With cheaper broadband and computers in their bedrooms more and more children have access to the internet, and while it can open a world of opportunity for youngsters, it can also unleash a world of pain when they become victims of bullying via internet chatrooms and mobile phone texts.

The NSPCC has launched a special campaign to tackle bullying in Wrexham and representatives of all the county's secondary schools have received anti-bullying training, but Ysgol Bryn Alyn in Gwersyllt is the first where all staff have undergone anti-bullying training as part of the campaign.

Gwyneth Sorsky, head of year nine, is the school's anti-bullying coordinator, and she told the Leader that although cyber bullying happens outside schools, it becomes a problem for schools when pupils come in upset by this technological bullying.

"It's not just our school. What we have seen is a sign of what's happening in all schools," she said.

"We have had pupils move to our school to escape their cyber bullies and we have lost one or two pupils to other schools because of it.

"Children are moving around as a result of what's happening outside school, but it's brought into school by other pupils who know what's going on.

"Children come in after a holiday or a weekend and that seems to be when they've fallen out with someone on networking sites like Bebo or MSN.

"They tend to speak to each other quite a lot at home in their own bedrooms in privacy and they're having conversations with loads of people – some they know, some they don't know – who have been introduced by friends.

"Children are not the best at keeping their passwords safe and children can steal another child's identity and say bad things about other children in their name.

"Then the one who has been insulted will come into school and start having a go at the person they think insulted them and the other person doesn't know what's happening.

"This is the nasty downside of this technology.

"One girl put a pig's nose and ears on a picture of her friend and put it online and copied it out and gave it out in a lesson.

"This is all happening in the privacy of children's homes, unbeknown to parents in a lot of cases. It's a serious problem because parents wonder why their children are upset and don't want to go in to school.

"It's nothing to do with school other than they know they're going to come face to face with the people insulting them on the computer.

"Friends often fall out with each other and in the space of a week they're usually friends with each other again, but if others see what's online and get involved it can be quite unpleasant.

"It's happening on the computer and goes out on on the internet and everyone knows about it. Whereas before if someone had a disagreement with a friend it was one to one, now everyone knows about it and gets involved. They come back into school on one side or another or isolate one person.

"Another problem is older men talking to teenage girls online. A 20-year-old man was talking to a 12-year-old pupil at home through websites and a friend told us and we advised the girl's family to get involved. It amounted to nothing, I don't know if that's because of our intervention.

"If we hear rumours that a girl has an older boyfriend we usually find it started online. Keeping our children safe is the priority.
"Parents often don't understand how these computer programmes work and need to be educated."

NSPCC offered the school anti-bullying training which involved showing teachers the sites pupils are using out of school and understanding how they work so they can help children deal with them.

Gwyneth also trains peer supporters from among the pupils to support victims of bullying and the school also teach children how to be safe on the internet before they are allowed to use it. They teach them how to get privacy settings, how to keep their passwords safe and never to give their address out.

The school also offers advice to parents, as Gwyneth explained: "If a child comes to us and says they've had a bad weekend on the web, we get in touch with their parents to tell them what's gone on if the child hasn't.

"We suggest the parents contact the police. Most children don't realise that it's against the law to use the public domain, the web, to make intimidating or derogatory remarks about someone.

"The police can trace everything that's gone through the computer. We suggest parents move the computer into a family area in the house where they can monitor what's going on.

"We have a young dynamic IT department who understand how these things work and keep staff up to speed so we can help with situations when they arise. I feel education is the key and if the NSPCC can support us that's great."

Gwyneth is calling for those who run networking and messaging sites to take more responsibility for this growing problem.

"People who run sites have got to do more monitoring of what's going on to help schools deal with it. They've got to take responsibility because all schools in the area must be having those problems."