A BLACKPOOL couple say their son was bullied so badly at a Bispham school that he repeatedly ran away from home and threatened suicide.

Keith and Michelle Bartlam of Bispham Road wrote to The Citizen after reading a letter in last week's edition (Oct 18) about alleged bullying at Beacon Hill High School, Warbreck Hill Road, Blackpool.

They claim their son, Daniel, who is now 14, was constantly bullied by other pupils at the school during his three years there.

He was allegedly kicked in the chest while in class, deliberately squirted with ink and repeatedly called "a Nazi" by pupils who found out he had lived in Germany for three years.

They said the problem became so bad they refused to let Daniel go back to Beacon Hill High and are now paying for him to attend a private school.

Michelle said: "I wanted him out last year and I wrote to the local authority and they wrote back to say the school was dealing with it."

She said the family did attend a meeting at the school about Daniel and he was also given a journal to note down any bullying which was to be handed in every week and any problems dealt with.

"This was done for a couple of weeks but then the journal was not given back until we had to contact the school and ask for it," she said.

Keith Bartlam said it was "outrageous" that Daniel could have been bullied in the classroom. "What's going on in these classes?" he asked. "Why can't these people clamp down on what is happening right under their noses?"

Speaking from home, Michael Wilmore, headteacher of Beacon Hill High school, stressed he was unable to comment fully without seeing all the records of the situation which were at school -- which was closed for half term.

And he said that bullying problems would be dealt with first by a child's form teacher, then by the year head and by the school's deputy heads.

He confirmed Daniel had been taken out of the school by his parents. "If Daniel has been taken from our school because they are concerned that he has been bullied then I am very disappointed and upset about that," he said.

It was clear in such a situation that the school would have been unsuccessful in dealing with a problem, he said.

He confirmed Daniel had been given a journal to fill out. "That's one of the strategies that we use with pupils who are being bullied," he added.

"I think there were incidents that were unhappy incidents as far as Daniel was concerned," he said. "I do know that his year head worked very hard with him over a period."

He said the school has a clear policy on bullying, including exclusion for bullies. And the school also runs a system where several pupils are appointed as "peer group counsellors" for pupils to approach if they are having problems.

Regarding name calling, he commented: "Obviously we don't like it and we try to discourage children from doing it but there are certain things that happen in the playground that you can't do anything about."

But he said it was "not true" that teachers were losing control in the classrooms and there was a lack of discipline. "If that was a problem in the classroom I think we would be getting a concerned number of phone calls asking, 'What's happening?' But that isn't the case," he said.

No-one from the local education authority was available for comment.