ANTI BULLYING WEEK

MEDIA INFORMATION FROM ACTION FOR HOME EDUCATION (AHEd)

For immediate release, Wednesday 19 November 2008



ANTI BULLYING WEEK - TIME TO REMIND CHILDREN THAT THEY DON'T HAVE TO ENDURE BULLYING IN SCHOOL, says AHEd



National home education group Action for Home Education [1] today accused authorities of immorality in creating endless anti bullying projects whilst hiding from children and parents their right to walk away from bullies.



Commenting on Anti Bullying Week, AHEd Chair Barbara Stark said: "AHEd was formed to take action where needed to support and promote the right to educate one's children without using schools. If any child has a right to know that they have no legal obligation to be educated in a school, it is the child bullied in school. Our members are keen to ensure that in anti bullying week this message is shared with these children."



AHEd have previously run campaigns highlighting the tragic extent of bullying in schools. Last year members lobbied MPs and the Minister responsible for education to remind them that 450,000 children were bullied in school EACH WEEK last year [2] and at least 16 children are successful in committing suicide each year as a result of school bullying. [3] A worrying recent survey by Kidscape shows that half of bullied children in schools will contemplate or attempt suicide. [4]



AHEd member Clare Murton asks, "How many bullied children and their parents have been told by the school or the LA that it is a legal and rewarding choice to educate a child at home?"



Home educating parent and AHEd member Pete Darby, asks, "If a friend of yours was consistently bullied at work, fearful of turning up each morning, and complaints to the management did little or nothing, wouldn't you tell your friend to leave their job before it was too late? Yet children are constantly being told that they must put up with it, or make another report to the teacher. You would tell an adult to first get out of the toxic situation: why not show as much concern to children?"



"No adult," says Barbara "is expected to tolerate the behaviour that bullied children are forced to put up with without recourse to relief or justice." Yet, while AHEd members continue to hear from families whose children are bullied in schools, they are sick of having to listen to the old cliché that to take a child out of school because of bullying is over-protective and won't help a child to cope in the "real world" where bullying happens and life is tough.



In practice they find that the opposite is true; their children when taken seriously, offered a reprieve from the hatred they are being subjected to and educated in an environment of their choosing, develop strong self esteem, learn more effectively and go on to experience much better working relationships as adults.



AHEd members have one simple message to promote in Anti Bullying Week -

BULLIED AT SCHOOL? TRY HOME EDUCATION - IT IS YOUR RIGHT - AND YOUR LIFELINE.



for further information contact: Tel: xxx email: starkfamily@ntlworld.com



Notes for Editors:



[1] http://ahed.pbwiki.com/About-AHEd



(2)http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/mortarboard/2007/mar/27/howcanschoolsreducebullyin

"Each week 450,000 children are bullied in school. Another 500,000 are taunted by their peer group in the community. And more than one in five children will turn to suicide as a way out of being severely bullied" writes Debbie Andalo. " It is an image that MPs highlight in their report into bullying in school published in March 2007. The report by the Commons Education and Skills Select Committee claims up to 20% of young people experience some kind of general bullying. But this can be as high as 50% among pupils in secondary schools who are attracted to the same sex and find themselves at the receiving end of homophobic taunts. The incidence of bullying is also substantiated by figures from the child support charity ChildLine, which said it received 37,000 calls from young people who were bullied between 2005 and 2006 - a 12% rise compared with the previous year.



(3). At least 16 children commit suicide each year as a result of school bullying: Neil Marr and Tim Field's book "Bullycide: death at playtime" reveals the hidden epidemic of suicide caused by bullying and harassment.



(4) http://www.communitynewswire.press.net/article.jsp?id=5248914



END



Barbara Stark

(Chair, AHEd.) For the committee and membership of AHEd

www.ahed.org.uk Action for Home Education Group.

http://ahed.pbwiki.com/ Action for Home Education Group wiki.