5.5) Our school seeks to learn from each incident and, where necessary, improve practice.

Rating description:

  • Fully met: Our school utilises data captured in reporting and recording to learn from each incident and, where necessary, improve practice as a whole school and update policies accordingly. There are regular meetings (e.g. termly) to discuss trends identified by the reporting recording system and take appropriate action. 
  • Partially met: Our school seeks to learn from each incident but there is not a process in place to do this, and/ or data captured in reporting and recording isn’t always used to update policies, and there are no regular meetings to discuss trends identified.
  • Not yet met: Our school does not seek to learn from each incident, and there is no process to use data from reporting and recording to update policies. 

Why is this important?

Bullying incidents rarely occur in isolation—they are often reflective of broader group behaviours and can be exacerbated by the school environment. For example, is there an area of the playground which is unsupervised? Is there a lack of understanding around the use of disablist language which is causing it to be used? 

Therefore, it is crucial for schools to learn from each incident and identify opportunities for improvement. Reflecting on these incidents helps to uncover underlying issues, such as problematic areas in the school or gaps in staff training. This is especially important when addressing discriminatory language, which must be actively challenged in line with the Public Sector Equality Duty of the Equality Act 2010. By learning from each case, the school can make necessary changes, enhance its practices, and foster a safer, more inclusive environment for all pupils.

Top Tips:

  • Include a prompt or reminder to reflect on wider school practice within bullying recording forms to encourage staff to do so. 
  • Schedule opportunities to discuss and reflect on learnings from reported bullying within staff meetings - you could add a termly or half-termly item to your regular meeting agendas. Ask your nominated anti-bullying lead governor to do the same at governors meetings. 

Resources & Examples: 

Resources

  • Step 3 of our 3-step response to bullying framework focuses on whole-school learning and practice improvement, and can help you develop a consistent, reflective and more effective approach to responding to bullying.
  • ABA have free CPD online training for professionals available which includes a module on responding to bullying, as well as many other topics schools may feel their staff could benefit from. 

Examples

Please note that examples from primary and other school settings may still include some useful hints and tips you can adapt and apply for a secondary setting.

See below for quotes and pieces of advice from other schools: 

  • "Following each incident of bullying, a post anti bullying action plan is created which looks at the individual incidents of bullying to highlight what has happened, where things escalated and how things can be prevented in the future. This is then cascaded to staff and actions acted upon."
  • “A big driver for our curriculum actually came from the children, and them saying that ‘British Values’ is not good enough. We shouldn't be tolerating each other. We should be valuing each other. We should be celebrating each other.” 
  • "We have recently seen an increase in the number of incidents happening either online or through mobile phones outside of school time. This has led to a change in our approach in school, whereby we have begun giving cyber-bullying training earlier in the year groups. We have also increased the number of whole-school assemblies taking place which cover the issues mentioned above. Workshops have taken place in years 5 & 6 to focus on the safe and responsible use of technology."

Back to 5. Responding and intervention page

Note: the resources listed at the bottom of this page (below) have all been referenced in the text above.