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Bullying is defined as repeated verbal, physical, social or psychological behaviour that is harmful and involves the misuse of power by an individual or group towards one or more persons.
Bullying is
- when someone gains power over another person by hurting or harming that person, more than just once.
- intentional and there is an imbalance of power
- continuing to ‘pick on’ someone, torment them or exclude them, so that the person feels helpless.
- when others are bystanders and encourage bullying behaviour.
Forms of bullying:
- Physical: any form of violence or threat, intimidation
- Verbal: name calling, sarcasm, spreading rumours, persistent teasing, intimidation
- Emotional: excluding, tormenting, ridicule, humiliation, intimidation
- Racist: taunts, graffiti, gestures, intimidation
- Sexual: unwanted physical contact, abusive comments, intimidation
- Cyber: unwanted text messages, emails, information technology, intimidation
SIGNS YOUR CHILD MAYBE BEING BULLIED
- Loss of interest in schoolwork
- Reluctance to attend school
- Diminished academic performance
- Reluctance to talk about school and activities
- Limited social contact with peers
- Mood swings, especially toward depression, irritability, unhappiness or outbursts of anger
- Reported headaches, stomach pains (frequently in the morning before leaving for school), poor appetite
- Loss of sleep
- Visible cuts, scratches, bruises
- Loss of personal property because of theft, extortion or damage to personal property
Examples of bullying behaviours
General behaviours which apply to all types of bullying
- Harassment based on any of the nine grounds in the equality legislation e.g. sexual harassment, homophobic bullying, racist bullying etc.
- Physical aggression
- Damage to property
- Name calling
- Slagging
- The production, display or circulation of written words, pictures or other materials aimed at intimidating another person
- Offensive graffiti
- Extortion
- Intimidation
- Insulting or offensive gestures
- The “look”
- Invasion of personal space
- A combination of any of the types listed.
Cyber
- Denigration: Spreading rumors, lies or gossip to hurt a person’s reputation
- Harassment: Continually sending vicious, mean or disturbing messages to an individual
- Impersonation: Posting offensive or aggressive messages under another person’s name
- Flaming: Using inflammatory or vulgar words to provoke an online fight
- Trickery: Fooling someone into sharing personal information which you then post online
- Outing: Posting or sharing confidential or compromising information or images
- Exclusion: Purposefully excluding someone from an online group
- Cyber stalking: Ongoing harassment and denigration that causes a person considerable fear for his/her safety
- Silent telephone/mobile phone call
- Abusive telephone/mobile phone calls
- Abusive text messages
- Abusive email
- Abusive communication on social networks e.g. Facebook/Ask.fm/ Twitter/You Tube or on games consoles
- Abusive website comments/Blogs/Pictures
- Abusive posts on any form of communication technology
Identity Based Behaviours
Including any of the nine discriminatory grounds mentioned in Equality Legislation (gender including transgender, civil status, family status, sexual orientation, religion, age, disability, race and membership of the Traveller community).
Homophobic and Transgender
- Spreading rumours about a person’s sexual orientation
- Taunting a person of a different sexual orientation
- Name calling e.g. Gay, queer, lesbian…used in a derogatory manner
- Physical intimidation or attacks
- Threats
Race, nationality, ethnic background and membership of the Traveller community
- Discrimination, prejudice, comments or insults about colour, nationality, culture, social class, religious beliefs, ethnic or traveller background
- Exclusion on the basis of any of the above
Relational
This involves manipulating relationships as a means of bullying. Behaviours include:
- Malicious gossip
- Isolation & exclusion
- Ignoring
- Excluding from the group
- Taking someone’s friends away
- “Bitching”
- Spreading rumours
- Breaking confidence
- Talking loud enough so that the victim can hear
- The “look”
- Use or terminology such as ‘nerd’ in a derogatory way
Sexual
- Unwelcome or inappropriate sexual comments or touching
- Harassment
Additional Educational Needs,
Disability
- Name calling
- Taunting others because of their disability or learning needs
- Taking advantage of some pupils’ vulnerabilities and limited capacity to recognise and defend themselves against bullying
- Taking advantage of some pupils’ vulnerabilities and limited capacity to understand social situations and social cues.
- Mimicking a person’s disability
- Setting others up for ridicule
4. The relevant teacher(s) for investigating and dealing with bullying is (are) as follows:
Principal and all teachers
Any teacher may act as a relevant teacher if circumstances warrant it.
5. The education and prevention strategies (including strategies specifically aimed at cyber-
bullying, homophobic and transphobic bullying) that will be used by the school are as follows (see Section 6.5 of the Anti-Bullying Procedures for Primary and Post-Primary Schools):
School-wide approach
- A school-wide approach to the fostering of respect for all members of the school community.
- The promotion of the value of diversity to address issues of prejudice and stereotyping, and highlight the unacceptability of bullying behaviour.
- The fostering and enhancing of the self-esteem of all our pupils through both curricular and extracurricular activities. Pupils will be provided with opportunities to develop a positive sense of self-worth through formal and informal interactions.
- Whole staff professional development on bullying to ensure that all staff develops an awareness of what bullying is, how it impacts on pupils’ lives and the need to respond to it-prevention and intervention.
- An annual audit of professional development needs with a view to assessing staff requirements through internal staff knowledge/expertise and external sources
- Professional development with specific focus on the training of the relevant teacher(s)
- School wide awareness raising and training on all aspects of bullying, to include pupils, parent(s)/guardian(s) and the wider school community.
- Supervision and monitoring of classrooms, corridors, school grounds, school tours and extra- curricular activities. Non-teaching and ancillary staff will be encouraged to be vigilant and report issues to relevant teachers. Supervision will also apply to monitoring student use of communication technology within the school.
- Development and promotion of an Anti-Bullying code for the school-to displayed publicly in classrooms and in common areas of the school.
- The school’s anti-bullying policy is discussed with pupils and all parent(s)/guardian(s) are informed about all school policies and their availability upon enrolment. It is the responsibility of parents and guardians to familiarise themselves with all policies.
- The implementation of an annual whole-school anti-bullying awareness campaign will be organised by the relevant teacher. This will include the promotion of friendship and bullying prevention.
- Encourage a culture of telling, with particular emphasis on the importance of bystanders. In that way pupils will gain confidence in ‘telling’. This confidence factor is of vital importance. It should be made clear to all pupils that when they report incidents of bullying they are not considered to be telling tales but are behaving responsibly.
- Ensuring that pupils know who to tell and how to tell, e.g.:
- Direct approach to teacher at an appropriate time, for example after class.
- Hand note up with homework.
- Make a phone call to the school or to a trusted teacher in the school.
- Anti-bully or Niggle box
- Get a parent(s)/guardian(s) or friend to tell on your behalf.
- Tell if they witness or know that bullying is taking place.
- Identify clear protocols to encourage parent(s)/guardian(s) to approach the school if they suspect that their child is being bullied – see protocol below.
- The development of an Acceptable Use Policy in the school to include the necessary steps to ensure that the access to technology within the school is strictly monitored, as is the pupils’ use of mobile phones. This policy will be in place by June 2017.
- The listing of supports currently being used in the school and the identification of other supports available to the school e.g. GLEN www.glen.ie, BeLonGTo www.belongto.org.
Responsibilities
Staff, students and parents have the following responsibilities:
Leadership Team:
- To promote the Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Primary School Anti-bullying Policy and Procedures and the concepts involved.
- To teach and model appropriate behaviours.
- To teach and clarify for the student the terms, meanings and distinct differences between, bullying, social isolation, conflict, random acts of aggression/intimidation and meanness.
- To teach and promote resilience.
- To teach and model active listening so that all incidents are treated seriously
- To provide appropriate counselling and other support services as required.
- To provide support for parent/guardians through information sessions and newsletter inserts.
- To initiate and arrange meetings with stakeholders at the reporting stage of the procedure.
- To recognise and value the partnership between home and school. (It is the school’s responsibility to contact parents of other students when incidents happen. It is the parent’s responsibility to care for and support his or her own children)
All Teachers:
- To promote the BCEC Feeling Safe Strategy and to display the poster in the classroom.
- To teach and model appropriate behaviours.
- To teach and clarify for the student the terms, meanings and distinct differences between, bullying, social isolation, conflict, random acts of aggression/intimidation and meanness.
- To teach and promote resilience.
- To teach and model active listening so that all incidents are treated seriously.
- To recognise and value the partnership between home and school. It is the school’s responsibility to contact parents of other students when incidents happen. (It is the parent’s responsibility to care for and support his or her own children)
- To record repeated behavioural incidences.
All School officers:
- To teach and model appropriate behaviours.
- To be aware of the policy and the strategies being implemented in the school.
- To model active listening so that all incidents are treated seriously.
Students will be encouraged and supported to:
- Use strategies taught in the Beating Bully Bulldozer program as well as other primary prevention programs.
- Report all behavioural incidences to the classroom teacher or teacher on playground duty and to alert the classroom teacher of repeated incidences.
- To model acceptable behaviour to others- Say NO to bullying behaviours.
- To be a responsible bystander and take appropriate action which would be to seek the support of a teacher or other staff member. (i.e. If it’s not safe, it’s safe to tell)
- To identify a network of trusted adults that they can talk to for support. (The children are often encouraged to identify five adults that they can talk to – one person for each finger on their hand.)
- To let an adult know what is happening. They need to alert their classroom teacher if a behaviour is repeated.
- To keep on telling until the bullying stops.
- To say no to bullying behaviours.
- To use positive language and behaviour towards all others.
Parents should:
- Remain calm….act not to react.
- Be aware of the policy and the strategies being implemented in the school and to actively discuss the policy with their children.
- Teach and model appropriate behaviours at home.
- Encourage children to report incidents to the teacher so that they can be dealt with immediately.
- Encourage children to have and to use their nominated support network when at school.
- Encourage their children to speak openly with them and to look at positive strategies to do with their feelings.
- Recognise and value the partnership between home and school. It is the school’s responsibility to contact parents of other students when incidents happen. (It is the parent’s responsibility to care for and support his or her own children)
- Support their children in the knowledge that the resolution of the situation may take some time.
- Help them to identify their situation of concern using the definitions provided in Appendix 3.
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