Pupils use websites to bully classmates

Children as young as eight are using the internet and mobile phone texts to torment their classmates, teachers warned today.

Staff are also being targeted as pupils use social networking websites including Rate-MyTeacher, MySpace and You Tube to insult them.

A teaching union has demanded a crackdown to prevent cyber-bullying getting out of control.

Members of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers said today primary school pupils are using websites to bully classmates.

They claim children are swapping disturbing footage on their phones including socalled happy slappings clips - where children attack others without warning.

Ralph Surman, who teaches in Nottingham, said he had come across a "nasty" case of bullying by email involving a group of four 10- and 11-yearold girls who told a classmate: "You are going to die."

The girls had emailed the death threats to their victim using "a lot of bad and abusive language", Mr Surman said. They were punished with detentions.

ATL general secretary Mary Bousted said that after the conference in Bournemouth, she planned to meet website bosses to demand better monitoring of video clips and comments posted by users.

. Arsonists are responsible for half of all fires that destroy schools each year, a survey warned today. Almost one in five teachers polled by the ATL said their school had been damaged by fires in the last five years, while 52 per cent said they were started deliberately - often by disgruntled pupils.