Agenda item

The report provides the committee with a background to anti-bullying activity in Medway and nationally and provides detail of the work carried out by the countering bullying task group.

There will be various external organisations at the meeting to contribute to the debate on countering bullying. 

Discussion:

The Chairman welcomed everyone present to the meeting and officers introduced the report, summarising its content and the findings of the Countering Bullying Task Group.

Representatives from the following groups then gave a brief introduction about their organisation and its role in relation to countering bullying: -

·        Beatbullying – carry out campaigning work and work predominantly with schools and in youth settings, do lots of peer mentoring courses including cyber mentoring;

·        Bigfoot Education Arts – provide drama workshops to primary and secondary schools, helping students to understand different types of bullying and to have empathy for both the victims and the bullies;

·        JustDifferent – talk to children and young people about disability and focus on the positives of being different;

·        Local Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs) based at schools and colleges – work closely with school Family Liaison Officers (FLO), Student Advocates, Peer Mentors and other colleagues that can provide support and advice.  Where schools use the School Information Management System (SIMS) incidents are recorded on this;

·        Medway Mediation Service – train young people to be mediators which proves very empowering for young people and teaches them to be empathetic, take responsibility for their actions and find resolutions.  In addition it provides restorative justice conferencing, which is a powerful tool in bringing together the victim and bully in order to understand the hurt caused and provide closure to the issue;

·        Show Racism the Red Card – provide advice in primary and secondary schools through workshops or physical activity sessions, such as football to educate students in understanding what racism is and why it is wrong.  The charity also provides teacher-training events to empower teachers to engage in racism issues;

·        Glencoe Junior School – The school’s anti-bullying lead explained that when she arrived at the school it had some challenges with bullying.  She became the anti-bullying lead and ran the school’s council, which provides various assemblies relating to racism, children’s rights and all types of bullying which empower other students.  There were various ways in which children could report problems, such as approaching the anti-bullying lead or FLO or using a post box in the school or sending an email.  She added that parents were very confident to speak to staff about incidents and in the school’s ethos and procedures in addressing bullying.  Some pupils of Glencoe added that bullies need to be shown the pain they cause victims and understand the consequences.  The whole school community need to learn and understand body language and to listen;

·        Sir Joseph Williamson Mathematic School – a student gave his view that culture in a school was key in tackling bullying.  He felt there was not a significant problem with bullying in his school because of its strong culture of addressing issues and strong discipline;

·        Medway Youth Parliament – A representative raised concern about cyber-bullying, particularly in relation to a new application on facebook called ‘formspring’, which enabled users to leave anonymous comments.  She also suggested that many young people were unsure of where to go for help and advice on specific bullying, for example, homophobic;

·        Place2Be – currently based in some primary schools providing a therapeutic and counselling service for children.  They look beyond the behaviour as often bullies are also victims in one way or another and often have self-esteem issues.  It was hoped this service would be expanded into other schools including secondary schools, as often some year 7 children experienced issues following the transition from primary school.

The Members of the Countering Bullying Task Group then fed back to the Committee their findings.  They commented that Glencoe Junior School was an example of best practice as they had faced the problem of bullying and embedded a culture of respect, sharing problems and listening, as well as supporting students and the Members encouraged other schools to follow its example.  They added that School Governors needed to be fully aware and supportive of their school’s anti-bullying policy

Members then asked a number of questions to officers and external representatives, which included: -

·        JustDifferent, do you provide support in mainstream schools?

Yes, to help children and young people respect those that appear different.  Sometimes the reception at the beginning of a visit can be difficult but once a dialogue has been established some good questions are asked by students.

·        Show Racism the Red Card, can you expand on how you educate ignorance?

Racism comes through ignorance, which is often borne from lack of experience of diversity.  We help children and young people to delve under the stereotypes of racism and be critical.  Football is one engagement vehicle we use with ex-professional footballers, in order to gain a captive audience to then give the message.  Other celebrities were also involved.

·        What would be good and effective ways of communicating with young people and sign-posting to various organisations?

A PCSO explained that leaflets or contact cards would be thrown away and not used and suggested communication through posters, downloads and bluetooth were more effective in reaching young people with information.  In addition, the Director of Children and Adult Services also explained that what ever communication methods were used, they needed to be affordable and sustainable in order for them to continue to be provided and used for generations of children and young people to come.

·        Are we working well with GPs to pick up on possible issues relating to bullying or other emotional wellbeing difficulties?

Medway Mediation explained that they did receive a fairly large number of referrals from GPs to their service.  In addition, the Director of Children and Adult Services explained that GPs would be becoming more involved with commissioning of services and a GP representative also sat on the Medway Safeguarding Children Board so undertook to feedback the importance of GP referrals and sign-posting where it is felt incidents of bullying may be occurring.

·        Do Youth Workers also feed back to schools etc if there are bullying concerns?

The Assistant Director, Inclusion explained that Youth Workers provide safeguarding supports and were beginning to work in schools to enable more opportunities for sharing information with schools and vice versa.

·        Is it possible to record whether young people who have experienced bullying incidents feel their issue was resolved?

Officers confirmed that schools were asked for this information as part of the statistics the Council tried to collect from schools, however, many young people who are approached for feedback after an incident do not want to discuss the past event so getting their views was difficult.  Officers were currently asking school councils to consider ways of doing this differently to achieve more information on what works well.

·        How can we intervene and provide support early enough to avoid issues of bullying and bad behaviour to continue and escalate?

It was explained that it is important to engage all young people and for them to understand the consequences and the harm that is caused from bullying.  Bigfoot Education Arts explained that the workshops they run included four characters, the by-stander, the bully, the victim and the teacher.  It investigates why the bully is bullying and find that, in many cases, they are actually being bullied themselves.  It therefore provides young people with the social awareness needed to address and understand bullying issues.

·        What can the local authority do to support partners?

Various representatives from the external organisations explained that education of all teachers and school staff was important in ensuring they had core knowledge and understanding of anti-bullying issues.  Ongoing raised awareness of anti-bullying was also a key factor.  It was suggested that schools would benefit from a simple directory of contacts that could be used for resources or advice in relation to addressing various anti-bullying issues.  Officers also explained that workshops for teachers had been run, in partnership with Kidscape, to raise awareness of all types of bullying and how to address issues.  Another suggestion included school’s having a lead person with responsibility for countering bullying and for them to be provided with sufficient time to effectively carry out such duties.

Other comments raised during the debate included: -

·        Concern when schools do not recognise that a bullying problem exists, most people felt that all schools have bullying in their schools;

·        Important to understand the difference between bullying and what is ‘friendly banter’;

·        Reference to bullying being reflective of what could be happening in a child or young person’s home environment should be included in the policy;

·        Schools should record all incidents, as well as interventions and outcomes;

·        Different ways of training teachers and governors in best practice ways of addressing bullying should be explored;

·        The culture of schools in countering bullying is key and needs to be open, enabling people to feel safe, providing a range of ways for students to share their problems and ask for support;

·        Clarification of confidentiality when addressing bullying incidents;

·        Ofsted would be providing a new framework later in the year which would cover four key areas, one of which would focus on behaviour;

·        PCSOs try to educate young people to report incidents as witnesses;

·        Information to be provided to Councillors with useful contacts in order to sign post concerned parents, carers, children and young people if approached with bullying concerns.

The Committee thanked all visitors for attending the information and for providing valuable input.

Decision:

The Committee recommended: -

(1)               the Cabinet to agree that Medway’s Anti-bullying and Harassment Policy and Guidelines are updated in line with the key findings identified in the report and at the meeting and be revised, as and when appropriate and when legislation is enacted, to be compliant with: -

a.      the references to behaviour and discipline as outlined in the Education Bill 2011;

b.      the forthcoming Ofsted framework which is being amended to reflect the new powers relating to behaviour.

(2)               the Cabinet to agree that officers continue to encourage schools to work in partnership with the Council in relation to accessing anti-bullying support and guidance;

(3)               the Cabinet to agree that schools are encouraged to allocate time and resources in adopting methods of good practice in relation to countering bullying, such as having a countering bullying champion;

(4)               the Cabinet to agree that officers consider ways of promoting the use of technology to broadcast the message around countering bullying.