The footage shot at Corpus Christi High RC School in Cardiff aimed to show what it is like walking in the shoes of a bullied child.

The filming was done for a future TV programme on bullying.

A hidden camera was fitted to the backpack of an unnamed schoolgirl - aged 12 to 13 - by Fresh One Productions, which is owned by Jamie Oliver.

A spokesman for ITV and Fresh One Productions said the pupil approached the production company after an advertisement was placed online.

The girl's mother - in a statement through ITV - said: "The decision to enter into this was not taken lightly.

"My child was at the point where she just couldn't take any more and I had done everything I could as a parent.

"She has been let down time after time and it felt like there was nowhere for us to go. This was the very last resort for both of us."

School personnel only learned about the filming when they were shown '"very emotional" footage of bullying and were told it would be screened on ITV.

The principal and governors of the Catholic school have said they are now seeking legal action against the programme makers for covertly filming pupils without permission from the school or other parents.

School spokespeople said bullying is condemned "in the strongest terms and we have a robust anti-bullying policy in place".

Mr Oliver's production company only wrote a letter to parents after filming had finished.

Every child would have their faces blurred and voices scrambled to protect their identities.

No date has been fixed for the broadcast as yet, and it is unclear if it will go ahead now the school has been identified.

The girl who did the filming was pleased the footage had been seen at a local "resolution meeting" and that she would be believed.

A similar programme aired in The Netherlands.

Sources

• Daily Mail
• South Wales Evening Post
• Image: Entrepreneur.com

School bullying has been described as the single most important threat to the mental health of children and adolescents.

Well-controlled studies show that being bullied in primary school increases the risk of serious mental health problems into adolescence and ongoing depression leading well into adulthood.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't?
So when parents findut their child is being bullied, they are right to be concerned.

But what exactly should they do about it? Should they tell the school, approach the parents of the other child, or just let their child deal with it?

It can be difficult to weigh up the sometimes conflicting advice given to parents.

Parents desperately want to help their child, but if they jump in too quickly to protect their child they can be labelled as over-protective or over-indulgent.

School authorities often recommend parents leave the school to handle it.

This is fine if the school is successful in stopping the bullying. However, this is not always the case. Most school programs to address bullying make only modest improvements, leaving some children to continue to be bullied.

This could be why we often hear of parents taking matters into their own hands.

This can lead to uncertain legal ground if parents reprimand other children and to ugly arguments between parents. Clearly none of these approaches is ideal.

New research on how parents can help their children
We now know that parenting specifically affects children's risk of being bullied at school. A meta-analysis in 2013 concluded that warm, supportive parenting is a protective factor and negative parenting is a risk factor for children being bullied at school. Continue reading

Source & Image:

• Essential Kids