Beat Bullying
Out of all the 23 issues listed on our ballot paper survey Bullying came out as the highest issue of concern. We formed a Beat Bullying Subgroup and we are the largest of all the YEA subgroups with many of us joining because of our personal experiences. We are so passionate about making Essex a safer place with less bullying that we know we will work tirelessly until we achieve our goals!
We feel that some of the important issues around bullying are:
· Not all schools acknowledge that bullying happens when it does.
· Teachers need to know more about bullying, there needs to be training.
· Pupils need training around bullying too.
· Sometimes teachers can make a problem worse.
· There needs to be long term emotional support for targets of bullying as the effects on self esteem can be extremely damaging and last a long time.
· Parents often say ‘just ignore it’, they need information so they can offer more support and to know what signs to look for with their children.
· Bullying is often only recognised if it gets to a violent stage – it needs to be stopped sooner.
· Everyone involved needs support including the bullies.
· Teachers and adults can bully too.
· There are no excuses for bullying, ever.
Minutes of meetings:-
7th November 2009
4th October 2009
12th July 2009
6th June 2009
28th March 2009
1st March 2009
We are going to run an event in Anti-Bullying Week on Thursday 19th November. We will invite all schools to send a teacher and pupils from Year 5 to year 9.
Our event will include:
· Training for teachers and pupils around bullying and cyber bullying.
· Understanding what friendship is
· Feeling good about yourself
· Information to take back to school, leaflets, packs etc.
The day will also give everyone the opportunity to take part in a performance workshop to explore issues around bullying using dance, drama, creative writing, poetry and art.
Schools will take back what they have learnt to their schools and work on a performance that will be showcased at the Mercury Theatre in March. This could include anything from dance, drama, singing, music, presentations, art, media installations – or anything at all! We will invite parents, teachers and other adults that make decisions around how bullying is dealt with to come and see the theatre performance and find out what children and young people feel about bullying.
This year’s theme for Anti Bullying week is Cyber Bullying. Cyber Bullying is where people use mobile phones and internet sites to bully someone. This could be anonymous phone calls, offensive text messages, posting cruel comments on websites. Cyber Bullying is anonymous so you never know who the bully is and it can affect you 24 hours a day not just in school.
We will discuss Cyber Bullying at our Conference and we hope that many of the performances will be about Cyber Bullying. We feel that as young people we can play an important part in tackling cyber bullying as nobody understands mobile phones and internet social networking sites as well as we do!
We are working in partnership with the Essex Anti-Bullying Co-ordinator and other professionals to help us make this project a big success.
We have put in a bid to the Youth Opportunity Fund which we hope will be successful so we can go ahead with our project.