This is the theme of this year’s Anti-Bullying Week, which incidently is this week, 17^th – 21^st November. To quote the ‘Bullying UK’ website,

“Anti-Bullying Week 2014 will be focussing on children and young people who have a disability and/or special educational needs who are bullied at school.”

 Most mainstream schools have a number of children with additional needs, who may well become prime targets for bullies. At this point I have to add that this does not have to happen by default. I work in a relatively small rural school and we have several children with learning difficulties. The other pupils seem to accept these children and treat them with respect, even if they don’t fully understand their needs, and many actually go out of their way to help in any way they can.

 Bullying is a difficult issue for schools to deal with, but deal with it we must. We don’t want to highlight a problem when there isn’t a problem, but neither do we want to bury our heads in the sand and pretend it’s not happening when it is. I speak from first hand experience when I say that bullying is a terrible thing. It is an ordeal which can change a child’s life and haunt them in adulthood. It is not right for any child to be bullied and a child with a disability or a learning difficulty does not need another mountain to climb. There are so many resources available now…we can ‘stop bullying for all.’