Rationale
Bullying at
school can have a profound effect on children’s lives and can have a lasting
effect on them into adulthood. It can undermine their self-esteem and self-
confidence and often result in them becoming bullies themselves. The policy on
Anti-Bullying has been drawn up within the school’s ethos of promoting positive
behaviour.
Aims:
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To create
within our school community, an atmosphere/ethos of trust, which values,
respects and protects the rights of each of its members to be within a safe
and secure environment.
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To develop
within the ethos and curriculum of our school, attitudes, skills and
activities which will prevent all aspects of bullying.
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To foster
trust among members of the school community so that bullying incidents can
be reported, discussed and dealt with appropriately.
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To encourage and foster active parental support in achieving those
aims.
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To follow the guidance laid down in the Highland Council
‘Anti-bullying and Anti-Racist Procedures’ policy.
The
School community includes: pupils, all teaching staff, auxiliary staff, kitchen
staff, school board, school nurse, community police officer and other visitors
to the school.
What is Bullying?
Bullying is repeated behaviour which uses power to hurt, frighten or cause
unhappiness to another.
This behaviour includes:
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Name calling
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Hitting, kicking, punching
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Damaging or stealing property
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‘Ganging up’ on people
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Teasing about personal or physical differences
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Teasing about family/domestic/cultural situations
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Threatening
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Shouting, swearing, verbal abuse
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Extortion
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Malicious gossip
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Forcing someone to do something they do not wish to do
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Isolating someone
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Sending offensive/threatening texts or e-mails
What can we do about it and how can we
achieve our aims?
The
underpinning values held at our school are found in our Promoting Positive
Behaviour Policy and are set within our whole school aims. This aims to develop
self esteem, self respect, self control, caring and respect for others. We also
discuss many of these values in other curricular areas like Health, Citizenship
and Religious and Moral Education. We study bullying within our Health Programme
and Personal and Social Development programme but it is discussed regularly
within each class and features in our whole school assemblies.
As
part of our strategy for promoting positive behaviour, we look at attitudes,
skills and activities which will prevent bullying:
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We value and listen to children’s contributions
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We help the children learn and practice the skills required to
build good relationships with other children and adults within the school
and the wider community.
Raising Pupil Awareness:
Activities through which this can developed:
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playing games
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role play/simulations
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stories, poems, media
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poster campaigns
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play situations
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writing
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behaviour problem solving scenarios
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Circle Time
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Pupil Council meetings
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participating in drawing up agreed whole school rules
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whole school assemblies
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‘buddying’ and ‘monitoring’ systems
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Citizenship activities
The
children share experiences, think of other peoples’ feelings, share opinions,
explore difficult feelings, put themselves in other peoples shoes, develop self
respect, assertiveness, co-operation and independence/ interdependence.
Where does bullying occur?
Most bullying occurs on the way to and from school and in the playground.
Practical Advice to Share with Pupils:
1)
If you are bullied tell a member of staff.
2) Try to ignore silly comments or teasing – don’t say
anything back - try and walk away
3) Shout ‘NO!’ or ‘GO AWAY’. You must say it loudly and walk
away immediately. Practise this in the mirror.
4) Stay with friends when playing - you are more likely to be
bullied if you are on your own.
A
separate sheet for pupils is attached to this policy. (Appendix 1) This
explains to the children what to do if they are bullied and contains a simpler
version of bullying definitions.
Practical Advice for Parents:
1)
Encourage your child to talk about what has been going on in school, and talk
through any minor incidents calmly to ascertain what has happened.
2) Inform the school immediately if you feel there may be a
bullying problem.
3) Encourage your child to tell a teacher or the playground
supervisors if they or any of their friends are experiencing difficulty in or
out of school.
4) Watch
out for signs of stress in your child – repeated headaches, sore stomachs,
reluctance to come to school - they can be indications that all is not well.
5) Investigate if toys/ money start to go missing.
6) Take an active interest in friendships and out -of-school activities.
7)
Supervise situations where bullying may occur, e.g. walking to and from school.
8) Avoid unsupervised exposure to violence on television /
videos / computer games. Spend some time discussing the different forms of
violence - reality versus fantasy.
Raising Teacher Awareness:
Signs which may indicate bullying:
The
child may:
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Be unwilling to come to school
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Begin to do poorly in school work
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Become withdrawn
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Start acting out of character, by for example hitting other
children
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Develop stomach aches or headaches
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Want to stay in at break-times
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Have a cut or bruise after playtimes
Advice for Supervisory and Auxiliary
Staff:
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Be aware of isolated children, and try to involve them in a
sympathetic group.
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Keep a watchful eye on ‘rough and tumble’, to ensure that
everyone is enjoying it!
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Check side and back of school regularly
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Never ignore aggressive or bullying behaviour
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When dealing with an act of aggression or bullying it is better to
remove the victim from the scene as soon as possible.
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Incidents causing concern must be reported to a member of
the teaching staff. Persistent bullying must be reported to the Head
Teacher.
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Try to help children talk though minor incidents - listen to both
sides calmly.
How Do
We Deal With Bullying?
The Highland
Council policy ‘Anti-Bullying and Anti-Racist Procedures’ clearly lays out the
responsibilities and procedures for investigating and dealing with an incident,
disciplinary and support procedures and how to record incidents.
We
follow these procedures when investigating an allegation of bullying in order to
ensure consistency across the school.
All
incidents are investigated, recorded, discussed and hopefully resolved, and the
children involved supported. We try wherever possible to work in partnership
with parents/carers to resolve incidents.
We
investigate the incident to find out what has happened, we listen to the
victim, the bully, and any witnesses and record the incident, and action
taken, within the school.
We
deal with the incident if the investigation shows a need for disciplinary
action to be taken and record the incident on Highland Council Record of
Bullying and Racist Incidents form which is forwarded to the Performance
Management Unit in Dingwall. (Children are not named on this form – it is for
statistical purposes only.)
We
support the victim and work with all concerned to resolve the
incident.
If
a child becomes a persistent bully, we may seek support/advice from outside
agencies. e.g. Educational Psychologist.
Nursery Class
The
nursery pupils have talks and workshops from the ‘Safe, Strong and Free’
project, and parents have preliminary meetings to see what the course consists
of. Aspects of bullying are discussed during these meetings/workshops.
Monitoring and Review
The
school will monitor incidents to see patterns of bullying and effects on pupil
attainment and progress. The policy will be reviewed within the School
Development Planning process.
Appendix 1
Pupils:
What is Bullying?
Bullying is:
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following someone around all the time
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name calling
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hitting, kicking, punching
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telling someone they are useless at something.
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taking things without asking
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’ganging up’ on people
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saying you’ll do something to someone if they don’t do what you
want
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ignoring people or deliberately turning away from someone
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trying to take peoples’ things away from them, e.g. toys, money,
sweets
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saying hurtful things about how someone looks, dresses or speaks
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saying hurtful things about someone's family
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making up/or spreading stories about someone
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picking on someone because they have different interests or beliefs
from you.
Bullying is when someone does any of these things repeatedly to another person.
What to do if You are Being Bullied:
1) If you are being bullied tell your teacher,
playground staff, parent, carer or friend.
2) Try to ignore silly comments or teasing – don’t say
anything back - try to walk away.
3) Shout ‘NO!’ or ‘GO AWAY’. You must say it loudly and
walk away immediately. Practise this in the mirror.
4) Stay with friends when playing - you are more likely to be
bullied if you are on your own. |
