• Bullying is unacceptable and will not be tolerated. 
• Bullying is not in keeping with the Christian Values of our school.
• Bullying is anti-social behaviour and affects everyone, children and adults
• Bullying is defined as deliberately hurtful behaviour towards an individual or group, repeated over a period of time, where it is difficult for those being bullied to defend themselves.
• Bullying can be physical (e.g. hitting, kicking, theft, damage to property).
• Bullying can be verbal (e.g. name calling, racist remarks, threats, nasty teasing).
• Bullying can be psychological (e.g. spreading rumours, excluding someone from social groups).
• Bullying can be cyber-bullying (e.g. using mobile phones and social media to spread rumours, unkind images or insults).
• Bullying can take many forms, including: racial, religion, cultural, SEN or disability, appearance and health, home circumstances, homophobic, bi-phobic, transphobic, sexual).
• Bullying is not confined to children and young people; we recognise adults and children can be both bully and victim.
• Bullying is not confined to the school site, and we take of equal importance any reported bullying outside the school day that affects any member of our school community.
• Bullying is not playground squabble, disagreements and conflicts; it is a repetitive, intentional hurtful behaviour focused on one individual or group.

Reporting and Recording Bullying

• Any child who feels bullied is encouraged to report to a trusted adult, or to one of the school’s Pupil Anti-Bullying Ambassadors who will then report it to a member of staff.
• Children are encouraged to ‘tell, tell and tell again’.
• Any parent who feels their child is being bullied is encouraged to report to the class teacher or a senior member of school staff.
• Adults who feel they are bullied are encouraged to report this to the headteacher, or if this is not possible to the lead governor for anti-bullying.
• All members of the school community are expected to report and must not ignore any bullying they have witnessed.
• All reported allegations of bullying will be recorded in the schools Bullying Log, together with any evidence of substantiation is available.
• The school will record actions taken and the outcomes of these actions.
• Allegations of bullying are reported termly to the Full Governing Body in anonymised form, through the headteacher’s report.
• Bullying incidents will be recorded in the school’s risk management strategy.
• Data related to bullying allegations will be reviewed termly by the headteacher, and annually by the Governor Safeguarding Committee.

 

Responding to Allegations

On receiving an allegation related to bullying, a senior member of staff will:

• Take accounts from all involved (victim, bully, bystander witnesses).
• Inform parents where there is substantiating evidence of bullying.
• Apply sanctions according to the severity of the bullying. 

In accordance with our Behaviour Policy, confirmed bullying is considered a more serious behaviour and therefore there are no warnings issued:

1. Loss of break times (in blocks of five minutes);
2. Removal of pupil from class/activity;
3. Formal letter home/meeting with parents;
4. Exclusions from areas (e.g. playground) or activities (e.g. clubs);
5. Lunchtime exclusion;
6. Fixed term exclusion;
7. Permanent exclusion.

In addition:

Bullies may be helped by:

• Opportunities to hear from the victim about how they felt;
• Close working with parents;
• Daily report card to modify behaviour;
• Referral is appropriate to other agencies (e.g. school nurse, family steps).

 

Victims may be helped by:

• Opportunities to tell the bully how they felt and why;
• Allocation of a named adult for them to confide in;
• The school pupils being informed of a bullying incident and explicitly told that bullying is unacceptable.