Bullying
How we deal with Bullying
Definition:
Bullying is defined as the repetitive harming of 1 person or group by another person or group, where the relationship involves an imbalance of power.
Bullying is, therefore:
- Hurtful
- Repeated, often over a period of time
- Difficult to defend against
Bullying can include:
| TYPE OF BULLYING | DEFINITION |
| Emotional | Being unfriendly, excluding, tormenting |
| Physical | Hitting, kicking, pushing, taking another's belonging, any use of violence |
|
Prejudice-based and discriminatory
|
Taunts, gestures, graffiti or physical abuse focused on a particular characteristic (e.g. gender, race, sexuality) |
| Sexual | Explicit sexual remarks, display of sexual material, sexual gestures, unwanted physical attention, comments about sexual reputation or performance, or inappropriate touching |
| Direct or indirect verbal | Name-calling, sarcasm, spreading rumours, teasing |
| Cyper-bullying | Bullying that takes place online, such as through social networking sites, messaging apps or gaming sites |
What to do if you feel that you/your child/your friend is being bullied:
-
- The most important thing is to TELL SOMEONE as soon as you have a concern.
- It is likely that in the first instance, the form tutor, leader of learning and pastoral support assistant will be the most appropriate people to manage the concerns. Contact details for all staff are available on our website
- Students can approach any member of staff in school and their concerns will be listened to and passed on as needed.
- Alternatively, contact can come from anybody outside of school via our email addresses. If you have a worry, email info@magdalen.northants.sch.uk and we can direct to the member of staff closest to the situation.
Our process when dealing with reports of bullying:
- Find out more – We are likely to pick up the phone to you, as well as speaking to the relevant staff and students in school in order to ensure that we know as much as possible, as accurately as possible, about what happened.
- Act in Response – We will act according to our behaviour policy and in line with what we can confidently conclude to have happened.
- Review and support – We will consider what support is needed for both the ‘victim’ and the ‘perpetrator’, as well as the timeline for this support and post-support monitoring. At this point, we will expect to be able to feed back about findings and next steps.
How do we deal with incidents of bullying?
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- We will take every report seriously and manage and resolve situations as close to the event as possible.
- In cases where behaviour can be defined as bullying according to the threshold of the behaviour policy, the behaviour policy will be followed in order to prevent a continuation of that behaviour.
- At Magdalen, we will not tolerate any member of the community being made to feel unsafe whilst at school. We will take appropriate action to ensure that no member of the community is left feeling that way. This may involve sanctions according to the behaviour policy, as well as targeted support being put in place.
- We will take a restorative approach to resolving bullying, putting support in place for both the ‘victim’ and the ‘perpetrator’. We recognise that there are often underlying causes for such behaviour, which will require support in order to prevent recurrences. This support will not be a ‘one-off’ occurrence and both ‘victim’ and ‘perpetrator’ will be regularly supported and monitored following any incident of bullying.
