Anti-Bullying

A whole school approach to anti-bullying is cohesive, collective and collaborative action in and by a school community that has been strategically constructed with school leadership to reduce bullying and respond to it appropriately.

There is evidence that a ‘whole school approach’ (Cambridge Education, 2005) where the whole school community, including the pupils, teachers, support staff; parents and board of governors, are involved in confronting the issue of bullying is the most effective approach to tackling bullying in school.

The Dormston Schools takes all bullying very seriously. Our strategic whole school approach tackles bullying from many angles across the school and this includes:

senior leadership and pupil and parent voice thread throughout
a strong whole school anti-bullying policy underlying values and school ethos
cross curricular approach
training and staff development
prevention strategies
reporting and response strategies

Types of bullying and harassment

Everyone has the right to be themselves and feel safe – don’t give this power away to anyone or any group. Know what bullying is:

Verbal – Name calling, offensive language, racist comments, the use of put downs or insults, spreading malicious rumours, belittling others.

Indirect – Victimisation, stand-over tactics, threatening others, deliberate exclusion from activities, the setting up of humiliating experiences, offensive notes or material, graffiti, and so on.

Physical – Fighting, pushing, spitting, invasion of personal space, gestures, forcing people against their will. Inappropriate touching, invasion of personal space, destroying or damaging other people’s possessions.

We also make sure that any discrimination e.g racial, Homophobic/transphobic/biphobic or any sexist/disability issues are dealt with in the same consistent manner.

Please contact your child’s Head of House if you have any concerns regarding bullying

A whole school approach, along with school leadership, needs to be monitored and reviewed on a regular basis.

Parents/Carers can expect:

Parents/Carers may:

Pupils can expect:

to feel safe from persistent bullying during their time at Dormston School,
to be listened to by all teachers if they report incidents of bullying,
to receive information and advice during form time, Anti-Bullying Ambassadors, PSHE sessions and at other times,
appropriate action will be taken against those responsible for incidents of bullying.

Staff are expected to:

actively discourage all forms of bullying,
develop high quality resources on bullying for use in curriculum lessons,
treat information provided on any incident of bullying seriously and sympathetically,
initially adopt a problem solving approach when incidents are reported,
take appropriate action and/or provide information on incidents of bullying to their Head of House,
try to facilitate meetings between the 'victim' and the 'bully' if appropriate,
report incidents through the appropriate channels.

We have trained anti-bullying ambassadors from the Diana Award who meet regularly to discuss issues within our society and school that we need to deal with. We have also completed the Anti-Bullying Alliance “All Together” Programme which has highlighted what we do well as a school and our areas that we can and will improve.

The full policy is available on the school website under Our/School Policies. We also recommend that this policy is read in conjunction with the Behaviour Policy.