More than 70 cases of homophobic bullying have been recorded in schools across South East Wales – with half in schools in Caerphilly County Borough.
South Wales East AM, and Penyrheol councillor, Lindsay Whittle said the level of homophobic bullying recorded by schools could be the tip of the iceberg.
Mr Whittle’s staff submitted a Freedom of Information request to every secondary school in the AM’s region, covering Blaenau Gwent, Caerphilly, Monmouthshire, Newport and Torfaen, to find how many cases had been recorded by schools over a five year period.
Mr Whittle, Plaid’s spokesman on equalities, said: “The survey carried out by Plaid Cymru indicates that many schools have no recorded incidents of homophobic bullying over the past five years. That does make me think whether or not all schools identify homophobic bullying separately from bullying accusations generally. If pupils are called gay, for instance, that should be recorded as homophobic bullying.
“At the other end of the scale schools that have recorded incidents and taken action, such as taking sanctions against pupils, should be commended for dealing with the issues seriously.
“I believe these figures are probably the tip of the iceberg and I urge all schools to treat the issue of homophobic bullying with the seriousness it deserves, record incidents and take the appropriate action when necessary.”
Luke Young, Education Officer for Stonewall Cymru said: “Our most recent research, The School Report 2012, shows that over half of all lesbian gay and bisexual (LGB) pupils experience homophobic bullying. With such widespread reports it’s surprising to find such a large number of schools in the area have reported zero incidents.
“We know that when schools monitor homophobic incidents and act on the information they have the rate of bullying falls.
“In schools that don’t respond to homophobic bullying when it occurs, gay pupils are much more likely to experience bullying. More than three quarters of gay pupils are bullied in those schools compared to 49% in schools that do respond quickly to incidents.
“We would welcome the opportunity to work with any schools in the area to develop responses to and strategies for preventing homophobic bullying so that every single young person is able to reach their full potential.”
In Caerphilly County Borough Schools there were 36 recorded instances of homophobic bullying with St Martin’s School in Caerphilly town having the most with 23.
In its response to the Freedom of Information request, the school said most were due to name calling and were “one-off” instances. Pupils were given detentions and parents were also spoken to.
A spokeswoman for Caerphilly County Borough Council said: “Bullying of any kind is wholly unacceptable, and as a council we are committed to protecting our young people from all forms of bullying.
“We offer guidance, training and support to county borough schools in helping to prevent, respond and take appropriate action in dealing with any incidents of this nature.
“In September 2012 we also introduced mandatory discriminatory incident monitoring in schools, with homophobic bullying being a distinct category to be recorded.”
Lindsay Whittle is correct to raise this issue, as he would be to raise any sort of bullying in schools and good luck to him in highlighting the subject if he is able to go some way to eradicating it.
As the Shadow Equality Spokesman in the Welsh Assembly Lindsay may wish to consider ways to make that place more ` inclusive` and encourage transgender, gay, lesbian or bi sexual people to stand for election to that place, but, in order to get selected he would have to work of all his hetrosexual colleagues who already sit there, and, all the selection bodies within the parties to embrace equality, and, in that respect he has a bloody long way to go, only then will there be a more balanced representation of sexual orientation in this Welsh ` house of representatives`.