Two Colne councillors have been on hand to help Pendle’s Member for Youth Parliament (MYP) launch a beat-bullying campaign.
Laurence Ingram MYP and his friend Luke Dawson, both Park High School pupils, met Coun. Joe Cooney and Coun. Paul White as well as PC Dave Cleal to begin their campaign which the pair are doing as part of school coursework.
Laurence is then hoping to use his position as Pendle’s MYP to raise the issue on to a wider scale with the help of Andrew Stephenson MP as well as increase awareness of it on his doorstep.
He said: “I’ve been working with Beat Bullying and Childline with my GCSE coursework. I came across some stats on the internet which were so high and thought ‘we need to do something about this’.
“Something like 16% of pupils admit to self harm as a result of bullying and 3% commit suicide because of it. Also, 67% of all pupils have been bullied at some point, and that’s reported cases, many aren’t reported.
“As MYP, I’m going to see what can be done about it. At the moment, different schools have different bullying policies. I’m hoping we can get a policy for all Pendle schools.”
Coun. Cooney said: “Laurence invited us to speak about bullying in schools and see what we as councillors can do to help.
“He gave me some figures on pupils that had suffered some form of bullying. It’s a lot higher and more widespread than people think and people should be aware of that.
“We’re going to launch a local campaign on Facebook with top tips on what to do if you’re being bullied and get that across high schools in Pendle.”
