Anti Bullying Policy

Date created - 17 September 2023

Date approved - 25 September 2023
Next review date - 25 September 2024

Introduction

Coop Academy Priesthorpe works to promote an ethos where students are Ready, Respectful and Safe. This policy will draw upon these core expectations to illustrate how bullying can be prevented and resolved. The Academy recognises that students will learn best in a safe and calm environment that is free from disruption and in which learning is the primary focus. Staff, students and parents have a responsibility to report bullying as soon as possible. They also have a responsibility to implement the preventative strategies outlined in the policy.

Aims

• To work towards the elimination of bullying at Coop Academy Priesthorpe
• To enhance the Behaviour for Learning policy which confirms the Academy expectations;
• To involve all members of the school community in countering bullying;
• To enable students, staff, parents and governors to understand what constitutes bullying and their specific responsibilities;

• To ensure that there are strategies to minimise the risk of peer on peer abuse and procedures;

• To enable parents to feel confident that bullying will be dealt with by the school;

• To inform all members of the school community that bullying behaviour will not be tolerated.

What is Bullying?

Bullying is behaviour by an individual or group, repeated over time, that intentionally hurts another individual or group either physically or emotionally.

There are different types of bullying:

• Psychological (being excluded from groups and rumours etc.)

• Cyber (abusive text messages, internet messages etc.)

• Verbal (threats, name calling, racism, homophobia etc.)

• Physical (punching, kicking, scratching, pushing, throwing objects at someone etc.)

Bullying invariably undermines self-confidence and initiative and can create a cycle of poor performance and further criticism, potentially causing depression, stress, mental or physical ill-health, with consequent absence from school or work.

Some forms of bullying may break the law and may be reported to the police by the school:

• Violence or assault;
• Theft;
• Repeated harassment or intimidation, e.g. name calling, threats and abusive phone calls, emails or text messages, sexual harassment and peer on peer abuse;
• Hate crimes – any incident which the victim, or anyone else, thinks is based on someone’s prejudice towards them because of their race, religion, sexual orientation, disability or because they are transgender.

Prevention

“A school’s response to bullying should not start at the point at which a child has been bullied. The best schools develop a more sophisticated approach in which school staff proactively gather intelligence about issues between pupils which might provoke conflict and develop strategies to prevent bullying occurring in the first place.

(Department for Education - Preventing and tackling bullying, July 2017)

• Preventing bullying behaviours can be possible through a range of proactive measures. At Coop Academy Priesthorpe, we look for every opportunity to prevent bullying behaviours from happening.  Some of the actions the school takes to prevent bullying include:
• The issue of bullying is included in the curriculum and classwork e.g. Drama, English.
• Bullying is addressed through the PSHE programme and forms a significant part of the curriculum offer in this area.
• The Coaching and Assembly programmes reinforce British Values and the ethos of the school.
• Anti-bullying week is dedicated to raising awareness of bullying and reminding staff and students of their responsibilities to report it.
• Students are not permitted to use their mobile phones around the school. This is partly to prevent cyber-bullying.
• Duty staff have been trained to be vigilant and to watch and listen for any bullying type behaviours, no matter how small.
• Duty points have been carefully considered to ensure there are no ‘dead spaces’ where bullying can take place undisturbed.
• Seating plans in lessons are carefully considered using any relevant information about the relationships between specific pupils.
• The Student Council regularly considers new ways to prevent bullying through their whole school projects.
• External speakers on PD days raise awareness of issues such as racism and homophobia.
• Posters around the school emphasise the importance of diversity in the school community.
• The Student expectations (Ready, Respectful, Safe) outlines the core responsibilities of students at Coop Academy Priesthorpe.
• Working with the wider community such as the police/children’s services where bullying is particularly serious or persistent to send a strong message that bullying is unacceptable within our school.
• Tell, Text, Type has been developed for students to raise any concerns anonymously which can then be investigated by the Student Support Team. These can be found on posters and cards across the Academy.  
•  Coop Academy Priesthorpe recognises that specific groups of students are particularly vulnerable to bullying.  These include children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND), young carers, Black and Minority Ethnic (BME), those who are, or thought to be lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersexual, asexual or pansexual (LGBTQ+).  As such, prevention of bullying considers the specific patterns of discrimination these groups face.

Tackling Bullying

Coop Academy Priesthorpe has clear strategies for responding to bullying incidents. These may include outcomes from the school Behaviour for Learning policy. The consequences of bullying will reflect the seriousness of the incident.  All sanctions will be applied fairly, consistently and reasonably – after careful consideration of possible contributing factors such as special educational needs, disabilities or other vulnerabilities of both the victim and perpetrator.

The school will support the victim upon finding out about bullying via our emotional wellbeing officer, but will also seek to work with the perpetrator of the bullying via an education programme with the Reflective Behaviour Centre Manager in order to prevent further incidents in the future.

Reporting Bullying

Students can report bullying of themselves or someone else in the following ways:

• Speaking to their Coach
• Speaking to their Year Manager
• Speaking to their Subject Teachers
• Year 12/13: contact the Director of Sixth Form or Sixth Form Student Support Leader
• Speaking to the Designated (or Deputy) Safeguarding Lead
• Importantly, students are reminded that they can speak to any member of staff in school they trust
• Speaking to your parents and asking them to pass on the information to the school.
• Tell, Text, Type

Parents/Carers can report bullying of their child or someone else’s in the following ways:

• Contacting their child’s Coach by email, telephone, meeting)
• Contacting their child’s Year Manager
• Contacting the Director of Sixth Form or Sixth Form Student Support Officer (Y12/13 only)
• Importantly, parents/carers are reminded that they can speak to any member of staff in school regarding this. Staff will pass this on to the Pastoral Team.

Staff can report bullying of a student in the following ways:

• Add the incident to ClassCharts via the bullying button
• Report the incident added to ClassCharts to the Year Manager or report the incident to one of the designated safeguarding team.

Investigation

The investigation into the bullying incident(s) will be conducted by the most appropriate member of staff, depending on the severity of the allegation. This may include the Year Manager, or Assistant Principal (Behaviour and Inclusion) or may include external agencies such as the Police.

Any investigation into alleged bullying will be discreet, sensitive, timely and thorough. The exact timeline of investigations will vary depending on the scenario but will usually include:

• The victims will be spoken to along with other witnesses and impartial statements will be taken.
• The accused will be spoken to, to understand their version of events.
• Other staff, students and parents will be involved, where needed.
• Parents/carers will be kept fully aware.
• A record will be placed in all the involved students’ files
• All students will be made aware that such behaviour will not be tolerated

Outcomes

• The student who has been bullied will be offered support by our Emotional Wellbeing Officer. This may depend on the nature and severity of the incident and may include counselling or in more extreme cases, referral to external agencies such as CAMHS.
• Students who have displayed bullying behaviour will be issued sanctions in line with the school Behaviour for Learning policy. These sanctions range from detentions to fixed and even permanent exclusion where it is deemed bullying has been extreme and particularly damaging.
• A ‘Repair and Restore’ meeting will be set up to take place as soon as possible. This is the process where both parties get an opportunity to achieve closure through Restorative Practice by trained staff and/or students.