scary school figures

[onwardandupward]

"Every Child Matters?
Each week: 450,000 children are bullied in school
Each year: more than 360,000 children injured in schools
Each year: at least 16 children commit suicide as a result of school bullying
Each year: an estimated 1 million children truant
Each year: more than 1 in 6 children leave school unable to read, write or add up"

from here, where it also notes that the DfES did not challenge any of the figures in their responses to AHed's campaign.

I'm really shocked by these figures, TBH. But they are all derived from government/treasury/Child Accident Prevention Trust figures.

[ThatBigGermanPrison]

And every year, millions and millions of young people leave school happy, well educated and completely unharmed.

[onwardandupward]

These are UK figures, not Europe-wide or worldwide.

It's hard to get at the exact data, but this (government site) suggests that there are (very roughly) something like 425,000 school leavers a year in the UK. And, according to the government figures, more 1 in 6 of them can't read, write or add up... that's more than 70,000 people leaving school functionally illiterate/innumerate per year. Not my figures. Government figures.

Assuming most children attend school for 15 years (from the Autumn when they are 4 to the summer after they turn 18), then there are roughly 6 million children in school in the UK at any one time. That's a really rough estimate.

Even if the ones who are bullied are also the ones injured, committing suicide, truanting and not learning to read and write, and the ones who these awful things happen to are the ones the awful things happen to every year, and everyone else is just fine, that's still something like a million children having an awful time in school and 5 million "happy, well educated and completely unharmed"

Still seems pretty pants to me.

[onwardandupward]

ps my previous post doesn't take account of how many leave school at 16. If we assume almost everyone leaves school at 16, then there are more like 5.5 million children in school, so that's 1 million with the truanting and blah blah and more like 4.5 million happy ones.

[ThatBigGermanPrison]

That's odd - because I don't know anyone who cannot functionally read or write, unless they have special needs, and it's not really fair to include adults with special needs into the governments literacy targets, as their achievements are much harder won than those who don't have special needs.

I wonder where this one in six is hiding then?

Children are horrifically abused in their homes too, O&U. We don't advocate mass removal from their homes.

If home educating works for you, that's fantastic. Schooling in an actual school, by qualified teachers, works too. It works for many many people, and happily, the ones it doesn't work for have the right to home school, which is as it should be.

[needaholiday]

there's a new programme on the tv about people who cannot read and write (not sure exactly when as don't pay a lot of attention to the goggle box but saw an advert) so there are people out there who cannot do either. Not sure how many but there are some.

[nkf]

How many children are in schools though? Those figures are meaningless without that fact.

[gagarin]

The figures might be accurate but what are they talking about? What are their definitions of bullying and injuries?

These are ridiculously unhelpful stats!

As for how many children are injured in schools - do you know how many children are injured in their own home every year?

This is what I found from CAPT

In 2002, almost 900,000 children aged under 15 had an accident in the home with over 475,000 of these being under five.

Almost 1.1 million children under 15 were taken to hospital in 2002 after having an accident outside their home.

Never trust figures.......you can prove anything with them!

[onwardandupward]

Something like 6 million, nkf

Yes, gagarin, one absolutely can prove anything with stats. We can easily turn your ones around to say that since almost half the accidents in 2002 happened in homes, then children should be removed from their homes into state-approved padded accommodation ASAP. And that would be silly

AHed is... how shall I put it... the political wing of the HE community. It's interesting to see the reaction to the figures from people outside HE circles.

Not all the numbers are particularly helpful, I agree.

I don't know exactly how all the figures were arrived at, and I'm sure it was often by people with a budget to obtain (the literacy ones, for example, by people wanting to get more money out of government for literacy strategies - there was a TES article arguing that by wossname the editor of the New Statesman)

And for "Each week: 450,000 children are bullied in school" the stats come from beatbullying.org, though it's a year ago I think, and I'm not spotting the relevant press release. Any way, here's the source that AHed use. But again, beatbullying.org presumably have a vested interested in that number being as high as possible in order to maximise funding. I don't think anyone has, or can have, an accurate idea of the prevalance of bullying in schools. If it really is 450,000 a week, and the figure is true, that means that it averages at almost 3 children in each class of 30 being bullied per week. Is everyone about that? Maybe there are some horrible schools where it's 15 children in each class of 30 being bullied and most schools have much less?

"Each year: at least 16 children commit suicide as a result of school bullying" is 16 too many, though. I can't see how one argues this one away. Because if the suicide was explicitly a result of school bullying, then one can't say "ah, they were just unhappy, they'd probably have killed themselves anyway". And not that I know What Should Be Done. Certainly nothing centralised and organised by nice Mr Balls. Ye Gods. And of course not that all schools are awful places because 16+ children a year in the whole country are driven to suicide by school bullying. But that the possibility is there for anyone - that they, their families, their schools can't see ways for them to escape the bullies - that's just awful. That is weep worthy by anyone's standards.

Do most parents have a zero tolerance attitude towards bullying, do you think? I'm wanting to assume yes, that almost every parent would move heaven and earth to remove a child from the kind of bullying which was making them self harm or suicidal or whatever, but I don't honestly know. And I don't know how often parents know what sorts of escape routes there might be.

[gagarin]

Actually no I don't think all parents do have a zero tolerance attitude towards bullying - both my children have been through what you could describe as bullying - one much worse than the other. But I'm a glass half full sort of person so all the experiences my kids have had in their underachieving rough comprehensive have been positive in one way or another.

At the time I tried to deal with it in the best way I could - pointing out that the name calling always revealed the bullies weaknesses not my dds. Bullies shout out their issues if you listen.

For one child being bullied was (in the end) a very good thing because she learnt so much about herself through it. Not least that she too could be a bully if she wasn't careful.

For the other it has taken longer and the journey has been more complex but it has also been (mainly) dealt with.

Mind you if I see the person concerned in the street I feel like running her over!

[AbbeyA]

It wouldn't be news if you gave the numbers that loved school,the number not playing truant , the success stories etc!

[Lupins71]

My dd wasnt bullied in the general sense of what I think most people call bullying, however in its own way it was, we moved to a new area, placed her in a very small rural school and after the initial excitement of her being there no one would play with her, she was skipping alone in the playground, the teachers didnt encourage any interaction with the other children, she went from being a confident bright little button to introvert, claustrauphobic (she got locked in a toilet, but as she had no friends no one knew she had gone) we now cannot go into public toilets without the door being open - whic obviously means I cannot "go", she hads also become very stressed all the time,

Since removing her from school as she was so miserable, she as started to return to her old self, she loves HE, we go on the moors, she makes soap with nanny, swimming lessons, her life is so much more varied now, also she has started to become dry at night again - which stopped when she was stressed out.

I dont think HE is for everyone, however I do think that there are tons of children for whom it would benefit, who dont thrive in school for many many reasons, my dd did well at her previous school, so I think the blame is to be shared between schools and parents for why children truant, are destructive, are bullied, who dont learn.

[pointydog]

Are you teaching your child about bias?

[Lupins71]

Not sure who you are talking to Pointydog, but my dd is taught to try to recognise other peoples points of view and take into account other peoples feelings and opinions - as much as you can to a 5year old,

[Lupins71]

Not sure who you are talking to Pointydog, but my dd is taught to try to recognise other peoples points of view and take into account other peoples feelings and opinions - as much as you can to a 5year old,