Bullying

Mulberry School for Girls is committed to providing a caring, friendly and safe environment for all of its students so they can learn in a relaxed and secure atmosphere. Bullying or harassment of any kind is unacceptable. If bullying does occur, all students should be able to report it in the knowledge that incidents will be dealt with promptly and effectively. This is a ‘telling’ school. This means that anyone who knows that bullying is happening to themselves or anyone else, is expected to tell staff or use one of the other channels provided. There is zero tolerance of bullying in the school and any cases reported are dealt with sensitively and promptly.

What is Bullying?

Bullying involves any repeated action on the part of one or more persons that victims find extremely hurtful. It should be noted that the above definition would, therefore, exclude one off events and could in some cases, perhaps, involve the so-called ‘bully’ or ‘bullies’ not realising the significance of their action.

Some kinds of bullying

• Using your body –pushing, kicking, hitting, taking someone’s belongings, being violent
• Using words – name-calling, making threats, making unpleasant or rude comments
• Being unfriendly– refusing to talk to someone, gossiping, spreading rumours
• Cyber bullying –sending bullying messages by text, phone calls, video-clips, email; using Facebook, Twitter or websites to spread rumours or to make unpleasant comments

What happens if someone reports bullying?

We will sensitively and quickly investigate any report of bullying. This means that we will speak with students and sometimes staff to find out more information. We will contact families and look at ways that the victim can be supported, what we have found in our investigation and how we intend to resolve the issue. This will often involve a formal sanction for the perpetrator/s and a mediation between the perpetrator and the victim – this is only done if both parties feel ready and understand that this will help them moving forwards.

How will we support a student?

Both victims and perpetrators are supported following an incident of bullying. All students have access to a Learning Mentor in school following an incident so that they are supported in dealing with any harm that has been caused by bullying. We also have on site Educational Wellbeing Practitioners and a school counsellor through the Place2Be who a child may be referred to if they would like this.

What else does the school do to address and reduce bullying?

The school organises activities, competitions and assemblies during our annual Anti-Bullying Week to raise awareness of the different types of bullying and to have a shared understanding across the school that we take a zero-tolerance approach to bullying. Anti-bulling and positive relationships feature regularly in assembly and PSHE sessions throughout the year so that students are continually reminded about how to identify and report bullying. Students are taught to be kind, tolerant and supportive of each other and to celebrate each other’s differences. Students are taught about the law and bullying and how the law outlines the 9 protected characteristics found in the Equality Act 2010.