WHEN Kitti Horváth moved with her family to Scotland from Hungary eight years ago she was looking forward to settling in to her new school.

Despite having a limited knowledge of English and a strong Hungarian accent she was keen to make new friends at her local secondary school in Airdrie.

Now 18-years-old she remembers those first difficult conversations with sadness because her first memories of school were being mocked for the way she spoke.

"I can remember I was in first year when I had just moved here and my accent was really thick and this guy was asking me why I sounded like that and he was mocking me and copying me.

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"I don't think he meant it in a mean way, but that gave me the feeling that I shouldn't speak and there were a lot of other conversations like that in school.

"When I got the confidence to start speaking English later I got more knock-backs with people just mocking what I sounded that. People thought it was a joke, but they didn't realise they were being hurtful or insensitive."

Ms Horváth said the school and some of her teachers made the issues she was facing worse because they didn't seem to notice what was going on - and sometimes they made her feel even worse.

"I was put in the lowest classes for everything because I didn't have much English, even in subjects like maths. I was fine at maths, but I couldn't reach the level I could have been at because I was in the lowest group.

"I don't think the school tried in any way to make me feel more comfortable in speaking English. It was like I was introduced as the foreign girl that couldn't speak English.

"It made me really closed off to people and it took me a while to talk to people. I was really scared to talk to people because I felt if I talked they would mock me. I was really shy and I wouldn't even try making friends because I didn't think there was any point.

"It really made me upset and not to want to talk to anyone. I would just walk around in school with my earphones on by myself and when I was older I just went home for lunch to avoid sitting by myself."

Ms Horváth was also bullied on a bus after a woman overheard her talking on the phone to her mother in Hungarian.

"This woman just started shouting at me saying that I was in an English speaking country so why didn't I just learn the language. I felt really angry.

"Why would people say stuff like that when they don’t know me? I am talking in my mother tongue which I didn't want to lose because it is part of who I am."

Ms Horváth's experiences and those of other pupils from Europe who went to school in Scotland are now being used as part of a new school resource to combat a Brexit-related rise in bullying of such children.

Other stories in the new materials include the story of Marta, from Poland, who was regularly excluded from friendship groups and was even called a "Polish cow" by pupils.

The materials produced by the Respectme anti-bullying charity were developed after research by Dr Daniella Syme from Strathclyde University, showed racist bullying of Eastern European pupils in Scotland had escalated since Brexit, with victims hiding their nationality to avoid being targeted.

Dr Sime, a lecturer in social policy, said pupils from countries such as Poland, Lithuania and Romania would try and avoid being identified by dropping their home language in public.

She said: "Particularly vulnerable groups like Roma migrant groups would try and hide that, particularly in public spaces. They would not use their home language in schools or on public transport for fear of attack.

"They try and blend in as much as possible. They don't want to stand out and that has a direct impact on their attainment, as well as their mental health and wellbeing."

Kitti is pleased her experiences will be used to help prevent bullying in future.

"It is amazing that they are raising awareness because I never felt they were before. I hope schools will learn from my experiences," she said.

"In some way it has made me stronger because I don't take offence so much, but it has also made me more fearful and closed off. If someone doesn't speak to me then I won't speak to them."

But her story has a happy ending. Now enrolled in Glasgow Clyde College and studying drama she finally feels she belongs in Scotland.

"At college everyone had just accepted me and they think it is actually a cool thing that I am foreign. Most of all I wish people would think about what they they say before they say it and think about whether it is insensitive or not."