50% higher bullying rate in Australian primary schools
25% of primary school children bullied
It has been suggested that the new government website MySchool be used by schools to display their policies on bullying for both the classroom and the playground and outline their approach to cyber bullying.
”What I would like to see on the MySchool site is information about how the school manages bullying,” said Professor Ken Rigby, school of education, University of South Australia.
Speaking recently at the National Centre Against Bullying conference he added that ”Information about the school’s bullying policy and how it is implemented would be helpful to parents trying to decide where to send their child to school.”
The National Centre Against Bullying (NCAB) is a peak body working to advise and inform the Australian community on the many issues of both traditional bullying and cyber bullying. It aims to help create safe schools and communities where children can grow freely.
Issued discussed at the conference included:
• What is cyber safety – and why it matters to students and families
• New research from Australia on cyber safety and cyber bullying
• Approaches to address and manage cyber risks in schools
• Effective strategies to increase student wellbeing at school
• Cyber safety and the law – where schools stand
• Peer relationships to enhance student wellbeing and reduce bullying
• Engaging parents and families
• Developing partnerships – the school community and beyond
• What is working in schools – stories from the classroom
A spokeswoman for federal Education Minister Julia Gillard said ”Schools can already write a synopsis of their school on the MySchool website, which could include information about their anti-bullying policy.”
However Dr Helen McGrath from Deakin University was skeptical about providing such information, ”I would doubt whether putting bullying information on the MySchool website would be a good idea as it is such a difficult thing to accurately assess,” she said.
The issue of school bullying has been complicated in recent years with the introduction of new technologies; teachers need to be informed on how to deal with these new scenarios as acts of bullying no longer only take place in the classroom or playground.
Writer Helen Splarn. Editor Dr Ramesh Manocha.
Source: National Centre Against Bullying website
A school’s anti-bullying policy and how it is implemented may be informative to parents if included on the MySchool site. And yes, it would be difficult to accurately assess its outcomes. However, bullying, in my view, is a reflection of what is happening in the the wider community and cannot be solved by schools and individual teachers alone.