Sticks and stones may break bones - but it seems words can still do some serious damage to young people.
New results from the long-running CensusAtSchool/TataurangaKiTeKura project have found verbal abuse is the biggest bullying problem at schools, as reported by students aged between 9 and 18.
"Information about the scale of bullying is hard to get in New Zealand because we don't have a way of quantifying it on a national level," said Otahuhu College teacher Anne Patel, a member of the CensusAtSchool team.
"As CensusAtSchool is anonymous and available to students in every school in the country, we are getting a unique student-eye view of its scale and prevalence."
More than a third (36%) of the school children who took part strongly agreed or agreed that verbal bullying was a problem at their school. It was also found to be more of a problem for older students, with 39% of high school students agreeing or strongly agreeing, compared with 29% or primary school students.
Cyberbullying was also prevalent, with 31% of respondents agreeing that it was a problem at their school. Girls were more likely to report cyberbullying as a problem than boys, and again, it was more of a problem in high schools.
While only 19% of boys and 22% of girls in primary school agreed or strongly agreed that cyberbullying was a problem, this increased to 31% and 40% respectively for high school students.
There was also a difference in results between co-ed and single-sex schools. A total of 32% of boys in co-ed schools strongly agreed or agreed that cyber bullying was a problem, against 23% of boys in single-sex schools.
However, when it came to female students, the results were similar despite what type of school they attended - 40% of girls in both co-ed and single-sex schools strongly agreed or agreed that cyber bullying was a problem in their school.
Physical bullying was more likely to be reported as a problem at co-ed high schools, where 24% of boys and 17% of girls strongly agreed or agreed that it was a problem. In comparison, at single-sex schools, 16% of boys and 9% of girls reported it as a problem at their schools.
This was of particular interest to teacher Anne Patel.
"The question we now need to ask is: why this is? What is it about these schools that students perceive bullying to be less of a problem?"
It was the first time the biennial survey had asked about bullying since it started in 2003.
CensusAtSchool is a collaborative project involving teachers, the University of Auckland's Department of Statistics, Statistics New Zealand and the Ministry of Education.
It is part of an international effort to boost statistical capability among young people, and is carried out in Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States, Japan and South Africa.
More than 18,392 students from 381 schools across New Zealand took part in this years CensusAtSchool, which started on March 16.
