STOP - Anti-Bullying

Children and adolescents can sometimes experience social or friendship difficulties with peers as part of growing up. It is important to recognise that although issues such as friends falling out, one-off incidents of unkindness or disagreements need to be addressed and resolved quickly, they are not necessarily evidence of bullying.

At Broadlands Academy, bullying is defined as:

• repeated

• deliberately meant to hurt someone either physically or emotionally

• often aimed at certain groups, for example because of race, religion, gender or sexual orientation

Bullying can occur through several types of anti-social behaviour. It can be:

• physical – a person can be physically punched, kicked, spat at, etc;

• verbal – verbal abuse can take the form of name calling, it may be directed towards gender, ethnic origin, physical/social disability, or personality;

• exclusive – a person can be bullied simply by being excluded from discussion/activities with those they believe to be their friends;

• damage to property or theft – a person may have property damaged or stolen, physical threats may be used by the bully to coerce the person to hand over the property to them;

• cyber – this applies to inside and outside of the academy through the use of instant messaging, email, text messaging and other internet sites.

Bullying is extremely serious and can cause academic, social and mental health problems if it is not rapidly resolved. At Broadlands Academy, we have zero tolerance of bullying and will tackle this robustly as soon as we become aware of it.

If there are any concerns about a student being bullied, the following steps should be taken:

• The parent/carer should encourage their child to talk to their ‘go to person’ at school - this will often be their tutor, but can be any member of staff that they trust.

• If the student does not want to share their concerns with their ‘go to person’, they can email the safeguarding team using STOP@broadlandsacademy.org.

• The parent/carer should also contact their child’s tutor via email or phone. The tutor will escalate concerns to the Head of Year or the Senior Leadership Team if needed.

• A member of staff should inform the student’s tutor and consult a member of the Safeguarding Team for advice straight away.

In cases of bullying, our priorities are to support the victim(s) and to ensure that the sanction supports re-education and therefore prevents a repeat of the behaviour.

All bullying allegations are investigated and are then classed as bullying or not. If they are recorded as bullying then they will be monitored by the Safeguarding Team. Our Anti-Bullying Policy contains more detailed information and guidance and is linked at the top of this page.