Anti-bullying policy

Statement of Intent

The West Bridgford School is committed to ensuring that all students are able to learn in a supportive, caring and safe environment without the fear of being bullied. Bullying is an anti-social behaviour and affects everyone; it is unacceptable and will not be tolerated at The West Bridgford School. If bullying does occur, all pupils should know who to tell and know that incidents will be dealt with promptly and effectively.

What is Bullying?

Bullying occurs when an individual or group uses strength or power to hurt, either physically or emotionally, by intimidating or demeaning others. It is usually persistent and is often covert, and is a conscious attempt to hurt, threaten or frighten someone. Bullying impacts on its victims’ attendance and attainment at school and can have a life long impact on some young people’s lives.

Bullying includes:

Physical. Pushing, kicking, hitting, pinching and other forms of violence or threats.
Verbal. Name-calling, sarcasm, spreading rumours, persistent teasing. This now includes messages by mobile phone and e-mail.
Emotional. Excluding (sending to Coventry), tormenting, ridicule, humiliation.
Racist. Racial taunts, graffiti, gestures
Sexual. Unwanted physical contact or abusive comments.
Homophobic. Any hostile or offensive action against lesbians, gay males or bisexuals or those perceived to be lesbian, gay or bisexual
Cyber. Mobile threats by text messaging and calls; all areas of internet such as email and chat room misuse; misuse of associated technology eg camera and video facilities

Although bullying can occur between individuals it can often take place in the presence (virtually or physically) of others who become the “bystanders” or “accessories”. In cyber bullying, bystanders can easily become perpetrators – by passing on or showing to others images designed to humiliate or taking part in online polls or discussion groups. Pupils may not recognise themselves as participating in bullying, but their involvement compounds the misery for the person targeted. They will be made aware that their actions can have severe and distressing consequences and that participating in such activity will not be tolerated.

Aims

The school aims:

To increase awareness and to encourage students to report concerns regarding bullying
To provide protection, support and reassurance for victims
To develop the self-confidence and self-esteem of all students
To develop an effective range of emotional ‘self-defence’ skills for all students
To promote an anti-bullying ethos amongst the whole school community

Signs and Symptoms

A child may indicate by signs or behaviour that they are being bullied. Staff should be aware of these possible signs and they should investigate if a child:

is frightened of walking to or from school
asks to be driven to school
changes their usual routine
is unwilling to go to school
begins to truant
becomes withdrawn anxious, or lacking in confidence
starts stammering
attempts or threatens suicide or runs away
cries themselves to sleep at night or has nightmares
feels ill in the morning
begins to do poorly in school work
arrives home with clothes torn or books damaged
has possessions which are damaged or " go missing"
asks for money or starts stealing money (to pay bully)
has dinner or other monies continually "lost"
has unexplained cuts or bruises
comes home starving (money / lunch has been stolen)
becomes aggressive, disruptive or unreasonable
is frightened to say what's wrong
gives improbable excuses for any of the above
is afraid to use the internet or mobile phone
is nervous & jumpy when a cyber message is received

These signs and behaviours could indicate other problems, but bullying should be considered a possibility and should be investigated.

Prevention

Prevention is clearly the strategy of choice. This will be addressed in a variety of ways:

At whole school level – through assemblies when children will be informed of the school's zero-tolerance policy and the actions that will be taken to prevent bullying taking place. Assembly time will also be used to challenge the notion that there can be innocent, neutral bystanders with regards to the issue of bullying.
Anti-Bullying Week in November will be used as an opportunity to raise the profile of this issue.
At classroom level – especially through PSHE and Citizenship the focus will be on developing strong anti-bullying messages.
The West Bridgford School recognises that there are particular times when students may be more vulnerable to bullying – lunch and break times and the beginning and end of the school day. Arrangements will be made to ensure that at such times there is adequate supervision available to reduce the risk of bullying incidents. The Learning Centre will be particularly used to provide support for vulnerable students.
There are locations around the school where incidents of bullying are more likely to occur and again arrangements will be made to ensure that these are properly supervised or pupils will be forbidden access to these areas.
Students will have the opportunity to contribute to the school’s Anti-Bullying Policy through Year and School Councils.
Peer Mentors will be available for those students requiring extra support and be encouraged to organise anti-bullying campaigns in school and discourage the “bystander culture”.
Stereotypical views are challenged and pupils encouraged to appreciate and view positively the differences in others whether arising from race, culture, gender, sexuality, ability or disability.

Parental involvement

The West Bridgford School is firmly committed to working in partnership with parents and believes that the best outcomes emerge when professionals and parents/carers are able to work together when bullying occurs. We recognise the important influence which parents/carers have on their children and would wish to enlist their support when their child is involved in bullying – either as victim or a perpetrator. Parents will be invited to an Information Evening outlining the school’s Anti-Bullying Policy at the beginning of Year 7.

Parents who believe their children are the victim of bullying should share their concerns with school at the earliest opportunity and be prepared to work with school to keep their children safe in future. All expressions of concern will be taken seriously and investigated thoroughly. Where parents have concerns about with regard to bullying they should contact the appropriate Director of Learning.

Implementation

All staff involved in the teaching and/or supervision of children will take responsibility for addressing incidents which fall within the school's definition of bullying and ensure that the victim receives the support required; the bully is informed of the unacceptability of their behaviour and a record is made of the incident.

All children need to be aware that staff want to be informed of any incidents or concerns and that action will be taken when bullying is reported.

Incident management

The school will take firm and decisive action to deal with any incident of bullying which is witnessed by or reported to any member of staff. When a member of staff receives information, either directly or indirectly, that a child may have been the victim of a bullying incident, this report will be taken seriously and investigated. The school will offer a proactive, sympathetic and supportive response to children who are the victims of bullying. The exact nature of the response will be determined by the particular child's individual needs and may include:

immediate action to stop the incident and secure the child's safety
positive reinforcement that reporting the incident was the correct thing to do
reassurance that the victim is not responsible for the behaviour of the bully
strategies to prevent further incidents
sympathy and empathy
counselling
assertiveness training
extra supervision/monitoring
creation of a support group
peer mentoring
informing/involving parents
adult mediation between the perpetrator and the victim
arrangements to review progress

This will be followed up regularly to ensure that bullying has not resumed.

For the bully

The West Bridgford School takes bullying behaviour very seriously and will adopt a supportive, pragmatic, problem-solving approach to enable bullies to behave in a more acceptable way. Steps will be taken to change the attitude and behaviour of the bully, as well as ensuring access to any help that they may need. We will respond to incidents of bullying behaviour in a proportionate way – the more serious the cause for concern the more serious the response. When sanctions are felt to be necessary they will be applied consistently and fairly. These sanctions may include: detention, a period of time in the Isolation Room or fixed-term exclusion. In case of persistent bullying, the bully risks losing their place at the school.

Monitoring Arrangements

This policy will be evaluated every 3 years and updated where necessary. The views of pupils and staff will be used to make changes and improvements to the policy on an ongoing basis. A record of bullying incidents will be kept and analysed for patterns. This will also be used to ensure the policy is working.