ALARM bells rang in many homes and classrooms last month after reports that a 14 year old boy bad killed himself because of bullying. This tragic story followed hotly on the heels of the first"shock" nationwide survey on bullying to be carried out in Irish primary and post primary schools.

With reports of two other separate cases of boys taking their own lives in England earlier this year because of bullying, the issue has come centre stage.

The nationwide survey, which was completed by O'Moore, Kirkham and Smith of the AntiBullying Research and Resource Centre at Trinity College, Dublin, found that one in 20 primary school children are bullied once a week and one in 50 children are bullied in post primary schools. The survey also found that there was an unacceptably high percentage of pupils - 51 per cent overall - who reported that they would join in bullying a pupil whom they didn't like.

Dr Mona O'Moore, who conducted the survey and who is director of the Anti Bullying Unit, says it is clear from the findings that out of the total schoolgoing population of 870,000 "we have 25,000 primary school children and 7,400 post primary pupils whose education is not only undermined and diluted in quality but who are suffering from a real sense of despair, hurt, social isolation and hopelessness". Overall, more than 25 per cent of postprimary students and 30 per cent of primary school pupils surveyed admitted to being bullied.

Among the most shocking findings, she points to the growing reluctance of pupils to tell somebody at home or in school about bullying.

In primary schools, 34 per cent of third class pupils said they had not told anyone (in other words the majority of the class were ready to tell somebody if they were bullied). By sixth class in primary schools, the number saying they had not told any of their teachers about being bullied at school that term had risen to 74 per cent.

In post primary schools the non reporting trend increases again with the number who don't tell up to 82 per cent. The figure rises to 85 per cent in sixth year.

This TCD study was carried out during the 1993/1994 school year, with young people from eight years of age in primary schools up to sixth year in second level schools completing questionnaires which included room for comment.

Some 530 schools were involved - 320 primary and 210 secondary. This represented 10 per cent of all primary schools and 27 per cent of all post primary.

When it comes to telling somebody at home about bullying, the figures are equally indicative of the growing reluctance of young people to tell adults. The results show that in post primary schools in sixth year, 80 per cent of pupils said they had not told anybody at home that they had been bullied at school during the term. At primary school in sixth class the number is 54 per cent.

"The majority (of students) are telling people at home when they are aged eight," says O'Moore. "But as they rise in age, there's a dramatic increase in their reluctance to tell. There's a 50 per cent increase in the reluctance to tell from primary to second level school."

The need to address the problem was highlighted at the first international conference on bullying held in this country recently. The conference, organised by the TCD AntiBullying Unit, heard experts from Australia, Norway, Britain and Ireland speak of the seriousness of the problem.

Delwyn Tattum, director of the Countering Bullying Unit at the Cardiff Institute of Higher Education in Wales, spoke at the conference about the boy who hanged himself in a town near Manchester earlier this year. He pointed to the fact that this boy's parents were quite unaware of the despair he was goring through.

"There are many who slip through the net," he warned. "We as teachers need to be vigilant. Otherwise we will have more cases like this in our schools . . . A lot of it goes on secretly. We can do things to prevent it rearing its ugly head."

One type of bullying he referred to was extortion. "We have had serious cases in England and Wales," he said. "We are not just talking about taking crisps but extortion that takes us into the realm of crime."

He cited one case where two 16 year old boys held two girls to ransom until they got £2,000 from one girl and £500 from the other.

DR Brendan Byrne, author of two books on bullying and an authority in this subject, who spoke at the conference, is positive about the level of awareness about bullying in Irish schools and education circles.

"It's changed very dramatically in the past five years," he says. "Things are much better. I don't think there's the same level of acceptance of it. In 1984 I had great difficulty convincing people that it was an issue." Today he says there are organisations, such as the National Youth Federation and the Order of Malta, which have incorporated the issue of coping with bullying into their training.

The recent deaths from bullying "certainly do focus the attention," but, says Byrne, "you have to look beyond something like this" and focus on the whole atmosphere that exists within a school on a day to day basis to get a proper gauge of the problem.

The best approach to adopt, he believes, is for schools to "push the barriers out" so that bullying is not just seen as a school problem. "You must look not only to the teaching staff but at the non teaching staff," he says. People such as the school crossing patrol, the school bus drivers, must be aware and vigilant about bullying.

Tattum echoed these sentiments. "If we influence their environment in a positive way, the curriculum is more than teaching facts. We as teachers influence the beliefs, values and attitudes of children. They learn more than facts and the curriculum is a vehicle for that.

"We have to extend our concerns into the community. It has to be an ongoing thing" radiating out from short term strategies to medium terms to long terms with the view of "raising awareness of understanding".

"It's the way in which we enter into the children's lives outside the classroom . . . It's saying that we have an ethos that extends into the playground and then out into the community.

"We have to present in our schools the fact that bullying will not be accepted and tell the students what we mean by bullying.

"We want to create a climate where children are encouraged to tell . . . Put it before the school boards, encourage parental support, let the sphere of involvement include parents, teachers, pupils, these are the mainsprings of our activity. Outside the school, involve people we are working with in the community - the bus driver, the lollipop people, social workers, police, doctors.

"They can look into areas where parents cannot go. . . The community that feeds the school has to be expanded. We've got to get out into the community."

Look at the school rules, he urged. "Is bullying named? I'm a great believer in bullying being named as a word that the children clearly understand. Issues should be raised at assembly, there should be training of staff. Get the school to conduct its own survey. Present it in graphic form. Not only is it part of the school's code of behaviour but every teacher must take responsibility. We must all address the issue.

Andrew Mellor, the only AntiBullying Development Officer ever to be appointed in Scotland, said at the conference that bullying happens in all schools but that "children who bully are capable of redemption." He believes that schools "have to apply remedies which could help everyone in a group.

John Mulcahy, president of the ASTI, is equally optimistic about the level of awareness in Irish schools of bullying and our ability to deal with it effectively. "It's viewed as a very serious issue," he says. "We have grown in our awareness of what it entails."

In the past bullying was seen as something physical, prevalent in boys' schools in particular. "Today we have a different awareness of it. We know that that's only the tip of the iceberg. Bullying is all sorts of intimidation."

Mulcahy says that a growing number of schools have very effective anti bullying campaigns. Also the ASTI's in service course on bullying is one of the union's most popular ones.

Mona O'Moore believes one of the reasons children do not tell is because of society's ambivalent attitude to bullying. Society favours the popular. Those who are bullied may feel that they are to blame in some way if they are not popular or admired or liked and they keep quiet. Those who are victims see themselves in some way as being inadequate or that there's something wrong with them.

"They are very reluctant to broadcast their perceived lack of popularity," says O'Moore. Another reason for young people's reluctance, she explains, is the fear they have of reprisals. "Teachers must be effective in dealing with reports of bullying" or children will continue to have little confidence in the ability of adults to help, she says. Promoting a policy of no "tittle tattle" at school is not helpful either, in particular with regard to young people who are being bullied.

ON the other side of the coin, bullies, O'Moore says, "are troubled, they are carrying some emotional baggage, there is emotional turmoil". She says that "there is often a significant difference in the level of esteem between those who bully and those who are not involved".

In relation to their academic and school status, bullies tend to have inadequate feelings. As a result "they could be harbouring a lot of resentment. Also we found in early studies that a lot of their parents could have high expectations and the discrepency between their real self and what their parents expect may give rise to this real turmoil."

Young people can become "temporary" bullies, following a traumatic event, such as a divorce, the birth of a baby, the death of a loved one or it can be the result of boredom and frustration. "It's important to identify them so that they can receive the support necessary, she says.

There are also "chronic" bullies, who tend to come from homes where there's too little love and care and where there are very harsh forms of discipline, reinforcing the idea that `might is right'. This gives young children a bad example and they begin to like the feeling of power. They may be spoilt and expect everyone to do what they say. They may feel insecure. They may feel inadequate and humiliated themselves, they may have been abused in some way themselves. They feel no sense of accomplishment, they don't fit in with other children or perhaps they are under pressure to succeed.

She points to the importance of a school's code of discipline, as recommended in the Department of Education's guidelines on countering bullying in primary and post primary schools. This, she says, is sometimes disregarded but it could go a long way towards preventing and reducing the level of bullying behaviour.

These guidelines, she believes, give a very clear and comprehensive account of specific measures which international research has shown to be effective in counteracting bullying episodes in schools.

She points out that research repeatedly shows that techniques which are based on encouragement, praise, reward, approval and incentives to good actions are far more effective in promoting desired behaviour than methods that are based on threat or fear.