This week is “Bully Free NZ Week” and across the school teachers are focusing on developing shared understandings with students about what bullying is and isn’t and how to deal with it.

What is bullying?

Whether bullying is physical, verbal, or social (relational), four widely-accepted factors can be used to identify it:

• Bullying is deliberate - harming another person intentionally

• Bullying involves a misuse of power in a relationship

• Bullying is usually not a one-off - it is repeated, or has the potential to be repeated over time

• Bullying involves behaviour that can cause harm - it is not a normal part of growing up.

Bullying can happen anywhere, in person or online (cyberbullying), at any time.

An important aspect of our lessons at school involves the role of bystanders and the huge positive impact they can have in minimising bullying by taking action if they see another student being bullied.

As a school we are committed to a zero tolerance of bullying. However, bullying happens at times in every school and research suggests the incidence of bullying in a school is best minimised by:

• Fostering a safe and caring school climate where prosocial behaviours are promoted and explicitly taught

• Having clear consistent procedures for responding to all incidents of bullying

At Halswell School, our participation in the PB4L (Positive Behaviour for Learning) programme run by the Ministry of Education supports our approach to bullying prevention by:

• Ensuring a strong focus on our school values with students at each level being taught what these values look like in action. Prosocial skills are acknowledged and promoted through our whånau card system.

• Clear and consistent procedures for dealing with inappropriate behaviour. Our PB4L focus for this term is to review and update our current behaviour guidelines. We hope to be able to share our updated guidelines with you before the end of the year.

“Tackling Bullying: A guide for parents and whånau” from Bullying Free NZ is an excellent resource for tips on how to support your child whether they be a victim or a bully.

If you are concerned that your child is being bullied, please contact their T group teacher as soon as possible so the issue can be addressed immediately.

Remember Pink Shirt Day is this Friday!