Victims of bullying share heartbreaking stories after survey reveals almost half of Aussie kids have been bullied at school

Across Australia, young kids are going to school riddled with anxiety and fear over what insidious bullying could await them after entering the school gates. These are their stories.

Roxy* was just a child when she gave her mum an ultimatum – take her out of school or she would end her life.

The bullying started in reception.

At first it was verbal abuse and over seven years it escalated to physical attacks, with the western suburbs student targeted with rocks and then on social media.

“It was five or six kids against (me), and the principal believed them and not me,” Roxy said.

“I would get the blame or they would just say ‘(the bullies) have a really bad home life’ or ‘these are just words … brush them off’.”

Now 16, Roxy is a bright, intelligent young woman with big aspirations.

But in 2021, she was forced to leave primary school for homeschooling half way through year 7 to escape her bullies.

“I didn’t get to do my year 7 graduation, the way that all the other kids did, I just went out with my mum and celebrated that I survived school,” she said.

As the bullying worsened, Roxy’s unbearable anxiety made it impossible for her make it through the school day – with her mum often picking her up only an hour after dropping her off.

Roxy found some relief from her bullies on weekends, but said Sunday nights were always filled with anxiety as she knew what was waiting for her come Monday morning.

The teenager said while her bullies received recess detentions or a short suspension, the punishments were not suitable in her eyes as they “got to go home and play video games” while she continued to endure the horrors at school.

“At the start of year 7, I would ask to stay home a lot … I used to fake being sick to get out of school and when I would get there I would be like ‘mum, please take me home, I can’t be here and I can’t do it’,” she said.

In one of the final incidents before she left school, she woke up to find a fake TikTok account had been made impersonating her.

Screenshots shown to The Advertiser revealed the sarcastic and cruel comments made under these videos, with some featuring doctored images of Roxy.

Once the school realised her attendance was down it was suggested she move to home schooling instead of addressing the bullying.

Eventually, the family had no choice but to take her out of school.

“If I’m just going to be bullied and not feel safe, I don’t want to be in that environment anymore,” Roxy said.

“I just feel like people don’t understand, what bullying does to someone, like the pain and the trauma that it can cause someone.

Now on her “healing” journey, Roxy has been working with a counsellor for the past four years to assist her with her anxiety.

“I still think about it to this day (but) I slowly started healing,” said the year 11 student, who dreams of working in childcare.

“I get really bad social anxiety … if I go out in public, I get worried I’m going to see them again (and) they are going to bully me again.”

*not her real name.

Step up and speak out - before it’s too late

A desperate Sydney mother who says her daughter has been kicked, barged, taunted with videos her bullies made and told to kill herself has urged other parents to step up and speak out before it’s too late.

The bullying got so bad in the fourth term last year that the mum found herself at the primary school in western Sydney every single day, demanding action to protect her daughter whose mental health was deteriorating.

She is speaking up in the wake of the death last year of 12-year-old Charlotte O’Brien whose case had striking similarities.

The mum says the government’s national bullying policy – announced in response to the Sunday Telegraph’s documentary Charlotte’s Wish – can’t come soon enough.

“I want every parent to speak out for the sake of their children being bullied before there are any more deaths,” she said.

“When I saw the videos that were made about my daughter and posted online I went to the police, but they said that because of their age they don’t have the mentality to understand their actions and they couldn’t do much other than talk to them.”

The Sunday Telegraph has seen the social media posts calling the girl “a fake b*tch” and “attention seeker” and a song saying “sick of your voice, sick of your face, sick of your name”.

There are also photos of the writing on the school toilet walls.

The Telegraph chose not to identify the girl, to protect her from any backlash.

Her mum said she also presented the principal and deputy principal with the videos and photos.

A screenshot from a video allegedly created by bullies of a western Sydney schoolgirl. Picture: Supplied

Her mum is speaking out in the hopes that other parents will take action against bullies. Picture: Supplied

“It just kept escalating to the point one of the girls started kicking her, shoulder barging her, pulling a chair out from under her. Then someone wrote in toilets for my daughter to go kill herself.

“She was struggling, her mental health started going down, she was getting anxiety and lashing out at home. She is now seeing a psychologist.”

Worried for her daughter, the mum gave her a phone to take to school.

“She was sitting in the toilets messaging me and she would tell me when things happened.”

“Everyone kept making excuses for these girls who were in the same year and the year below and these girls never faced any consequences whatsoever.”

The mum said the bullying had stopped this year, with her daughter going to high school, and the staff there laying down the repercussions for any such behaviour.

But the girls, still in primary school, were continuing their taunts when the girl was around the school with her mum to pick up and drop off her sibling.

“I’m speaking out because I just want this to stop. It’s happening so much and we all need to stand up for our kids.”

“Bullying should not be tolerated.”

A NSW Department of Education spokeswoman said: “The school has zero tolerance for any form of anti-social behaviour and immediately acts on all reports of bullying.

“The incidents were all thoroughly investigated and appropriate disciplinary action was taken by the school.

“The school, the student’s current high school and the department have worked closely with the student and family to address their concerns and provide extensive and ongoing learning and wellbeing support.”

NSW Police told the Sunday Telegraph a report was made to police on October 29 last year concerning the behaviour of a number of children at a primary school in Fairfield.

“Youth Officers attached to Fairfield City Police Area Command were advised of the incident; however, at the time no offences were detected,” a police spokesman said.

“The matter was also reported to the school concerned and police were satisfied they were dealing with the incident internally.

“The Youth Liaison Officer at Fairfield City Police Area Command works closely with primary and secondary schools within the command to complement their internal policies surrounding negative student behaviour. “There has been regular interaction between the youth liaison officer and the school principal at this school including attendance at parent forums regarding cyber safety and bullying.”

Physical, cyber and emotional violence

Two Victorian mothers have spoken out about the shocking physical, cyber and emotional violence their sons have been forced to endure at the hands of school bullies.

One boy, in year 7 at a high school in Melbourne’s west, was left suicidal after he was accused of sexual assault by a female classmate, before she admitted it was made up.

Earlier this week, the previously happy boy tried to take his own life in desperation after weeks of harassment. His mother said the ongoing bullying involved “spreading lies and physical attacks”.

TikTok screenshots of bullying at a Victorian school. Picture: Supplied

“She has kicked him, thrown scissors at him, thrown metal spoons and forks at him and attempted to throw a laptop at him,” she told the Herald Sun.

A year 7 “exposé” TikTok account at the school is another platform used by the students to harass and abuse each other.

Posts refer to boys getting punched in the face, vaping, swearing, “threatening to bash girls” and saying the “n word”. One girl is accused of “posting pics of her b00bs & a$$ on Instagram” with one student saying “dm my insta to see them”.

And another is talked about as being “almost sent to prison for sending d3ath threats” and sending “n0des (nudes) to her online boy friends”.

The boy and his bully are named a number of times.

“We aren’t even allowed to know if she has been suspended,” she said.

“Her mother came onto campus and verbally abused my son for supposedly sexually assaulting her daughter. It wasn’t polite, it was very loud.”

The mother, from Werribee, is frustrated and upset that “the bullies are protected by schools no matter how bad things get”.

The second case involves another year seven boy who previously attended a special school in the outer southern suburbs and who was bullied by a male pupil in his class.

“He had a chair thrown at his back, his glasses smashed and he was cornered and stabbed with a sharp stick,” his mother said. The same bully caused another student to end up in hospital, leading to a police investigation.

“I wanted my son moved out of the classroom as it wasn’t safe,” the mother said.

“But the school didn’t listen and said it was ‘character-building’.”

“There was no safety, no counselling, it was laughable.”

“In the end we moved schools and finally my son feels safe.”

The mother from Ferntree Gully has a message for other parents of bullied children: “Don’t put your trust in the school. If something is not right, speak up straight away, don’t be afraid.”

A Department of Education spokesperson said: “Bullying and disrespectful behaviour is unacceptable in any Victorian school.”

“We treat all allegations of bullying in our schools seriously and the school is managing the incident in line with department processes.”

“Emotionally devastating”

A Brisbane mother says her autistic son was bullied so badly in a mainstream school – labelled a “tr*nny” and a “r*tard” and having his head smashed into walls – that she had no choice but to homeschool him.

“It was physical and psychological. My son’s a bit different and he’s on the autism spectrum,” the mum said.

“He likes to grow his hair long and has earrings, so kids would be calling him a ‘tr*nny’.”

She said at one point, the bullies pulled his pants down because they said “they wanted to see whether he actually had a d*ck or not”.

“It was just nasty kids at the school and the staff were just oblivious” she said.

“When my son was really upset, he just couldn’t speak for himself, so they would just accept what the other kids would say.”

The mum said her son was also called a “r*tard”.

“He got his head smashed into the brick wall of a toilet block once,” she said.

The mum said while the bullying happened back in 2019 to 2021, the impacts on her son still remained.

“He doesn’t trust other kids and he’ll only hang out with grown-ups,” she said.

“He says that he knows that at least grown-ups mostly know that they’ll get in trouble if they do anything to him.”

She described seeing her son get bullied as “emotionally devastating”.

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Originally published as Victims of bullying share heartbreaking stories after survey reveals almost half of Aussie kids have been bullied at school