Forty per cent of Scottish pupils bullied

However, only 55 per cent of the pupils who had experienced bullying said they had reported this to their school.

Pupils who had been bullied were much less likely than those who had not been victimised in that way to say they felt safe, healthy, achieving, supported, respected, included or happy in their school.

The survey was compiled by the commission as part of a wider project to highlight the specific issue of prejudice-based bullying where people are targeted on the grounds of their race, religion, gender, sexual orientation or social class.

One in four of the 1,250 pupils surveyed said that they were aware of peers in their school experiencing prejudice-based bullying, while just over half of pupils who had themselves experienced bullying said they had reported it to their school.

Alastair Pringle, director of the EHRC in Scotland, said: "Bullying is much more complex than playground name-calling. Most strikingly, our research measured the experience gaps between pupils who had been bullied and those who hadn't.

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

"We know that if left unchallenged these experiences can lead to poor attendance and attainment and physical and mental health problems."

Mr Pringle also highlighted a "patchy" response to prejudice-based bullying across Scotland, with some teachers lacking confidence in how to respond appropriately. There was also evidence of widely differing actions by councils to record and act on bullying incidents.

The research, which was conducted by LGBT Youth Scotland and anti-bullying charity respectme, found only 14 of the country's 32 local authorities could provide evidence of how such reports on bullying were being monitored.

The report stated: "Local authorities are not required to collect or collate overall data for their areas on bullying incidents.

"The intention to promote a system where this data is recorded and collated is evident, but the extent to which this occurs in practice varies widely."

The report went on to recommend local authorities undertake regular reviews of anti-bullying policies and include evidence of reported incidents as well as information gathered from pupils on their experiences.

The commission also wants to see the Scottish Government and schools quango Education Scotland undertake research nationally on prejudice-based bullying.

Brian Donnelly, director of respectme, said: "As the report highlights there are variations in how councils are doing this and we need to record and monitor all bullying, including prejudice-based bullying.

"However, we want people to challenge inequality and inappropriate language and create a positive culture in schools as well rather than just introducing an updated way of recording these incidents.

"Teachers are recording an awful lot of information, but it is more important that staff are trained to deal with these types of incidents so they feel more confident and pupils feel more secure."

The report concluded: "The concept of prejudice is not dealt with sufficiently. In local authority anti-bullying policies, prevention work tends to focus on bullying or equality without exploring the prejudices that may underlie bullying.

"Just over half of teachers stated that their school had undertaken activities or initiatives on prejudice within the past year.

"When deciding on their willingness to report prejudice-based bullying witnessed, pupils use value judgements such as whether someone chose that identity or the severity of the incident.

"Local authority leads are aware that little is done to report and record bullying incidents, yet employ different strategies to close the information gap on experiences."