Ali Public School is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people, along with their protection and expects all staff and management to share this commitment.
Aims
A definition of bullying includes racial, special educational needs, cultural, sexual and disability.
To prevent bullying through the consistent application of a school policy to which all staff are committed.
Objectives
To understand behaviour that is recognised by both teachers and pupils as bullying.
To promote behaviour that gives everyone at Ali Public School the right to feel safe at all times and to provide an environment which is happy and secure.
To ensure that everyone at Ali Public School is aware that bullying is a serious offence, which can cause long term psychological damage, is unacceptable, and that it will not be tolerated by any member of the school community.
To provide teachers and pupils with strategies for dealing with all aspects of bullying and the prevention of bullying, whether they occur in their own class or at any other time.
To provide training for staff about bullying and its prevention. Each year the staff is invited to update the whole school policy and review procedure.
What Is Bullying?
- Bullying is behaviour that deliberately intends to harm others by physical, verbal, emotional or psychological means.
- Any behaviour, which uses the illegitimate use of power over another, is bullying behaviour.
- Bullying may vary depending on who the bully is, who the victim is and the context of the situation.
- Bullying may take place as an isolated incident or may be persistent.
- Bullying may be the act of individuals or members of a group. Bullies in a group can be particularly difficult to deal with, but it is important to remember that groups are made up of individuals.
- Victims of bullying may be vulnerable, but their vulnerability may not be visible to adults. The victim may look like any other child.
Recognising Bullies
Bullies are not always easily recognised, however, bullies can be the kind of pupils who are:
- Academically achieving less/achieving as well as – if not better – than their peers.
- Unpopular or insecure/quite secure and happy.
Bullies may also be victims, but this is less common.
- Bullies tend to have assertive, aggressive attitudes over which they have little control
- Bullies tend to lack empathy; they cannot imagine what the victim feels
- Bullies tend to lack guilt; they rationalise that the victim somehow ‘deserves’ the bullying treatment.
Staff must consider what witnesses to bullying perceive, if no action is taken and how they will define what is acceptable at school?
Silence And Secrecy
Bullying usually takes place in ‘secret’ locations of the school, areas that are lightly supervised. However, bullying is not necessarily kept secret from other pupils. The reaction of witnesses is a vital one. Witnesses must be encouraged to tell what they know or see. Silence and secrecy undermine the power of the school and affirm the power of the bully.
Sanctions
In the case of persistent and unreasonable bullying and behaviour including psychological bullying the Principal or Headmistress, may, in his/her discretion, require you to remove or may suspend or expel your child from the School if he/she considers that your child’s attendance, progress or behaviour (including behaviour outside school) is seriously unsatisfactory and in the reasonable opinion of the Principal or Headmistress the removal is in the School’s best interests or those of your child or other children. All aspects of the pupil’s record at the School may be taken into account.
The Principal or Headmistress, may, in his/her discretion require you to remove or may suspend or expel your child if the behaviour of you or either of you is, in the opinion of the Principal or Headmistress, unreasonable and affects or is likely to affect adversely the child’s or other children’s progress at the School or the well-being of School staff or to bring the School into disrepute.
(See also Policy Statement for Behaviour, Discipline and Exclusions)