Case Study on Developmental Psychology

THE ANALYSIS OF BULLYING AND ITS RELATION TO THE ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE
IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN ENGLAND 1
THE ANALYSIS OF BULLYING AND ITS RELATION TO THE ACADEMIC
PERFORMANCE IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN ENGLAND
7110PY - Developmental Psychology
Student ID 10794519
Coventry University - 22.07.2021

THE ANALYSIS OF BULLYING AND ITS RELATION TO THE ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE
IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN ENGLAND 2
INTRODUCTION
The department of Her Majesty’s Government responsible for child protection, education,
apprenticeships and wider skills in England (DfE) raised an issue stating that the United Kingdom is
failing to meet Government set standards in a range of academic subjects. Bullying among children
was named as one of the possible reasons. This paper will examine the impact of bullying among
students of secondary school, age 12-16, on academic performance, namely the connection between
these two occurences. A possible solution to the problem and its evaluation will also be proposed.
THE PROBLEM
Bullying is a form of aggression and violence, deliberate and systematic oppression of a victim who
usually feels helpless and does not dare to defend or attack. Bullying that begins at school often
continues on the Internet due to the fact that in the modern world more and more children spend their
free time browsing the Internet and scrolling through social networks - this kind of bullying is referred
to as cyberbullying. In one of the researches discussed below (Rusteholz et al., 2021), it is stated that
this type of bullying also has a negative effect on education, therefore it is worth studying this
phenomenon.
This work will focus on secondary school students. Bullying in these schools can often go unnoticed,
as these schools tend to be larger than primary schools and therefore have more children and teachers.
It is more difficult for teachers to follow the dynamics of relationships between students, and students
often do not talk about what is happening within their communities.
Why is it important to establish the link between bullying and academic success? Studying the impact
of all kinds of bullying on education is essential as good academic performance helps children to have
more opportunities for admission to the desired university and greatly affects the student's future
position in the job market, and therefore directly affects their career. It is generally accepted that
grades objectively indicate the teacher's performance and the success of a student's assimilation of a
school curriculum. Academic performance is also a tool for motivating students. Therefore, poor
performance indicates not mastering school material, which just as badly affects the general
knowledge and erudition. Speaking of the demographics chosen for this paper, often at the age of
12-16 children already start getting their portfolios ready and decide on what they want to do in the
future. Not being able to reach full academic potential at this age may result in the need of additional
support, in the investment of extra time in the future to complete the studies, and sometimes the

THE ANALYSIS OF BULLYING AND ITS RELATION TO THE ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE
IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN ENGLAND 3
inability to continue education at all. This paper will now look at whether there is evidence that
bullying directly affects academic performance and suggest options to deal with this phenomenon in
order to improve overall academic performance and give secondary school children a possibility to
achieve the desired results in school and in future careers.
Many researches have already confirmed the negative impact of bullying on the academic
achievements of students of all years. One of the recent Spanish researches carried out in 2021 by
Gisela Rusteholz, Mauro Mediavilla, Luis Pires due to a noticeable drop in the grades of students
throughout the country proved the negative impact of bullying (including cyberbullying since it has
already become an integral part of children's lives) on learning abilities by conducting a survey of
grades, and also taking into account the results of comprehensive surveys of students, parents and
teachers. This multilevel study also proved a very important fact of the impact of bullying on all
participants of the educational process and demonstrated that both the best- and the worst-performing
students are affected (Rusteholz et al., 2021).
Another study held several years earlier also confirms the link between the school climate and the
academic success among students (Lacey & Cornell, 2013). It demonstrates the general deterioration
in school performance on standardized tests, further highlighting the importance of addressing
bullying. This problem affects all students, one of the reasons may be everyone’s involvement in
bullying in one way or another, simply by having different roles (victim, aggressor, bystander or else)
(Cowie, 2014).
One of the researches that is often referred to (Al-Raqqad et al., 2017) in the results reports that
bullying exists in schools of any format and scale, regardless of whether the school is private or
public. This paper also once again demonstrates the negative effects of aggressive behavior on both
victims and aggressors, and suggests that teachers should take action in accordance with the programs
that school systems should establish.
Based on all of the above, several important conclusions can be drawn: there is indeed a problem of
bullying in schools and it negatively affects the academic performance of students, therefore, DfE's
concerns about the reason for the decline in academic performance in the United Kingdom are
justified. The effects of bullying on academic performance are negative in general, that is, not only the
victims begin to get worse results with the arrival of violence and mockery from their peers into their
lives; this applies to all participants of the learning process. This problem affects schools of all types
and requires the implementation of anti-bullying programs developed in cooperation with teachers