The father of a schoolboy shared a heartbreaking photo on social media of his son's hand covered in pen marks.
The seemingly innocent image shows the young hand bearing numerous small lines that appeared to represent the counting of something.
But Matthew Beard, based in London, was distraught when his child told him the real meaning behind them.
They were in fact the number of times his son had been bullied at his school within two days, either verbally or physically.
The dad-of-three tweeted the shocking photo on September 13 and wrote: "My son has been at high school for just over a week.
"On his hand here he’s made a record of how many times in the last two days he has been bullied, verbally or physically.
"In total 21. It’s heartbreaking. Schools need to come down harder on bullies, their parents should be fined!"
He followed the post up with another explaining why he had shared the image.
Matthew wrote: "I’ve shared this because I think it’s a powerful photo.
"He wanted to show us how often it’s happened in two days of school.
"You just don’t know what goes on & you expect you kids to be safe at school. I’m sure it will all sort itself out."
The posts have since been retweeted dozen of times and had more than 140 supportive comments.
One person empathised with his son and wrote: "Feel for your boy as someone who was also bullied at school.
"Only crumb of comfort I can offer is that it does getter and you do get to look back and laugh at them, promise".
A teacher commented that it made her "blood boil" and wrote: "I’m a teacher Matt and when I worked in schools you wouldn’t believe how much it happens.
"More often or not your HOD or safeguarding leads know, yet they themselves are scared of the culprits. More needs to be done and now!"
Another expressed their sorrow and advised: "Personally I would be showing the head this thread.
"They will soon act if they think their school is looking bad on here.
"It will get action even if its only the school acting to protect itself rather than your son."
But one user questioned what powers schools really have concerning bulling and wrote: "People saying schools need to be tougher, what do you expect schools to do?
"Beyond sanctions such as detentions or isolating the culprits there's not a lot they can do."
An Office for National Statistics reported in 2020 that around one in five children aged between 10 and 15 in England and Wales experienced bullying at home or in school within the year ending March 2020.
While in 2018 an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development report found that 29 percent of headteachers in UK schools reported weekly bullying among their students.
