Poll question
| Woodlands Primary School, Cumbernauld |
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Woodlands Primary School, Cumbernauld Background Gillian Purves, the Acting Head Teacher of Woodlands Primary School was inspired to contact respectme after she read the media coverage of our launch event in March 2007. She was also attracted to the name respectme as it tied in with the work she was progressing in the school. Woodlands Primary had spent the last year focusing on improving positive peer relationships in the school, devising whole school strategies for promoting positive behaviour and focusing on ‘respect'. The school had decided to tackle bullying through preventative messages, implicit through its respect and positive relationships strategies. There is an anti-bullying policy and procedures for dealing with incidents or alleged incidents of bullying but the prevention message was important. respectme will be working alongside Woodlands Primary School throughout the coming year to:
Woodlands Primary staff and pupils have kindly agreed to provide respectme with regular updates on how successful the new strategies are and how the school community are receiving them. Ms Purves has also developed a blog which will reflect the processes the school goes through in the coming year. The respectme team visited the school to speak with pupils, parents, support staff and teachers. We gained quite an insight into how people feel about bullying in their school and how the new strategies are working. PUPILS We spoke with pupils from primaries 3, 4, 5 and 6. All the pupils could tell stories about bullying that they had seen or experienced in the school but all were very positive and didn't think that the bullying situation in Woodlands was any worse than in any other school. It was very encouraging to hear that all of the pupils, without exception, could identify the strategies that had been introduced by the school. Even more impressive was the fact that the pupils could see the relationship between the strategies, improved relationships and how this impacted upon bullying. The pupils felt that in the school "all the pupils try to help other people". The older pupils reported that the teachers expected them to be role-models both to other pupils in the class and to younger pupils in the school. Knowledge about what is and what is not bullying was mixed. Some pupils felt that they could distinguish what constituted bullying but some seemed to regard all types of ‘rough play' as bullying. Most of the pupils understood that bullying involved some imbalance of power and many could identify that bullies select people that they think are ‘weaker' than they are to pick on. Pupils of all ages could identify the different forms that bullying can take (physical, verbal etc). The older pupils could also distinguish different motivators of bullying and gave clear examples of when adults have defined certain behaviour as ‘racist bullying'. They showed a clear understanding of what this was. So what happens at Woodlands Primary when the pupils tell an adult that they are being bullied? All pupils could easily identify an adult within the school that they would be happy to report bullying to. This would ordinarily be a teacher or the headteacher but they did seem to be comfortable with the idea of telling a ‘helper' (any other non-teaching member of staff). The pupils seemed to feel that the ‘helpers' can see bullying as they are in the playground and dining room etc, so they don't have to ‘report' it to them. The pupils report that there is "always" something done about bullying. They could retell the list of sanctions that maybe placed upon bullies (lose golden time or headteacher's treat etc). When asked what the school could do to reduce bullying the pupils suggested that there could be more helpers in the playground because they felt "safe" when there were more adults around. NON-TEACHING STAFF We also spoke with some non-teaching staff - classroom assistants from across the whole school. The staff were very knowledgeable about the new strategies that had been put in place. They also reported feeling well consulted on the introduction of the new strategies and very able to implement them. The support staff identified a high level of consistency throughout all of the staff in delivery of the strategies. The support staff at Woodlands Primary were particularly keen on the buddy system which they would like to see extended into peer mentoring and the restorative practices. During playtimes and lunchtimes the school helpers said that they do see bullying happening in the school but that they are confident in intervening, though different tactics are needed depending on the age of the pupils involved. The reliability of helpers intervening was echoed by pupils who stated that if you wanted things sorted out immediately then go to the helpers. The staff stressed that they would ensure that all pupils involved in any altercation or bullying incident would be allowed to have their say. Organised playground games were felt to increase inclusion and reduce negative behaviour. Support staff were also very keen to access any training on bullying in general and would be very interested in specialised training for classroom assistants, if offered. PARENTS Woodlands Primary School seems to be very successful in communicating the new strategies for tackling bullying to parents, according to the mothers that the respectme team spoke with. Both parents said that they were finding that the Head Teacher's Treat in particular was extremely positive with their children and was often discussed at home. The parents seemed impressed that the strategies were applied very consistently and appeared to pupils to be very fair. When questioned, the parents felt that they knew about the strategies but were less sure if parents knew enough to be able to mirror the strategies at home. TEACHERS & HEAD TEACHER The teachers that the respectme team spoke with confirmed that the new strategies did seem to be inspiring the children and although it is too early to evaluate - there did seem to be a positive impact upon behaviour and peer relationships. The infant school teacher stated that often the children in her class would feel like they were involved in bullying but that it is often due to a lack of understanding about negotiation etc. She also stated that the children feel reluctant to actually use the word ‘bullying' as it seems to carry weight and would make a situation very serious. The Head Teacher is currently developing plans for consulting with the wider school community during next session in order to fully inform the policy review. In response to the suggestion that parents may benefit from further ‘instruction' on the new positive strategies and how these can be developed for home, Miss Purves outlined plans for parents evenings, training sessions and involvement from the Education Psychologist. |