A whole school approach
- Make sure your values are front and centre, that all children and young people know them and apply them. For example, in one primary school the values of “Look after yourself, look after each other and the place you’re in” featured in many discussions and was used in reflective work, by children with one another and by teachers and parents in deciding how the school was run. Secondary schools may wish to look at more values, such as democracy, equality, respect, resilience, tolerance and understanding.
- Strong and present policies around anti-bullying and behaviour with a clear definition that separates bullying from unkind behaviour or falling out, with a system of sanctions
- All staff trained in the school’s approach from support staff to senior leaders to model behaviour, identify concerns and take action. We can arrange bullying training with actors that really brings the training to life and keeps values to the fore. Click here to get in touch.
Prevention
address prejudice and improve empathy and understanding through awareness raising activities and education. What work does your school do around resilience, problem solving, attachment approaches and emotional regulation? How is positive behaviour or attitude recognised and rewarded, again linking to the staff knowledge and action? Pupils should not engage in bullying behaviour because it is not the right thing to do, rather than just because they are told not to.
Inclusion
Promote diversity and look for ways to help children and young people measure the difference they are making to inequality in the school. Help young people develop goals for the school, such as reducing the measures of isolation in the student survey, and individual goals such as making a difference for someone every day. Ensure there is celebration of difference and look for links to cultures, schools and other regions or cultures to ensure children and young people have the opportunity to experience the benefits of diversity.
Consider the power of words and ensure there is challenge of ‘banter’, sexist, homophobic and transphobic, racist and other discriminatory language which in some settings is routine (such as “That’s gay”) among children or young people. Work to help young people understand why these kind of comments, while in wide use, is so damaging.
Anti-bullying environment
Raise the profile throughout the year, not just in anti-bullying week. Posters, pupil-friendly policies in every room, champions and mascots have all been used to good effect. Assemblies should cover anti-bullying themes regularly, and link to events through the year such as Pride and Black History month. The curriculum should engage with the topic of bullying, particularly in PSHE or ‘themed drop-down days’.
We have a team that delivers a strong anti-bullying message aligned to your school and approaches and uses actors with young people and staff groups over different sessions to dynamically explore the issues and develop a school action plan. Get in touch for more details.
Empowerment
All children should see their role in reducing bullying in the school and be encouraged to think how an effective anti-bullying system might be put in place, developed and monitored. Many schools have ambassadors, champions, prefects, monitors and other roles where young people have had some training, are visible to other children, provide peer to peer support and a link to staff. Some schools have developed a more focused buddying system to provide direct peer to peer support.
Rapid response
An immediate reaction reduces the chances of escalation and parental involvement at a very early stage gives children and young people confidence that bullying will be addressed and not tolerated.
Consider the range of ways in which children can raise worries including
- bully boxes
- an online reporting system (bullying@yourschool.ac.uk or perhaps an icon on school computers and website)
- anonymous questionnaires
- peer support
- key staff champions
- parent communication options
Your school policy should set out how you respond, including perhaps restorative practices to use bullying incidents as an opportunity to develop and learn where appropriate. This should also ensure prompt resort to safeguarding procedures and police involvement in the most serious situations.
Find out more…
There’s more on the challenges to developing effective anti-bullying practice and in depth case examples in Approaches to preventing and tackling bullying (Dept for Education, 2018). If you’ve a useful way you’ve found to work work well, why not add it to the forum below?
