with bullying incidents, 3 per cent of the primary teachers asked strongly disagreed compared to 8 per cent of the secondary teachers.

The seminar was organised by the ABN and SSEN and hosted by Strathclyde University. A report of the seminar will be available in the 'What's New Section' of the ABN website in Spring 2005 (available here). Limited paper copies will be available from the ABN office, telephone: 0131 651 6103.