By Sean Coughlan BBC News Online education staff

A third of seven to 11 year olds have mobiles, says the survey

More than a third of primary school children with mobile phones have received name-calling text messages, research suggests.

And 10% of primary children have received more serious levels of threats by text message, which could be classified as "bullying".

The research, which is unpublished, is from the Cyberspace Research Unit at the University of Central Lancashire.

It shows that about one in three children, aged between seven and 11 years old, have their own mobile phone.

The survey, based on over a thousand children, found that 37% had been sent insulting or swearing by text message.

The pupils also indicated that they were unlikely to tell teachers or parents about this name-calling.

Last year, research for the children's charity, NCH, found that one in four secondary pupils had been threatened by text or e-mail.

Internet bullying

But these latest figures suggest that such harassment could begin much younger.

Charlotte Barrow, project manager of the research centre, said that such phone bullies sometimes assumed that their attacks could remain anonymous, by using pay-as-you-go mobiles.

And she said that the impact on victims could be made worse because the messages could be received out-of-school, making them even more invasive than conventional bullying.

The use of technology by bullies has also extended to producing insulting internet pages, said Ms Barrow.

She cited an example from the United States, where for several months a pupil had been targeted by a website carrying "malicious rumours" about him.

This threatening website was only taken down after the threat of legal action, she said.

And she says that there needs to be consideration to how developing technologies, such as video messages on mobile phones, might be misused by bullies.