Anti-Bullying Alliance

Anti-bullying

We are delighted to have achieved the 'All Together Gold Award' in recognition of our dedication to developing and maintaining best practice in 'Anti-bullying', as advised by the Anti-Bullying Alliance and National Children's Bureau. Preventing and tackling bullying is an important focus in our school, especially given recent DfE guidance highlighting that 1/3 of all abuse suffered by children falls into the ‘peer on peer abuse’ category.

One of our key areas of work has been ensuring all staff and pupils understand what bullying is.

The nationally approved definition of bullying is comprised of 4 elements:

repeated over time
intentional
hurtful (physically or emotionally) and
involves an imbalance of power.

We have ensured that our reporting procedures are rigorous and discussed the importance of avoiding using language that labels children ie. victim or bully. We are all aiming for a school where bullying doesn't happen, but must also remember that bullying is a behaviour that can be changed.

Remember: ‘Bullying is NOT ok!’

As part of the award, all pupils completed a well-being survey at the start and end of the year, with our results showing that our children experience high levels of well-being, safety and happiness at our school.

Some examples were:

- 96% of children said they nearly always feel included by their peers at playtimes
- 95% of children said they were never picked on because they are different
- 98% of children said that they never say bad things about other children behind their backs

We then consulted with the children through our Smart class council to see how we could improve well-being to make the school an even calmer, safer and happier environment.

We responded to the children's ideas, and improvements included:

covering the fence next to Belmont Rec with 'leaves'
providing feelings boxes in key areas around the school
organising quieter spaces/clubs for playtimes
introducing yoga to the PE curriculum
holding an annual 'anti-bullying/inclusion' learning week & child-led friendship fair
attending Into Film festival screenings
designing whole school ‘inclusion’ displays to promote a celebration of diversity
eliminating supervision ‘blind spots’ in the playground
sharing tips for improving sleep at home.

To reinforce this work, the children also developed a child-friendly anti-bullying policy. This policy is endorsed by Stonewall and includes our pupils' thoughts and ideas and you can view a copy here.