Anti Bullying

Anti-Bullying

Woden Primary School is made up of a diverse community of children, staff, parents and carers. Each individual’s behaviour and attitude influences and affects the other members of this community. Our aim is to be a ‘Bully-free zone’.

Anti-bullying policy

What is bullying?

To support the children’s understanding we define bullying as any behaviour that is intended to hurt and happens: Several Times On Purpose (STOP).

To help us stop bullying we need to: Start Telling Other People (STOP).
For the adults determining whether an incident is bullying we check to see if the behaviour is: Repetitive, Hurtful, Intentional and whether there has been a Power Imbalance.

Types of bullying

Bullying can be:

Physical – hitting, kicking, biting; made to give up money or property; being forced to do something they don’t want to do.

Verbal – being teased in a nasty way, called gay, insulted about appearance, race, religion or culture, called names or having offensive comments made.

Emotional /Indirect – having nasty stories told about them; being left out, ignored or excluded from groups.

Electronic / ‘cyberbullying’ – via text message; via instant messenger services, gaming and social media network sites; via email; images or videos posted on the internet or spread via mobile phones or other electronic devices.

It is important to understand that there will be occasions when some of the above may happen to us but although this is not appropriate behaviour – it is not bullying unless it happens ‘Several Times On Purpose’.

Prevention

The ethos of our school is to be a kind, caring and respectful community so everybody can be happy and learn to the best of their ability. We have a shared understanding of the signs and symptoms that indicate someone may be experiencing bullying and a zero tolerance for offensive language or comments. There is clear guidance for staff and pupils on appropriate physical boundaries and age-appropriate education for all the children on consensual touch. We have peer mentors and created a safe space for children who may feel lonely or isolated if needed. We also use external support agencies e.g. Outreach, Inclusion Support, NSPCC and Childline where necessary.

Inclusion and bullying issues and celebrating differences are promoted in:
*Our choice of whole class texts in our English curriculum and Religious Education lessons
* Our Jigsaw PSHE lessons
* Our school assemblies
* Our school displays

Here are some of the posters we created on Anti-Bullying Day…..

Response

We all have a role to play in responding to a bullying situation. This includes the bystander who needs to take positive action to show that they are not in support of the bullying behaviour e.g. by alerting an adult and leading the person experiencing bullying to a safe place. We have created safe, confidential ways for children and parents to share their experiences and concerns with a focus on the impact the behaviour is having and the help they need from the school to make the bullying stop. We have Class Dojo, which is used by both parents and children to share concerns with class
teachers, ‘Worry boxes’ in the classrooms and a ‘Worry Button’ to share concerns on our website. Our online worry box can be found here: https://www.wodenprimary.org/safeguarding/are-you-worried/ If staff become aware of any bullying taking place between the children, we deal with the issue immediately using our school’s restorative approach, examples of the questions are below.
The incident, concerns and actions will then be reported on CPOMs. We will share our concerns with parents and carers by having a discussion with them either face to face, online or on the phone.
If a child is repeatedly involved in bullying, we inform Phase leaders and the safeguarding and Attendance Leader. We then invite the child’s parents into school to discuss the situation. If children are being harmed or threatened with harm then small group, supportive playtimes are used so that a child can learn how to behave with other children in a social situation.

In more extreme cases, where all in school support has proven ineffective, we will contact external support agencies such as Outreach.

Bullying rarely takes place in isolation and there are regular times in our PSHE sessions and during our assemblies when work and discussion happens with a wider group of children