Review and improve
reward schools have a process for continual improvement which involves the whole school community.
Improvement includes:
Consultation and involvement: Pupils, parents and carers’ views are regularly sought to improve anti-bullying practices. Pupil voice groups are often involved in consulting others, for example, developing surveys for other pupils or parents and carers. Children and young people are given a role as leaders of change. Child-friendly policies and improvement plans are developed.
We do regular formative surveys where we look at the statistics from pupils’ responses of different areas and compare them to when we started our work a few years ago. We also carry out focus groups to receive the opinions of pupils and parents and discuss how we can make progress with eradicating bullying as much as possible.
Case study: Moffat Academy
The school hosts Dine and Democracy sessions where year groups come together to look at policy or a burning issue for the school and discuss it over a breakfast supported by staff. They have found this an effective platform to use for pupils to make positive change and have their views taken seriously.
The school sees communication with parents as a strength. Building positive relationships helps staff and families to work together to address any concerns. Parents and carers have a voice and their contributions support improvements. The school finds ways to seek their views throughout the year through school improvement planning meetings, focus groups and surveys.
Staff track wellbeing and review the data regularly to identify any patterns or dips in year groups so they can make improvements. They also analyse the data from recording bullying incidents and attendance data. This gives a clear picture of any rising issues or trends and allows the school to intervene, adapt inputs or courses and create staff training, based on particular areas being identified.
Evaluation: Schools evaluate anti-bullying inputs using reflective practice and feedback from consultations to continually developing their offer. Analysis of the recording of bullying incidents has led to the development of bespoke programmes of support. Curriculum planning ensures that anti-bullying practices are embedded appropriately. For some schools, anti-bullying is a permanent agenda item at senior leadership team meetings.
Continual reflection of our practice is another key factor in preventing bullying. This allows us to ensure that our anti-bullying policy is a live document which can be adapted as the issues facing our young people change. This helps to ensure that the needs of all young people are met.
Staff development: School staff engage in a range of training that builds their skills and confidence in supporting young people. The respectme e-learning is the go-to place for specific anti-bullying training. Training in related areas is also common, for example in nurturing principles, attachment and adverse childhood experiences (ACES).
In-service days include facilities staff and support staff to ensure we are all using a common language and approach. The staff also participate in respectme training over the year and local authority training including attachment and promoting positive relationships and understanding distressed behaviour.
