Head teachers report highest level of cyber bullying

LONDON: School heads in England have reported the highest level of cyber bullying among students in an international survey of more than a quarter of a million teachers.

More than one fifth (21 per cent) of heads said intimidation or bullying among their students occurred regularly, compared to an OECD average of 14 per cent. The proportion of school leaders reporting physical and non-physical bullying doubled from 14.5 per cent in 2013 to 29 per cent in the 2018 teacher and learning international survey (Talis).

Published on Wednesday, the report revealed 13.9 per cent of secondary principals have received reports from a student or parent/guardian about hurtful posts on the internet or social media about students. Twenty-seven per cent received reports of unwanted electronic contact among students in their school, these were the highest figures across the OECD, which had an average of 2.5 per cent and 3.4 per cent respectively.

Almost all (97 per cent) of the teachers questioned agreed that teachers and students usually get on well with each other.

The survey also looked at the workforce and found teachers in England work more hours than anywhere else in Europe.

Their responses indicate they work 47 hours a week on average, the fourth highest of the OECD, with teachers in Japan, Kazakhstan and Alberta, Canada, putting in more hours.

Other findings were that the average age of a teacher was 39 years old, and that head teachers are, on average, 50 years old. Education Secretary Damian Hinds said: “These findings reflect many of the frustrations that I heard from teachers and heads when I first took on the role of Education Secretary and underlines the importance of the Teacher Recruitment and Retention Strategy, that I launched in January of this year.

“We know that too many teachers are having to work too many hours each week on unnecessary tasks, which is why I have taken on a battle to reduce teachers’ workload so that they can focus on spending their time in the classroom doing what they do best — teaching.” The report surveyed 260,000 teachers and school leaders in 15,000 schools across 48 countries and economies. In England 2,376 teachers of children aged 11-14, and 157 heads completed the Talis questionnaires.