Anti-Bullying

What is bullying? 

Bullying is an ongoing and sustained behaviour directed towards others with the intent to cause upset or to intimidate. In its extreme, it is repeated and persistent abuse, physical or psychological, carried out over time by individuals or groups on those who are not equipped to deal with it.

Bullying causes misery, fear, stress and insecurity to the victim and is unacceptable behaviour in our school community. 

It is important to recognise that there is a distinction between bullying and the more commonplace arguments between children or friendship issues. Bullying differs from teasing/falling out when there is a deliberate intention to hurt or humiliate, there is a power imbalance that makes it hard for the victim to defend themselves, it is usually persistent. 

Occasionally an incident may be deemed to be bullying even if the behaviour has not been repeated or persistent – or it fulfils all other descriptions of bullying. This possibility should be considered, particularly in cases of sexual, sexist, racist or homophobic bullying when children with disabilities are involved. If the victim might be in danger, then the intervention is urgently required.

The bullying can be:

• Physical – kicking, hitting, pushing, tripping up taking your things, or it can be
• Verbal – name calling, threats, nasty personal remarks, spreading rumours, writing graffiti, or written messages, or it can happen
• Via your mobile phone or computer – texts, e mails, Facebook etc, or it can be by
• Ignoring you – and deliberately not allowing you to join in with a group or activity.

Working together

All Barnsbury staff are committed to a ‘no tolerance’ of bullying and to help the children to make good life choices though our values and skills based curriculum. With parents and teachers working together to help reinforce the values and promote key life skills with children managing their feelings, we can help to stop bullying before it begins. It is also important to unpick the word bullying with children, establishing that it is something done with intent and is not accidental.

Values

The school values lie at the heart of Barnsbury. We celebrate our different values each month and encourage the children to reflect upon the meaning of each value and demonstrate these values with each other. With support from home they can help to raise children’s awareness and understanding of what is right and wrong and how they can deal with difficult situations that they may face.

As part of our skills based curriculum we encourage children to be ‘emotional managers’ by developing self awareness, managing feelings and understanding the feelings of others.

Communication

If you are worried that your child may be being bullied or may be involved in bullying in some way contact your class teacher immediately. The very nature of bullying is that it happens secretively, deliberately away from the parents and teachers view. The sooner the teacher becomes aware of the problem; the sooner they can begin to resolve it. It may be easily fixed or it may be a longer process that involves other members of staff and other parents, to support all of the children that may be involved to stop the problem. At the same time if your child’s teacher is aware of a bullying problem that you may not be they will contact you, so that we can work together with the children to deal with the problems.

Further information

If you would like any support in dealing with any issues, please contact the school office. 

Further information can be found here, within our: Positive Behaviour Policy  

What to do if your child tells you they are being bullied or demonstrating bullying behaviours or attitudes

Useful websites 

www.beatbullying.org

www.anti-bullyingalliance.org.uk