“My daughter was relentlessly bullied in school, but reporting often meant the bullying would get worse because the school would not adequately deal with the situation,” the parent shared.

The parent indicated that whenever reports about the matter were made, the situation would not necessarily get any better.

“On one occasion, after a 13-year-old boy ridiculed and sexually harassed her by making cow ‘moos’ while referring to my daughter’s breasts, making the other boys laugh, she reported to the Senior Management Team at the school, including the Head and Assistant Heads of the school,” the parent recounted.

“This is how the assistant head told her to cope with the situation: she told her to imagine she was a cow grazing in a field.”

“Unbelievable,” she stressed.

“The boy was called to the head’s office, told not to do it again, and he kept bullying her, except after that time, she didn’t bother reporting him. This is just one example of many,” the parent said.

Following this poorly handled incident, the young girl started to develop a fear of attending school, and as a result of this she ended up missing out on a lot of classes. 

This is, unfortunately, a common outcome for many bullied children in Malta, where they find it easier to not attend the school rather than rely on the school to rectify the situation and make sure that the bullying is not continued.

“She hated school and did very poorly. But when she left and enrolled within MCAST she was top of her class and now attends a University overseas. No thanks to the secondary school though,” the parent said.

The student still ultimately moved past the experience, but it ended up being harder on her rather than having found the support of the school she was attending at the time.

If you have any other similar experiences that you would like to speak about, send them over to [email protected]

What do you make of this student’s experience?