I see the problem of bullying as a symptom of our outdated education system. One of the reasons for that is the one-fits-all doctrine that most schools follow, there will be students that trail behind who hate the people who are good in the subject for raising the bar so high. There will be also the people at the top who feel held back by the once who "just don't get it". This naturally causes friction between subgroups of a class. The constant grading and testing in general is extremely unhealthy to the mind of children.

To fight the sympton I think we need to start with the victim there is a natural instinct to attack people that appear weak and in retreat. There are three things that are able to prevent getting bullied or at least soften the impact:

Be physically strong - nobody will want to escalate the situation or thread you with physical violence if they know you are a decent fighter

Be good with words - if you can laugh about the jokes made about you and you can deliver jokes or smart comebacks, you are able to avoid most of psychological impact those words have on you

Have friends/be likeable. I was bullied by some of my friends so befriending a bully might not always work but it still levels the playing field quite a bit. But even if you are just a group of nerds, people will still think twice before messing with a whole group of people and even if they do your peers are there to soften the trauma "that bully is an idiot, he is only mean to you because he envies you"

To be clear I see the cause for bullying in our system and human nature, I dont want to blame the victim. I just think we need to make bullying a less successful concept, this is made tougher when you see a lot of successful people, ie politicians and businessmen, behaving like textbook bullies.