What's New
Ofsted 15 Feb 2013: Good practice film - Edith Neville Primary School: Anti-bullying New
This film shows how the school has created a positive culture to prevent bullying and to tackle it when it occurs
Safeguarding Practice in Primary Schools - Practical Tips
These practical tips for teachers and other professionals are based on the NSPCC findings and are intended to help schools to better identify and support children they are concerned about and develop their whole school approach to safeguarding.
Anti-homophobia Support in Hertfordshire
Under the Ofsted 2012 framework anti-homophobia work has become an essential element in the inspection of every school, primary and secondary.
A new flyer is available to download listing training packages available to schools for teachers, governors and pupils.
 Stonewall 6 July 2012:
The school report: the experience of gay young people in Britain’s schools
The survey of 1,600 gay, lesbian and bi-sexual people aged between 11 and 19 revealed more than half had suffered from homophobic bullying at school.
Stonewall Award for Hertfordshire
On 5th July 2012 Stonewall, the lesbian gay and bisexual equality charity, announced that the council has been placed fourth in its Education Equality Index. The index compares the performance of different councils in tackling bullying and celebrating difference, which is a statutory requirement for schools.
Your local county council has been praised for its excellent practice and innovative approach. The index recognises Hertfordshire County Council's work offering training opportunities for schools, in particular how schools can meet the needs of Lesbian, Gay Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) students, design an inclusive curriculum and develop links with LGBT groups in the community.
Karin Hutchinson, the anti-bullying adviser, who leads on SSE’s anti-homophobia work, said
“We are absolutely delighted to have improved our standing this year. We are committed to delivering the highest quality support for schools on anti-homophobia. Anti-bullying is a priority in Hertfordshire and we strive always to maintain leading edge support for schools. We want schools to be safe and happy places for all pupils."
In 2011 our young people’s ‘Your say’ survey showed that 40% of primary pupils and 85% of secondary pupils said they had themselves used the word gay as a put down or to describe something negatively. The secondary Health Related Behaviour Questionnaire 2010 showed that at least 5% of pupils identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender and that 1% of pupils live with same sex parents.
Also receiving praise from Stonewall was Hertfordshire County Council's web-based 'Grid for Learning' system which provides teachers with an array of tools to celebrate difference and challenge homophobia in their schools, including guidance, case studies from other local schools, lesson plans, resources and details of the Drawing the Line anti-homophobia initiative.
New Ofsted Report 19 June 2012: No Place for Bullying
Ofsted has published a report that looks at what schools can do to create a positive school culture and to prevent and tackle bullying.
One of the key findings is around the need for staff to be well trained in responding to different kinds of bullying, particularly prejudice based language.
There are a range of both 'tried and tested' and new staff training packages that are available from Karin Hutchinson, the Hertfordshire Anti-bullying Adviser that are detailed in the leafelt attached. Or Karin can develop a bespoke package to your specifications. Contact her on 01438 843988 or 01438 844044.
Staff Anti-bullying Training Packages 2012
Kidscape Bullying Intervention Training
Kidscape is offering free training for teachers, pastoral support staff, youth workers and other professionals to enable them to deliver Kidscape's tried and tested bullying intervention programme, designed for 13-16 year olds. Bullying intervention workshops are always available to schools in Hertfordshire on a traded basis. This, however, is an opportunity to have your own in-house staff trained to deliver sessions to groups of young people who are repeat targets of bullying or those who are repeatedly involved in bullying behaviour.
Schools or children's centres who are willing to offer a venue for the training can invite other schools in their area to also be represented at the training (please note minimum numbers). Those who attend must cascade the training to young people. The key points are as follows:
Key points:
- Kidscape are offering 3 hour training to professionals who are in a position to cascade their training to targeted young people.
- Those who attend the training make a commitment to cascade the 2.5 hour training to a minimum of 10 13-16 year olds and to feedback how many children have been trained.
- The training is suitable for teachers, pastoral support staff, youth workers, and other professionals in organisations that support and work with young people. Professionals are trained in skills which they then cascade to young people (aged 13 -16) in a 2.5 hour workshop or series of modules, preferably within 10 weeks. (Kidscape will monitor the cascading of the training.)
- Young people who would benefit from the training have either been involved in bullying or are perceived to be vulnerable either to being bullied or displaying bullying behaviour.
- There is no reason why these skills can’t also be cascaded to other young people, either younger or older than the target group, or on a preventative basis to whole year groups. The training is also appropriate for student mentors who are involved in Anti-Bullying Peer Mentoring schemes.
- Training groups should involve 8-20 participants and can include individuals from a range of organisations
If you are interested please contact:
Dawn Green
Regional Trainer Kidscape B.I.T Project
email: dawn@kidscape.org.uk
www.kidscape.org.uk/bit
Mobile: 07557 682 216
Hertfordshire Anti-bullying Guidance
A revised guidance document is currently under construction and will be published section by section as it becomes available. The first section on Definitions is already available.
Urgent: Get Started on Anti-homophobia and Anti-transphobia!
With the Equalities Act 2010 and the close scrutiny from Ofsted on all aspects of prejudice based bullying this has become a really important issue for all schools to start working on.
What's out there to help you?
And Hertfordshire have:
For more information on any
Contact the anti-bullying adviser:
Email:
karin.hutchinson@hertscc.gov.uk
LGBT History Month Starts 1 February 2012:
Book Readings in Herts: 21 February 2012
 It takes
two...
- Stella Duffy, author of ‘Theodora’ and ‘The Room of Lost Things’
- Paul Burston, literary critic
for Time Out and author of ‘The Gay Divorcee’
Will be at
Watford Central Library
Tuesday 21st February
7.15pm
Under 16’s free of charge
The Big March 2012 – UN Campaign for Children’s Rights to be Safe
The Big March is world’s first virtual march to help to promote the right of every child to be safe. All you need to do is visit:
On 31st January 2012 there will be a virtual march with many thousands of virtual marchers crossing the websites of some of the world’s biggest companies.
This international campaign will call on the United Nations to enshrine explicitly in the UN Convention for the Rights of the Child to be safe from bullying, violence and fear of violence by their peers as well as abuse from adults.
Karin Hutchinson, Anti-Bullying Adviser
Ann Layzell, eSafety Adviser
DFE Guidance
Latest guidance includes:
- The new Ofsted evaluation and schedule from January 2012
- More...
Notification of Termination of the Termly Return:
Bullying & Racist Incident Data and Consultation
The statutory requirement for the local authority to collect racist incident data from schools has ceased. We have, therefore, consulted with the relevant Hertfordshire headteacher forum about their preferences in moving forward.
We are considering developing a voluntary annual data collection. This would be available in the summer term 2012. It is anticipated it would cover the protected characteristics of the public sector equalities duties. We are very keen to hear the views and suggestions of headteachers and/or anti-bullying co-ordinators.
Please send your thoughts and suggestions before 31 March 2012. More...
Preventing & Tackling Bullying: Advice for school leaders, staff and governing bodies
There are a number of statutory obligations on schools with regard to behaviour which establish clear responsibilities to respond to bullying. Every school must have measures to encourage good behaviour and prevent all forms of bullying amongst pupils.
This document replaces previous advice – Safe To Learn: embedding anti-bullying work in schools. It outlines, in one place, the Government’s approach to bullying, legal obligations and the powers schools have to tackle bullying, and the principles which underpin the most effective anti-bullying strategies in schools. It also lists further resources through which school staff can access specialist information on the specific issues that they face.
Some of this advice is primarily aimed at school staff, headteachers and governors in schools, 6th forms and colleges including Academies, Free schools, Pupil Referral Units and alternative providers. It also applies to independent schools, but their statutory obligations are different as noted in relevant sections.
There are a number of statutory obligations on schools with regard to behaviour which establish clear responsibilities to respond to bullying. Every school must have measures to encourage good behaviour and prevent all forms of bullying amongst pupils.
Homophobia in Sport - New Charter Tackles Homophobia
As part of the drive to tackle homophobia in sport, Sport England, Sport Northern Ireland, Sport Scotland, Sport Wales and UK Sport last week jointly signed up to the Government Equalities Office (GEO) Charter on Homophobia and Transphobia in Sport. More...
Preventing and tackling bullying
This document produced by DfE to help schools prevent and respond to bullying as part of their overall behaviour policy was updated on 11th July 2011. More...
ABA Anti-Bullying Week 2011 Competition
The Anti-bullying Alliance is delighted to partner with Stand Tall: A Rock Musical to promote this year’s Anti-Bullying Week competition. More...
Create the Change Ambassador Programme: Developing Communication Skills for Ages 13+
Peace Child International are running Ambassador training programmes which promote:
better listening, looking at anger triggers, building up resilience against bullying, exploring how we work with people who are different to ourselves and how we have a choice in how we react to situations. This programme free to schools in Hertfordshire has been sponsored by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation. Ambassadors create short theatre pieces and use role play and games as they develop one hour workshops for their younger peers.
For further information Email: esd@peacechild.org
This event/course is offered through an external provider and therefore Hertfordshire County Council recommend that schools make independent checks regarding the quality of the service provided.
Teenage Relationship Abuse
The home office have now provided guidance on these important issues. More...
How Fair is Britain?
Tackling the challenge of identity-based bullying
The Triennial Review, 'How fair is Britain?' focused attention on the need to tackle the high incidence of identity-based bullying of young people, both within schools and the wider community. Reducing incidence of homophobic, transphobic, disability-related and religiously motivated bullying in schools and workplaces was identified as one of the 15 significant challenges for society to address. More...
Negative Sexual Experience Document
This guidance will be distributed in hard copy to secondary sector schools attending the March 14th conference on Sexual Bullying. More...
Free Anti-Bullying Pack for Parents
Parentline Plus, part of the Family Lives Group, is offering parents a series of free family friendly leaflets that help address and tackle the problem of bullying. More...
Homophobic Bullying
If you want to make a real difference and dramatically reduce or eradicate homophobic bullying and the offensive use of the word "gay" have a look at the ideas in this article. More...
FIT, the movie
 As Stonewall Education Champions, Hertfordshire CSF are delighted to inform you about FIT which is the feature film adaptation of Stonewall’s highly successful play for schools aimed at tackling homophobic bullying. Interactive DVDs of FIT have been sent out to every secondary school in Britain.
Homophobic bullying is rife in schools. In recent YouGov research for Stonewall, nine in ten teachers said their pupils experience homophobic bullying. But nine in ten teachers have never received any training on how to prevent and respond to homophobic bullying. More...
Inspecting bullying
Ofsted newsletter Schools and Inspection 2nd March 2010 - Inspecting bullying
Preventing and responding to bullying
You will be aware that a key priority of the Children and Young People’s Plan (CYPP) focuses on children and young people being confident to respond to bullying. This new guidance will assist you in this process. More...
e-ngage: Online eSafety, Anti-bullying & PSHE Sessions
 E-ngage Live offer exciting, interactive learning sessions around Online Safety, Anti-Bullying and PSHE topics, through online collaboration with experts in these fields.
It provides a secure environment for learners between Years 5 and 7 to ask and answer questions with these experts, discuss scenarios with their peers and work at their own pace. More...
Hertfordshire Anti-Bullying Accreditation
Schools that are keen to ensure they have rigorous policy and procedure in place to prevent and respond to bullying may wish to register to work towards achieving the HAA.
Education
Champions Programme
Hertfordshire is now working with Stonewall as part of their Education Champions programme. A new initiative, Drawing the Line, was launched during Anti-Bullying Week 2010. Schools are invited to make a commitment to take action to relegate homophobia to history.
Drawing the Line Leaflet can be downloaded from here:
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