Guru's Verification engine ensures consistency, confidence, and trust in the knowledge your organization shares. Learn more.

Anti Bullying Policy

image.png

SCHOOL AIMS:

  • To ensure a supportive, happy and secure environment for learning;
  • To encourage the physical and emotional wellbeing of each individual;
  • To ensure a community that values kindness, care, compassion, and empathy for others.

RATIONALE:

The health, safety, physical and emotional wellbeing of all students enrolled at Discovery Bay International School (DBIS) are of paramount importance. Safeguarding students is fundamental to each student's social, emotional, physical and mental development. Allegations and incidents of bullying are taken extremely seriously, and this policy will guide the investigation, identification, and next steps when addressing such allegations or behaviour.

PURPOSES:

  1. To take all reasonable steps to ensure that everyone in our school is aware of what constitutes bullying, and to assist everyone to understand their role and responsibilities concerning allegations and incidents of bullying in our school.
  2. To develop a school ethos in which bullying is regarded as unacceptable.
  3. To produce a consistent school response to any bullying incidents that may occur.
  4. To ensure all allegations and incidents of bullying are addressed on a case-by-case basis.
  5. This policy will guide appropriate responses to allegations and incidents of bullying within our school.


SCOPE OF THIS POLICY

  • This policy applies to all students, staff and members of our school community;
  • This policy covers bullying incidents that occur on school premises, outside of school, during school-related activities, and online/through digital communication;


DEFINING BULLYING

If your child experiences or perceives that they are experiencing bullying, they are requested to speak with their class teacher, form tutor or another trusted adult in school for assistance. If a disclosure is made to parents, they are requested to inform their child's class teacher or form tutor immediately, allowing the necessary internal processes to commence.

Bullying is defined as any unwanted, aggressive behaviour that involves a real or perceived power imbalance that occurs repeatedly towards the same student over a period of time by an individual or group.

Bullying behaviour can be:

  • Physical (e.g., hitting, kicking, pushing, damaging property);
  • Verbal (e.g., name-calling, teasing, threats);
  • Social/Relational (e.g., exclusion, spreading rumours, embarrassment);
  • Cyberbullying (e.g., online harassment, impersonation, sharing private information).


Bullying can have a serious and lasting impact on a student's wellbeing and academic performance. Bullying can occur during or outside of school hours, on school premises, outside of school and online.

Bullying is not:

  • Single episodes of social rejection or dislike;
  • Single episode acts of nastiness or spite;
  • Single episodes of unkind or hurtful behaviour which is motivated by prejudice or negative attitudes towards a protected characteristic, minority or vulnerable group;
  • Random acts of aggression or intimidation;
  • Mutual arguments, disagreements or fights.

GUIDELINES:

  1. It is the responsibility of all staff to implement the school anti-bullying practices as outlined in this policy and to ensure that all staff know how to deal with allegations and/or incidents of bullying;
  2. All staff members are required to take all allegations of bullying seriously and investigate allegations appropriately to ensure appropriate decisions that are guided by our policy;
  3. Any instance of bullying must be addressed immediately by following the steps included in this policy for handling allegations of bullying. These steps include the relevant personnel involved with investigating and dealing with allegations and incidents of bullying.
  4. Designated staff should keep parents informed of any information relevant to the investigation and resulting action that may be taken.


HANDLING ALLEGATIONS OF BULLYING

All students are encouraged to report allegations of bullying to a trusted adult. This may be (but is not limited to) their class teacher, tutor, Head of Year or Senior Leaders within the phase.

If staff receive an allegation of bullying, they should follow the steps below:

  1. Record the information
  2. If not already aware, inform the class teacher (EYFS & Primary), tutor (Secondary), Head of Year and a Senior Leader of the phase.
  3. The Head of Year and designated Senior Leader for the phase should then complete an investigation which will involve:
  4. Recording statements from the alleged victim;
  5. Recording statements from any alleged witnesses;
  6. Investigate the authenticity of any physical evidence;
  7. Investigate whether statements can be corroborated by other relevant parties;
  8. Where appropriate and when necessary, engage with the parents of the alleged victim(s) and perpetrator(s)
  9. Following an investigation, the Head of Year and Designated Senior Leader for the phase will decide if the allegations meet the criteria for bullying as outlined in our policy.
  10. If the allegations meet the criteria for bullying, this will be responded to according to Category 3 of the Character and Culture Policy [LINK].
  11. Appropriate staff will be designated to monitor allegations and incidents of bullying either to ensure bullying has ceased or that concerns are investigated further should more information be presented.
  12. Where possible and appropriate, the school will seek to take a restorative approach towards perpetrators of bullying to interrupt harmful behaviour norms and rehabilitate students who have been identified as perpetrators of bullying. Rehabilitation will be carefully monitored and reviewed by the Head of Year and designated members of the Senior Leadership Team.


*The process will be subjective to individual circumstances to ensure an appropriate response. As such, this policy is flexible, allowing all situations involving our students to be considered individually.

INVOLVEMENT AND EXPECTATIONS OF PARENTS

  • All responses to allegations and bullying incidents will be guided by our anti-bullying policy and Character and Culture Policy. Parents should expect the school to follow the protocol in this policy and allow the school time and space to conduct a thorough investigation.
  • Parents should not interfere or try to influence the outcome of an investigation and will be kept informed of the process by the Head of Year or a designated member of the Senior Leadership Team.
  • Parents should support the school in taking an objective approach to investigate and respect the need for allegations to be corroborated by evidence which may come from a variety of sources.
  • The school will not enforce consequences for students without evidence to support bullying claims.
  • Parents can expect the school to complete a full, unbiased investigation that focuses on facts and evidence while supporting the needs of all students involved in an investigation.
  • Where appropriate, the school will provide access to wellbeing services available to support students involved with an investigation of bullying.
  • Where bullying incidents have been verified, the school will follow the guidance in our Character and Culture policy with specific reference to Category 3.
  • The school will seek to protect all victims of bullying by taking steps that are relevant to each unique situation.
  • Parents will not attempt to communicate with families of victims/perpetrators without involvement and direction from the school. Parents should allow the school to lead investigations and initiate appropriate responses.


EDUCATION AND FUTURE LEARNING

Following an incident of bullying, consideration will be given to any specific amendments or additions to our Learning for Life or Learning Technologies curriculum to support learning and help prevent recurrences. Individual students would never be named or referred to as part of this process, and care would be taken to design lessons that promote positive outcomes and learning for all students. Education should intend to interrupt harmful behaviour norms and support students in learning about the impact of harmful behaviour and how to play a positive role in our society.

POLICY REVIEW

This policy will be reviewed annually to ensure it is fit for responding to allegations and bullying incidents.

This policy will also be reviewed as part of any serious case reviews to ensure the school can learn from situations that arise and ensure policies are effective in handling allegations and incidents of bullying.

LINKS

This policy should be read in conjunction with the policies linked below which support a positive and safe community for all students to learn in:

Child Protection Policy

Character and Culture Policy

Digital Safeguarding Policy

CONCLUSION:

We are committed to providing a safe physical and emotional environment for all students at DBIS. All reasonable steps must be taken to ensure that all students and staff members are aware of what constitutes bullying and the importance of addressing allegations and incidents of bullying. This policy guides all processes and decisions when dealing with allegations and incidents of bullying and is flexible enough to allow each case to be considered on an individual basis.

Created: 01.03.2008

Last Reviewed: 29.05.2024

Approved: 31.10.17

You must have Author or Collection Owner permission to create Guru Cards. Contact your team's Guru admins to use this template.