Statistics

1769 11-16 year old young people were surveyed over an 18 month period in England.

Of these, 1064 or 60.14% have been bullied

Of those young people:
 
- 10.235% were bullied for more than a year
- 16.28% were bullied everyday  
- 5% were bullied 2 or 3 times a week

Of those young people being bullied:

- 9.3% report having suicidal thoughts
- 11.87% admit to having self-harmed
- 5.1% said that being bullied “made them run away from home or want to run away”
- 1.3 % admitted taking drugs to try and feel better
- 2.4% admitted drinking alcohol in order to feel better

 (Beatbullying’s Policy and Research team, 2007)

Extrapolation

There are 4,003,770 11-16 year olds in England (SFR Report, 2007)

Beatbullying has surveyed young people from England, so that is what we have extrapolated:

60% report being bullied
2,402,262

Of that 60% who report being bullied:                        

9.3% report having suicidal thoughts or feelings
223,410

Of that 60% who report being bullied:                             

11.87% report having self-harmed
285,148

Of that 60% who report being bullied:

5.1% “made them run away from home or want to run away”
122,515

1.3% admitted taking drugs to feel better
31,229

2.4% admitted to drinking alcohol in order to feel better
57,654

(Beatbullying’s Policy and Research team, 2007)

Important facts and figures

• Bullying is widely considered by parents in the UK as the number one concern for their children (Parentline Plus 2006).
• 2,163 unreported crimes against young people resulting from bullying in the last two years in London alone.
• Being bullied and fear of bullying is the primary concern for young people and parents alike.
• 60.14% of young people have been bullied (Beatbullying, 2007).
• At least 20 children every year commit suicide because they are being bullied
• 1 in every 2 school exclusions and 46% of school non-attendance is in some way related to bullying (Institute of Education, 2004).
• 1 in 3 adults living in the UK have witnessed bullying on the streets (BB YouGov survey, 2006).

Each week at least 450,000 young people are bullied at school (ABA, 2005)

Each week a further 500,000 are bullied outside of school within local communities (BB, 2005)

Every year 40,000 young people telephone help lines about bullying (ChildLine, 2005)

An MSN/YouGov survey of 500 teenagers shows that 11 per cent of 12 to 15 year olds have been bullied via the internet (March 2006)

Cyberbullying

Research – bullying and mobile phones

Beatbullying (2006) research polling 2396 young people reported that:

• 47% have suffered some form of text, photo message, video message, email, chat room, web page or online bullying (Beatbullying 2006)
• 29% of 11 to 19 years old have been threatened or harassed using mobile phones, (beatbullying 2006)

Text bullying

• 29% of those surveyed said they had told no-one about being [cyber] bullied
• 11% admitted sending a bullying message to someone else
• 73% of young people who had received a bullying text, knew the bully and 26% said it was a stranger

“Happy Slapping”

• 6% of young people reported having been a victim of “happy slapping”
  (Beatbullying online survey 2006)
• 35% of young people reported witnessing an incident of “happy slapping” (Beatbullying online survey 2006)

Cyberbullying, parents, carers and teachers

• 44% of parents are worried about their child being bullied or threatened via mobile phones
• 79% of teachers are worried about text bullying

Young people bullying

Research undertaken in 2005 to 2007 found that 70% of children and young people are bullies.

Snapshot of findings
71.4% said that they had bullied; of these:

• 13% admitted anger was the reason
• 10% were bullied themselves
• 5% said if they didn’t do it first, it would happen to them
• 4% stated their mates do it
• 2% thought it made them popular

See the press release on these findings

Bullying and truancy

The Bullying and Truancy Report (2006) found a direct correlation between bullying and truancy.

• 1 in 3 young people who experience bullying truant from school (42% of young people who have been bullied truant)
• 20,000 young people truant everyday as a result of bullying
• 31 million school days are lost per year as a result of bullying
• 1 in 3 truants blame bullying
• 2 in 5 young people (42%) admitted to skipping school at least once 
• number of school age people in England – 4,821,209 (DfES 2006)
• number of bullied children and young people who truant – 2,024,908 (BB 2006)
• 29% truant once a week (587,223)
• 48% truant once a month (971,956)
• 23% truant once a year (465,729)
• total yearly absences caused by bullying – 33,674,217
• total daily absences – 168,371
• daily school absence authorised and unauthorised – 466,749
• total daily absences as a result of bullying – 36%

See the press release on these findings

Download the full report (16MB)

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