Creating a Safe School Environment: Anti-Bullying Strategies
11/01/2024
As Anti-Bullying Week approaches, it’s important to make our schools safe and supportive for all students. At Zurich Insurance, we know how crucial it is to protect young people's well-being, both in their learning and overall growth. Here’s a simple guide on creating a bully-free school with effective strategies.
Understanding Bullying
Bullying can be physical, verbal, emotional, or online (cyberbullying). It can seriously hurt a child's feelings and mental health, leading to anxiety, depression, and poor school performance. It's important to spot and stop bullying quickly.
What is Bullying Behaviour?
Bullying behaviour can make people feel hurt, threatened, frightened, and left out. It can be verbal, physical, emotional, or online and unwanted. The behaviour may be intentional or unintentional, can cause physical or emotional harm, and may be repeated or be a one-time incident. Bullying is a combination of behaviours and the impact they have. It can include:
Physical:
Hitting, kicking, pushing, or taking or damaging someone else’s property.
Verbal:
Spreading rumours, name-calling, teasing, or talking about people.
Emotional:
Excluding someone from the group, embarrassing someone, or making them feel bad for being different.
Cyber:
Cyberbullying happens when technology is used to send messages, texts, or images that hurt, humiliate, intimidate, or embarrass others. It involves the same behaviours as other bullying but takes place on social networking sites, in chatrooms, during gaming, or on instant messaging platforms. The impact of cyberbullying is as hurtful and damaging as other forms of bullying behaviour. Some online behaviour is illegal. If someone sends, posts, or forwards indecent, racist, sectarian, threatening, or inflammatory comments or photographs, they may be committing a crime and could be prosecuted.
Prejudice-based Bullying:
Bullying behaviour can be driven by prejudice and may be based on differences like race, religion, nationality, culture, gender, sexual identity, disability, additional support needs, young carers, care circumstances, appearance, health/medical conditions, or economic factors.
What Teachers Can Do
Regular Staff Training:
Regular training for staff is essential to raise awareness and ensure they know how to recognise, respond to, and take appropriate action against bullying behaviour. This includes cyberbullying, which often involves the same behaviours as other forms of bullying but occurs online.
Curriculum Integration:
Teachers should plan lessons that help young people develop good relationships, build resilience, and gain life skills. This includes fostering self-awareness, awareness of others, taking responsibility, and problem-solving.
Awareness of Policies:
Schools must make sure all students know about the anti-bullying strategy and their own school policy. This is important for prevention and effective intervention.
Proactive Approaches:
Using proactive methods like Restorative Approaches and Solution-Focused Approaches can help create a culture aimed at preventing bullying. These methods encourage positive behaviour and conflict resolution.
Clear Communication:
There should be clear communication about acceptable behaviour standards for everyone. This should reinforce the school's values and aims related to anti-bullying.
What Parents Can Do
Parents of Kids Engaged in Bullying
Stop Bullying Before It Starts:
Teach your children about bullying. Sometimes kids don't realise their behaviour is hurtful. Remind your child that bullying others can have serious consequences.
Make Your Home Bully-Free:
Children learn behaviour from their parents. If kids see aggressive behaviour at home, they're more likely to bully at school. Model positive behaviour in your relationships with others and with your child.
Look for Self-Esteem Issues:
Children with low self-esteem or self-worth often bully others to make themselves feel better.
Set Online boundaries:
Educate your children about cyberbullying and teach them about conduct online. “Friend” your child on social media and set up proper filters on their computer. Make the family computer the only computer for children and keep it in a public place in the home.
Parents of Kids Being Bullied
Look out for signs of being bullied:
Children may not always talk about being bullied. Look for signs like ripped clothing, hesitation about going to school, decreased appetite, nightmares, crying, or general depression and anxiety.
Have open conversations:
If you discover your child is being bullied, don’t tell them to “let it go” or “suck it up.” Instead, have open conversations to understand what’s happening at school and take steps to help. Let your child know you will support them and advise them not to fight back.
Teach Your Child How to Handle Being Bullied:
Until the school can intervene, help your child handle bullying without feeling defeated. Act out scenarios at home where your child learns how to ignore a bully or develop assertive strategies. Help them identify teachers and friends who can support them.
Set Technology Rules:
Teach your kids about cyberbullying and tell them not to reply to threatening emails. Add your child as a friend on social media and use filters on their computer. Have phones stored in a public area, like the kitchen, by a certain time each night to stop night time bullying. Make sure these rules don't feel like a punishment, as your child has done nothing wrong.
Report bullying:
If you suspect bullying is taking place, talk to the school and follow up with a letter if needed. Report all types of threatening messages and activities, as well as when and where they took place.
What Pupils Can Do
Speak Up:
If you see someone being bullied or if you are being bullied, tell a teacher, parent, or another trusted adult. Don’t be afraid to speak up; it’s the first step to stopping bullying.
Support Your Peers:
Stand up for your classmates who are being bullied. Sometimes, just being a friend can make a huge difference. Don’t join in on bullying, even if others are doing it.
Be Kind:
Always try to be kind to others. Small acts of kindness can go a long way in creating a positive school environment. Remember, everyone is different, and that’s okay.
Downloadable Resources
To help schools fight bullying, Zurich Insurance offers a variety of printable posters, to display around your school, to remind students to be kind and respectful. These visual reminders promote a bully-free environment.
Creating a safe school environment is a team effort. By using these anti-bullying strategies and resources, schools can build a culture of respect, kindness, and inclusion. At Zurich Insurance, we’re dedicated to helping schools provide a safe and nurturing environment for all students. Let’s make Anti-Bullying Week a step towards a brighter, bully-free future for our children.
Bullying Beyond Childhood
Remember, bullying isn’t just a problem for kids. Many adults, including teachers, experience bullying at work. Workplace bullying can seriously affect mental health and job performance. Creating a supportive and respectful environment is important at all levels, whether in schools or workplaces. Just as we work to protect children from bullying, we must also ensure that adults have the resources and support they need to address and prevent bullying.
Together, we can create a safer, more inclusive environment for everyone.
