Rating description:
- Fully met: Our policy includes a range of strategies we implement to prevent and respond to different types of bullying, including bullying that happens outside of school, such as online, on home-to-school transport and at after-school clubs. It also includes a range of methods (accounting for different communication needs) by which pupils and parents can report bullying (including a named contact).
- Partially met: Our policy includes some prevention and/or response strategies, but doesn’t include bullying that happens outside school, and/or it includes minimal reporting methods.
- Not yet met: Our policy does not include prevention or response strategies, nor does it include reporting methods.
Why is this important?
An effective anti-bullying policy must not only outline how bullying is addressed but also include clear strategies for its prevention. By incorporating proactive measures, such as fostering a positive school culture and educating pupils on respectful relationships, the policy helps to reduce the likelihood of bullying occurring. Setting out typical response strategies, including those for online bullying and incidents on home-to-school transport, ensures that all members of the school community understand how concerns will be handled.
Providing a range of accessible reporting methods for pupils and parents ensures that concerns about bullying can be raised in a way that feels safe and comfortable for everyone. Multiple reporting options, including a named contact, help to remove barriers to disclosure, ensuring that incidents are identified and addressed promptly.
Bullying can extend beyond the school gates, including online and during journeys to and from school, and it is essential that the policy outlines how such incidents will be prevented and addressed. Through Section 89 clause 5 of the Education and Inspections Act 2006, schools have the power to take action against bullying that occurs outside school premises or beyond the school day when it affects pupils’ well-being or disrupts the school environment. By explicitly referencing this, the policy reinforces the school’s commitment to safeguarding pupils in all aspects of their lives.
Top Tips:
- There is no one-size fits all approach to preventing and responding to bullying. So one response appropriate for one person/group won't be the same for the next, which is why it's important to have a range of responses and prevention strategies available for you.
- Agree as a school community on how you can best respond to bullying incidents. Ultimately you all agree that you want the bullying to stop so how can you make sure that happens. Think about the different factors that might fuel bullying behaviour. How can you make sure that the pupil/s displaying bullying behaviour stop – and change in the long term. What additional support might those that have experienced bullying, and those that have bullied need? Remember bullying can have a significant impact on mental health so the goal must always be to nip it in the bud and to make sure the right support is in place.
- The ability to report and record incidents of bullying behaviour is a crucial part of any anti-bullying strategy. Schools and other settings need to encourage and make it as easy as possible for children and young people to report bullying incidents.
- Having a ‘one size fits all’ approach to reporting bullying is unhelpful when supporting children and young people who experience bullying behaviour. Therefore having a range of reporting mechanisms is important.
- Be clear about your powers to intervene in both bullying in the community and bullying online.
- Include circumstances like cyberbullying (online bullying), home to school transport and clear expectations in your anti-bullying policies and procedures.
Resources and examples:
Resources:
- Please visit the ABA website sections on preventing and on responding to bullying. We also have online CPD training courses which UAB Schools can access at a discounted rate (please contact us).
- Please familiarise yourself with the guidance from the Department for Education: The use and effectiveness of anti-bullying strategies in schools. See also the Preventing and Tackling Bullying guidance from DfE about schools' duties to tackle bullying outside of school.
- The ABA have created a useful guide on a whole school approach to writing or refreshing your anti-bullying policy.
- The ABA have also created a 3-Step Response to Bullying framework which outlines a recommended approach of how to respond to bullying.
- Please also see the ABA's guide on supporting pupils who bully others.
- You can read here the statement from the Department for Education in regards to bullying outside the school premises.
- More detailed advice on teachers’ powers to discipline, including their power to punish pupils for misbehaviour that occurs outside school, is included in Behaviour and discipline in schools – advice for headteachers and school staff.
- See the Safe To Learn resource about bullying on school transport to help you with this issue.
- Visit the ABA website section on preventing and responding to cyberbullying, which has many resources to support you.
- Find out more about Cyberbullying guidance for schools from Childnet.
- The South West Grid for Learning (SWGfL) has a helpful online safety self-review tool as well as social media safety checklists.
Examples:
- Primary School Case Study - on renewing the anti-bullying policy with effective strategies to tackle bullying.
- Secondary School Case Study - on putting in place prevention strategies for online bullying.
- Primary School Case Study - on addressing bullying on home to school transport.
- Primary School Case Study - on addressing a bullying incident that happened during half term
- Watch the below video from a United Against Bullying School who changed their policy to ensure anti-bullying is embedded in the school's culture.
See below for quotes and pieces of advice from other schools:
- "These are constantly reiterated to pupils through circle time, peer mediators, school council drop ins, anti bullying week assemblies etc."
- "The policy has a complete section on prevention, including broad preventative strategies such as the importance of recognising that preventing bullying is everyone's responsibility, that all staff are encouraged to build rapport with students so that they feel valued and able to share if if they are being bullied. It also includes specific details of strategies in place to prevent bullying, such as the anti-bullying ambassadors and their work, having anti-bullying focus weeks, having Diversity ambassadors and a PRIDE group to create better awareness for students about difference. The policy also includes how bullying is to be reported in the academy, by students and parents both in and out of the academy."
- "Policy updates includes community responsibility reference and confirms the fact that school will hold students accountable for poor behaviour in the local community on the way to and from school as well as students online and electronic activities."
Note: the resources listed at the bottom of this page have all been referenced and linked above.