Birmingham's education chief brands Government a disgrace for cutting anti-bullying targets
GOVERNMENT plans to scrap targets to beat the bullies in schools are a cut too far, according to Birmingham’s Tory education chief.
Coun Les Lawrence, the city’s cabinet member for children, young people and families, has also vowed to keep collecting statistics on bullying in Birmingham schools because he believes it is one of the biggest problems pupils face.
Coun Lawrence (Cons, Northfield) agreed that there were too many targets set in education and that many have rightly been cut by the coalition government.
But he vehemently disagreed with plans to reduce aims to stop bullies.
“There was one target I asked them to keep and that was the national indicator for anti-bullying, but it has been removed,” he said.
“That to my mind is a disgraceful withdrawal of a target dealing with one of the most important issues facing education.
“We have all seen some of the most tragic, though thankfully rare, consequences of bullying in the media. That is why we will continue to take a survey to measure how our pupils feel.”
In 2007/8, a council survey showed that 28 per cent of primary school pupils and 14 per cent of secondary school pupils in Birmingham said they had been bullied.
This fell to 22 per cent for primary schools and ten per cent for secondaries last year.
Coun Lawrence added: “Bullying has become more sophisticated with technology, Twitter, emails, texts and so on, but the signals should still be picked up in our schools.
“A strong anti-bullying policy shows a school cares for the pupils in its charge and is a positive.”
