Name-calling, ostracism and bigotry are making lives miserable in thousands of schools. But this time, it’s not the pupils who are complaining. It’s the teachers.

Members of the NASUWT (National Association of Schoolmasters and Union of Women Teachers) teaching union have long debated the best ways of eradicating bullying from the playground, but today they will discuss how to combat it in the staff room at their annual conference in Belfast.

Bullying of teachers by pupils is now widely recognised as a growing problem, due partly to the growth in social networking websites that allow pupils to post comments, critical or otherwise, about their teachers on the internet.

Both teachers and pupils are now considered game for attack by this form of “cyber bullying” with some bullies now posting abusive video clips and photographs of teachers and classmates taken with mobiles on sites.

The Education Secretary, Alan Johnson, said last week that he would make it “a priority”’ to deal with pupils who post rude remarks and inappropriate pictures of their teachers on the internet. He was responding to threats by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers that they would sue social networking websites that allowed abusive material about teachers to be posted on their sites unchallenged.

Today, Mr Johnson will tell the NASUWT conference that companies which run websites must stop pupils posting inappropriate videos on the internet.

“The online harassment of teachers is causing some to consider leaving the profession because of the defamation and humiliation they are forced to suffer," the Education Secretary will say. “The new powers allow teachers to confiscate mobile phones which film them maliciously but I believe there is a wider responsibility upon the providers of the sites which broadcast this material. These are big companies we are talking about: they have a social responsibility and moral obligation to act.

“I am therefore calling on the providers of these sites to take firmer action to block or remove offensive school videos, in the same way that they have commendably cut pornographic content."

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