A National Approach to Anti-bullying for Scotland's Children and Young People

National Approach, definitions and policies,connected organisations,

National Project

National Governments, Local Government Officials, Headteachers, teachers,researchers,

The Scottish Government & the Scottish Anti-Bullying Steering Group

Scotland

English

Policy Makers, Teachers, School Directors.

This site is the national approach to anti-bullying developed by the Scottish Government and the Scottish Anti-Bullying Steering Group to communicate and promote a common vision and aims; and to make sure that work across all agencies and communities is consistently and coherently contributing to a holistic approach to anti-bullying in Scotland.

The Scottish Government's vision, as set out in the site is: "Every child and young person in Scotland will grow up free from bullying and will develop respectful, responsible and confident relationships with other children, young people and adults. Children and young people, and their parents or carers, will have the skills and resilience to prevent or respond to bullying. All children will expect help and know who can help them; while those adults working with them will follow a consistent and effective approach in dealing with and preventing bullying from early years onwards."

The purpose of this national approach is to communicate and promote a common vision and aims; and to make sure that work across all agencies and communities is consistently and coherently contributing to a holistic approach to anti-bullying in Scotland.

This approach includes:
1) a definition of bullying
2) vision for anti-bullying in Scotland;
3) aims
4) children's rights and legal framework
5) national policy framework
6) principles
7) policy development and implementation
8) strategies to prevent and tackle bullying - roles and
responsibilities of statutory organisations
9) further guidance and information on roles, contributions,
training, support and resources

As this is a National Approach, statistical results in indivdual schools have not been ascertained.

Definition of bullying or cyberbullying, Detection protocol, Intervention protocol, Teacher training, Whole-school anti-bullying policy, Cooperative group work.

This is a good site, which we found easy to use. There are many useful sections for National Governments, Local Government Officers, Headteachers,teachers etc which we recommend: What do we mean by bullying behaviour; Vision & Aims; Children's Rights and legal framework; National and local government policy framework; Policy Development and Impementation - this section includes a Policy statement, Definition, Expectations and communication, Approaches to preventing and dealing with bullying, Recording and monitoring, Implementation - responsibility for all; Statutory Roles and responsibilities; Annex A gives a very clear diagram showing the key sectors and their roles and contributions to anti-bullying in Scotland and we thought this could be used as a model for roles and contributions in a school. Annex B, the last section gives an excellent list of organisations and resources which can help. The whole document is also available in PDF format and there is a link for this on the web site.
pages

From a Government or Local Government viewpoint we particularly liked Annex A which in one simple diagram shown how different organisations need to link together to combat the problem.

Roger Murfin

Wilsthorpe Community School

Business Manager