Anti-Bullying Week

What is happening within the schools for Anti-bullying week?

This week was Anti-Bullying week, with a focus on difference and equality. This week’s national focus has stemmed from a rise in negativity towards difference around the world.

The focus in school has been on celebrating children all being unique, helping children feel valued within their schools, understanding that it is okay to be different and that being different is not a reason to be bullied.

What is bullying?

A lot of children use the term bullying because they don’t understand what is happening.

Falling out with friends and friendships is a normal part of growing up, it can often happen due to a minor incident, and it is about dealing with this appropriately.

When children are older, this can often be put onto social media.

What is bullying? – 4 KEY WORDS – REPETITIVE, HURTFUL, INTENTIONAL, POWER

Definition – “the repetitive, intentional hurting of one person or group where the relationship involves an imbalance of power’. This definition should be thought about when deciding if an issue is bullying or if it is a friendship issue and it can then be dealt with in an appropriate manner.

In school, we have had various activities for all year groups across the week looking at anti-bullying and the importance of our key statement, ‘Lend a hand, make a stand, say NO to bullying’. Each class have created posters and the winners were announced in the Anti-Bullying assembly on Thursday 16th November.

Bullying online and online safety

There is a vast difference between parental and child knowledge, awareness and worries when it comes to online safety.

Parents worry about appropriate content, stranger interaction and grooming, whereas children worry about cyber bullying and violet or sexual content.

Children also know how to use more features of apps and sites than parents do. It is important to inform children that anything they post or share online and virtually will be there forever and could impact their future lives, examples of this are happening in the media at the moment.

An important message – Treat others as you would like to be treated. Don’t say anything online that you wouldn’t say to someone face to face.

What can you do as parents?

All apps and online sites have guidance on the appropriate ages for use, it is important to discuss these with your children and the possibilities or incidences that may occur when using them. It is also important to discuss what is appropriate use and what is not.

Guidance for ages:

13 years old Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter
16 years old WhatsApp
17 years old Tinder, Vine
18 years old  YouTube, Kik, Flicker, Keek

It is also important that, as parents, you monitor the amount of time spent online and what the children are going on.

As parents, there are ways that you can filter content when online and when your children are using games and streaming sites . This can be done through your browser setting, parental controls. You can also contact your internet or broadband provider directly and they can put filters in place using the connection line.

Interesting and thought provoking statistics

  • 15% of parents will build an online presence of a child before they are even born, e.g. sharing scan pictures, baby gender reveals, photos of growing bumps.
  • By the time a child is 5 there is an average of 1000 pictures of them shared online by parents and family members.
  • In a lifetime there is upwards of 25,000 photos of a person online.
  • 1 in 5 young people believe everything they read online.

Apps

Below is a list of apps to be aware of, some of these apps open up the risk of cyber bullying and lowering self-esteem of our children.

Musical:ly

This is a music app that allows children to record videos of themselves singing and upload them. This opens up public commenting.

Say.at.me

This app encourages users to create a poll or vote. This can lead to lowering self-esteem, rude or offensive comments, and is public.

Yellow

This has been called ‘tinder for teens’ it is a friendship app that you swipe left and right on. This can impact on wellbeing, self- esteem and open up a forum to talk with strangers.

Parent Support Apps

There are parent support apps which can be used to monitor your child’s activity online and on phones, however it is important to think about the impact these may have on the trust between you and your child.

  • MM Guardian
  • Funamo Parent Control
  • APP Lock

Student Voice – Anti Bullying Week

In Reception, we talked about what bullying is and how it can make us feel. We also talked about what it means to be good friends and to be nice to each other to make us feel happy and safe in school. We made posters to show it’s okay to be different. Malakai in Reception said “I like painting my hands. We are different.”

In Year 1 and 2, we made a friendship wreath out of our handprints, we made individual bricks for a wall to show that we are all equal but different. We saw the effects of bullying on Bruce the Koala’s heart, it showed us that bullying makes us feel sad, so we said nice things to make him feel better. Delai Ryan in Year 2 said “I liked the colouring hand activity because we got to write lovely things about other people.”

In Year 3 and 4, we learnt about the four different types of bullying; verbal, physical, cyber and emotional. We learnt that we are all important and that we are individuals and that it is okay to be different and unique. We made mirrors to reflect our differences and individuality and to celebrate and encourage others to be individuals too. Lotte Rattray in Year 3 said “My favourite activity was making the mirror because I enjoyed sharing my hobbies with others.”

In Year 5 and 6, we had a workshop with John Khan who was from the Anti-Bullying team in East Sussex, where we learnt about the different types of bullying. We found out that being different is good and we celebrated our individuality through our artwork. We learnt about empathy and online safety. Teddy Wren in Year 5 said “I enjoyed learning about empathy because it is a way of showing how we are all different and see things differently.”