Few events have highlighted the problem of bullying in schools more clearly and concisely than two this week, writes Emma-Jane Cross, the chief executive of the charity Beatbullying.
First is the annual conference of the National Association of Schoolmasters and Union of Women Teachers and its poll yesterday, which found that as many as two-thirds of teachers are bullied at school.
More shockingly, the second event was the tragic suicide of Casey Knibbs, a 13-year-old who took his own life after his classmates told him: "If you don't kill yourself, we will do it for you".
I don't doubt for a moment that many teachers suffer terrifying and humiliating experiences, and with biblical stoicism, willingly turn up the next day for more.
These brave people have chosen to enter a profession fraught with ingratitude, hostility and frustration. And we owe a debt to them more than any salary can repay. Fortunately, teachers have the support of unions behind them championing their rights and collectively calling for action against bullying.
Casey Knibbs did not have a union. The 20,000 children who have skipped school today to avoid their bullies do not have a union.
The fact of the matter is that young people are significantly more vulnerable to bullying than teachers.
The problem is the same. Typically, a bully who has progressed to harassing a teacher has tired of their systematic bullying of peers and advanced to a higher risk of bullying. If a bully has the audacity to target a teacher, you can be sure that they think their classmates are fair game.
If the problem is the same, so is the solution. We need to train both teachers and pupils in anti-bullying so that bullying can be prevented from happening at all. We cannot continue to focus solely on post-incident solutions such as punishments, school courts, exclusions, helplines and counsellors.
Now is the time for the government, teachers unions, parent bodies and the voluntary sector to work together to shift the policy focus from intervention to prevention. Only with prevention programmes in every school in the UK will this blight on our children and our patient educators be eradicated.
To sign the Beatbullying petition to put prevention schemes in every UK school visit www.beatbullying.org/4quidakid.
