Rating description:
- Fully met: The school uses a range of interventions to respond to bullying – including work with the wider peer group.
- Partially met: The school uses a range of interventions to respond to bullying – but does not work with the wider peer group. Or, the school only uses 2-3 interventions to respond to bullying.
- Not yet met: The school does not use a range of interventions to respond to bullying – and does not work with the wider peer group.
Tips:
- Reactive strategies deal with bullying situations when they have arisen and range from more punitive or sanction-based approaches, through to restorative practices, to more indirect and non-punitive approaches. Five main reactive strategies are: direct sanctions; restorative approaches; the support group method; Pikas method and school tribunals.
- Young people tell us they generally prefer non-sanction based approaches such as a restorative approach. They are clear that they want to challenge the underlying behaviour behind the incident.
- Young people we've consulted with also told us they:
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want to be fully involved in the development of the setting’s response
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were clear that rules and expectations should be set out for all
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like responses which are peer-orientated (including peer mentoring and peer mediation), which would help them build wider positive relationships
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advocate for support to be a key component of the bullying response both for those who had been bullied and those who were bullying
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- Here you can watch a video of young disabled people talking about responding to bullying: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_981-RchFU
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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 be fueling 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.
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The most important aspect of your response is securing the safety of those involved. It is then important to challenge the underlying behaviour of those involved in the incident and ensure it is constantly reviewed.
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ABA believes in a social model approach to responding to bullying
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You can access ABA's free online CPD training for professionals which has a module on responding to bullying
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It's important to examine why pupils bully others. See ABA's guide to supporting pupils who bully
Schools that took part in our programme said:
We have found that using restorative justice techniques has been very effective in reducing bullying behaviour - particularly by enabling pupils to understand each other's behaviour better and by providing pupils with the opportunity to find their own solutions to disagreements/differences of opinion.
Rather than looking for retribution for the bullied pupils we focused very much that the focus needed to be on the perpetrators and getting to the bottom of their behaviour. Rigorously pursuing the pupils parents paid dividends and in the long term has improved relations.
In this video Vale School, a Silver United Against Bullying School, talk about understanding bullying as a group behaviour, and putting it into practice when dealing with incidents of bullying.