A teenage student has recounted how persistent bullying, including physical assault and being told to "kill herself" led her to dodge school altogether.
The admissions from the young woman, who 1News has agreed not to name, come in the week the OECD warned of the impact of New Zealand's bullying rates on school attendance.
"On Pink Shirt Day — like anti-bullying day — I got punched by one of them," the teenager said. “They also told me to kill myself, quite frequently."
The student said her mental health suffered with the bullying, which even continued after class.
"They would find my TikTok and Instagram accounts, and just start spamming me with hate messages and insults," the student said.
The student’s mother said her daughter’s school attendance was about 10% for the whole term.
"I was really conflicted because school's so important, and I really wanted her to be going to school, but she just couldn't physically get up to go, and it was a battle every day," her mother said.
"I didn't go to school for like a month straight, I'd stay home for weeks at a time, I'd cry all the time," the student said.
Anti-bullying programmes
The OECD report, which came out on Monday, recommended anti-bullying programmes should be introduced to cut down on the issue and therefore raise student attendance.
“We know that those who are bullied are often more depressed, they are more socially anxious, they are often afraid of going to school,” Christina Salmivalli, a professor of psychology in Finland told 1News.
The OECD highlighted a campaign called KiVa, developed in Finland, and is used in more than 20 countries.
"There is plenty of evidence now showing that this kind of programme, especially when they combine the preventive and the interventive elements, they really make a difference in schools," Salmivalli said.
“In each school implementing the programme, there is a KiVa team, a team of adults who are trained to address the cases of bullying,” she said.
The Government’s set a target of 80% of students being present at school for more than 90% of the term, by 2030.
Asked if she would support implementing KiVa into all New Zealand schools, Stanford said, “everything’s on the table,” and that she was working with officials on it.
Solution for New Zealand
"KiVa has worked well in Scandinavia, it may well be a solution for New Zealand, " Associate Education Minister David Seymour added.
A new online school attendance data dashboard was launched this week with the aim of creating “richer data” around why students are absent from school.
The dashboard has a breakdown of 26 codes to select from. Schools can either mark a student as present or absent, with options to choose from if they are the latter.
However, absence from class due to bullying is not one of the codes.
“The government will be looking into attendance codes, and we will be looking into the effects of bullying. However we can’t say if there will be such a specific code just yet. One issue is that individual students do not always disclose if they are feeling bullied,” Seymour said.
"In my view, one of the most important things that this government can do is create a six-hour safe space with no phones," he said.
The mother of the student who was bullied said her daughter has now changed schools, but she would like to see more pastoral care in New Zealand’s education system.
"You don't want to see your baby being hurt by anyone, you're there to protect them, and the teachers are supposed to be your protection, and unfortunately a lot of teachers have so much on their plates that they can't be there for all of their students,” the mother said.
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