A CAMPAIGN which has trained children to become anti-bullying mentors is succeeding in tackling the issue at a city school.
A total of 21 pupils at Djanogly City Academy have been taught how to raise awareness of cyber-bullying amongst their peers.
They also act as someone pupils can talk to if they are being bullied online or via their mobile phone.
Since training the mentors, the academy says it has seen a 28 per cent drop in recorded incidents of cyber-bullying.
Anne Raynor, assistant principal for inclusion and well-being at the academy, developed the campaign. She said: "At Djanogly we are taking a proactive approach to an issue that affects all schools. By leading the way, we hope to inspire all our students to work together to overcome any difficulties.
"We have found that kids thought bullying was just about fighting or face-to-face confrontation, but it isn't. The majority now happens online or via mobile phones.
"We wanted to raise awareness and to train up students to support one another to deal with this issue. The mentors have developed their listening skills and can now offer a type of informal counseling. The message is getting out there that we have zero tolerance to any kind of bullying."
The academy launched its Djanogly Against Bullying campaign at the start of the 2010-2011 academic year.
As part of the initiative, the school held two drop-in sessions for adults to learn more about spotting cyber-bullying. The sessions took place at Hyson Green Library last Wednesday and Saturday.
Mentor Ibraheem Khalin, 12, of Forest Fields, said: "Being a cyber-mentor means that I can help my friends when they have problems. We learned how to listen properly, and all about body language so that if someone is upset we can tell and what to say if they come to us with a problem. We don't just deal with cyber-bullying, we can talk to people about any kind of bullying."
Fellow mentor Kinga Draweswska, 12, of Forest Fields, added: "Sometimes kids say nasty things on their phones and on Facebook which make us upset but we can tell one of the cyber-mentors and they will help us."
Year 7 pupil Muhammed Bin Iqbal, 12, also backed the campaign. He said: "Bullying needs to be stopped. It's never happened to me but I now know to tell someone if it does."
Jon Marshall, e-learning leader at the academy, added: "We want to raise awareness that any child who may be being bullied doesn't have to suffer in silence.
"We want to develop a mechanism whereby students and adults can contact us anonymously if they wish to report incidents."
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