Call for Scottish school bullying database after incidents "swept under the carpet"

An official survey in 2014 found 13 per cent of boys and 15 per cent of girls aged 11 to 15 had been bullied at school at least twice a month in the preceding two months.

Read more: Election party mood falls flat for students in Edinburgh

Between 2010 and 2014 there was a six percentage point increase in bullying of girls and a three percentage point increase in incidents against boys.

Written submissions to the Scottish Parliament's equality and human rights committee, which is discussing the issue, have catalogued a raft of abusive terms being used in schools.

The Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) teaching union said its own research had shown some forms of prejudice-based bullying were increasing with misogyny, racism, Islamophobia and homophobia of serious concern.

The submission states: "Casual though often vindictive use of overtly sexualised and derogatory language such as "slut" and "whore" were widely used against girls or women staff."

Teachers also reported cases of sexual propositioning of girls and young women by male pupils including pushing, grabbing and groping and the sending or sharing through social media of sexual images of women and girls "either with or without consent".

Read more: Election party mood falls flat for students in Edinburgh

The EIS also expressed concern about the 2015 Counter Terrorism and Security Act which requires public bodies to help prevent people from being drawn into terrorism.

Its statement added: "We know that, for example, when a Glasgow school was recently informed a support staff member then said they would need to keep an eye on a Muslim pupil."

In its submission the Equalities and Human Rights Commission Scotland said it was impossible to give an accurate national depiction of bullying because no data was required to be collected by education authorities.

The commission said: "This is an issue which we have raised with the government on a number of occasions because we believe that bullying and identity-based harassment have a significant negative impact on individual pupils performance, on rates of absences and on attainment."

The commission said the most commonly experienced forms of prejudice-based bullying included race, disability, sexual orientation and perceived socio-economic status.

Pupils who had been bullied were 20% less likely to report feeling safe at school, or that they felt supported, respected, included or simply happy.

Read more: Election party mood falls flat for students in Edinburgh

LGBT Youth Scotland said: "Current evidence shows that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender young people are not safe, respected, or included in schools. Evidence shows they experience high rates of bullying in school and they are not confident reporting this to school staff."

Edinburgh University's Moray House School of Education later called for race to be "explicitly back on the agenda" after the referendum in June.

Academics from the school said teachers were now "reluctant and anxious" about addressing racism But they said there had been no spike in recorded hate crime in Scotland.

The academics said recent discussions with teaching staff pointed to a "growing mood" among some pupils and parents that discriminatory language and views were acceptable.

Some parents were also more likely to excuse behaviour such as racial bullying with phrases like "it happens all the time" and "[it's] just unfortunate my daughter was caught", MSPs were told.

The researchers added: "In the views of these school leaders, such a response would not have been forthcoming in previous years. 'Race' needs to be explicitly back on the agenda."

They recommended updated advice for schools, more training for teachers and better recording of incidents of bullying and harassment to tackle the problem.