Authority on dealing with bullying is new principal

Dr Brendan Byrne, an established authority on bullying, is the newly appointed principal of De La Salle College in Churchtown, Dublin. The second-level boys school, which was established in 1952, has a student population of 450.

After 25 years as a teacher in the school - and also years as a second-level student during the 1960s - Byrne started the new term in September as the school's second lay principal.

He is the author of two books on the issue of bullying - Coping with Bullying in Schools, which was published in 1993, and Bullying: A Community Approach, which came out in 1994. He completed a PhD on the topic of bullying in 1989.

His interest in bullying started when he was a young teacher, he says. "Especially after lunch, you'd see a young student and you'd know by his pure appearance that something was wrong, and by his body language," he recalls. "It was an awareness that developed that this was an issue that wasn't being dealt with."

Bullying affects everything, he explains, adding that it is not confined to schools. "It's the same in a workplace, you sense it. People are ill at ease, it's in the atmosphere, it's how people treat each other."

As principal, he says, "I would put a lot of emphasis on extra-curricular activity . . . We encourage students to take part in at least one after-school activity - that brings students closer to each other and instils in them a sense of pride in their school." The idea, he explains, is that students "get involved in life outside the classroom" while not losing sight of the academic side of the school.

"I believe that the traditional methods of teaching still have much to offer," he adds. The school has "an easy mixture of tradition with innovation and theory with technology", he says.

He wants to develop the parent-teacher forum which he was involved in setting up in 1997. This forum allows parents and teachers to plan the future development of the school and discuss matters of mutual concern.

He also "believes strongly" in involving senior pupils in the life of the school by getting them to take on responsibilities. He mentions a mentoring programme which is in operation in the school and the student council as examples of this.