My wife and I have had two daughters both of whom went to a local comprehensive school.

Both were aware of some bullying in the school and both found it dealt with promptly and clamped down on. There are loads of techniques for this and I have no idea which ones the school used. But the anti-bullying policy seemed to work well in that school.

ask UNICEF, who put British children at the top of their list of world wide children in trouble.

Well Lizzie I did ask UNICEF and that isn't what they say. It refers to 21 western countries only (not the world). And the UK came just below the USA by a smidgeon.

"Just over a year ago, this report by Unicef, the UN children's agency, revealed the results of a survey which showed that UK schoolchildren were the unhappiest of 21 countries surveyed in the Western world. The report blamed a lack of social cohesion and poor parenting for its findings".

See that Lizzie? Social Cohesion and poor parenting.

Very little to do with bullying and nothing at all to do with schools.