Anti-Bullying Week is in November every year. We know, however, that bullying can happen at any time of course but this week just brings it into a very clear focus and reminds everyone that bullying is not ok. Throughout the week children work on what bullying means and how to be a kind friend.
Our Anti-Bullying Policy is part of the Behaviour Policy.
We are proud holders of the Blackpool Beating Bullying Silver Charter mark and will be working towards the Gold mark in the next 18 months.
Each class from Y2 - Y6 has an Anti-Bullying Ambassador who has been trained by The Diana Trust and work closely with the Anti-Bullying Lead and Deputy Headteacher to tackle bullying if it arises in school.
WHAT IS BULLYING?
Bullying is behaviour that hurts someone else, physically or mentally. It includes name calling, hitting, pushing, spreading rumours, threatening or undermining someone.
It can happen anywhere – at school, at home or online. It's usually repeated over a long period of time and can hurt a child both physically and emotionally.
WHAT TO DO IF YOU THINK YOUR CHILD IS BEING BULLIED
If you think your child is being bullied please speak to a member of staff. This will be logged on our communication as a 'request to investigate' and is ALWAYS followed up by either a member of the class team or Senior Leadership Team. We will talk to all of the children involved, try to resolve the issue and communicate with you on our findings. This is then monitored and followed up a week or so later by a member of SLT to check no further instances have occurred.
We take allegations of bullying very seriously and try to find a way to work together to ensure that your child is happy in school.
WHAT IS CYBER BULLYING?
Cyberbullying is any form of online bullying where message are sent through any device or app such as Snapchat, that are of a threatening or intimidating nature. Facebook and Snapchat etc have minimum age on sign up of 13 years old and Whatsapp's has recently gone up to 16 . These age restrictions are there to protect your child and keep them safe from potential online bullying and other aspects of social media that they are not yet emotionally mature enough to handle.
As a school we take online safety very seriously and have signed up to the National Online Safety site for staff training and parental support.
Some examples of support can be found in the links below.
If you wish to sign up to this site or app please follow the instructions below:
To create your account, please follow http://nationalonlinesafety.com/enrol/westminster-primary-academy and complete your details. When you’re set up, you’ll be able to set ‘Parent/Carer’ as your user type.
You can access National Online Safety online via any device- including via our brand-new smartphone app. To download the app, please go to:
https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/national-online-safety/id1530342372
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=uk.co.nationaleducationgroup.nos
RESILIENCE FRAMEWORK
We are working closely with the Headstart Team at Blackpool Council building up children's resilience. This will be developed as part of our Anti-Bullying and PSHE work.
WHAT IS RESILIENCE?
Headstart define resilience as not only 'Beating the odds' but doing that 'whilst changing the odds'.
In a recent pupil survey 78% of our children felt that they were resilient in their learning and didn't give up when they found things hard. A further 13% gave a neutral response.
THE RESILIENCE FRAMEWORK
The resilience framework (see links) is a set of approaches and factors that would improve your child's and families resilience.
Family Version of The Resilience Framework
NATIONAL ONLINESAFETY RESOURCES FOR PARENTS:
What Children need to Know About Online Bullying
Little Reminders of How to be Kind Online
What Parents Need to Know About Trolling & Online Abuse
OTHER RESOURCES
Dealing with bullying - parent and carer information
Helping Your Child to Deal with Bullying - Parent and- Carer Information Sheet
Spotting the signs of bullying - parent and carer information sheet