Anti-Bullying Plan |
James Cook Boys Technology High School's commitment
Our school rejects all forms of bullying behaviours, by maintaining a commitment to providing a safe, inclusive and respectful learning community that promotes student wellbeing. The school is committed to establishing evidence-based approaches and strategies that promote a positive climate where bullying is less likely to occur.
JCBTHS also believes that all school stakeholders, particularly staff, students and parents, need to be aware of strategies to identify and respond to incidents of bullying.
Bullying
Bullying can happen at school, at home or online. It is never okay, and it is not a normal part of growing up. Bullying behaviour has three key features. It:
1. Involves a misuse of power in a relationship
2. Is intentional, ongoing and repeated
3. Involves behaviours that can cause harm
Types of bullying behaviour
There are four main types of bullying behaviour:
1. Physical – examples include: hitting, pushing, shoving or intimidating or otherwise physically hurting another person, damaging or stealing their belongings. It includes threats of violence
2. Verbal/written – examples include: name-calling or insulting someone about an attribute, quality or personal characteristic
3. Social – examples include: deliberately excluding someone, spreading rumours, and sharing information that will have a harmful effect on the other person and/or damaging a person’s social reputation or social acceptance
4. Cyberbullying – any form of bullying behaviour that occurs online or via a mobile device. It can be verbal or written, and can include threats of violence as well as images, videos and/or audio
School culture and inclusion
All members of the school community are active participants in building a welcoming school culture that values diversity and fosters positive relationships. A key component of a supportive school culture is building respectful relationships and an ethos that bullying is not accepted, in both online and offline environments. School staff will actively respond to student bullying behaviour.
Student bullying and expectations about student behaviour will be discussed and information presented to promote a positive school culture where bullying is not accepted. Our school engages in the following practices to promote a positive school culture.
- The school promotes positive teacher student relationships that enable every student to have an identified staff member that students can approach in confidence to speak with.
- The school promotes a culture of proactively responding to identified incidences of bullying and addressing these through mediation and restorative practices.
- All classroom teachers are expected to address and report occurrences of bullying in classrooms and across the school.
- Each year group meets twice per term to discuss student wellbeing. Within these year meetings, the school Wellbeing Team reinforce the school expectations, that all students are safe, respectful, responsible members of the school community.
- As part of the school's Best Man program, students engage in tailored educational workshops at strategic points in their educational journey. Workshops are delivered by the school’s Student Support Officers. Within these workshops students engage in activities that promote respect for and appreciation of difference through increased understanding and empathy for others. Students also learn about and practise skills and behaviours that protect themselves and others from bullying behaviours.
- Year group specific wellbeing meetings are delivered annually by guest presenters. Topics covered within these meetings include:
o Cyber safety and on-line bullying
o Respectful Relationships
o Mental Health and Resilience
o Support seeking behaviours
- The school uses restorative practices, educational programs and the school's discipline policy to respond to bullying.
- Student mediations are led by teaching staff in order to support disputants through a structured process that aims to:
o Increase awareness of how conflict can affect peoples' lives
o Improve communication between students and between teachers and students
o Each students skills such as listening, critical thinking and problem solving
o Empower students to take greater responsibility for resolving their own disputes
- The schools ARCO (Anti Racial Contact Officer) leads mediations between students to highlight and educate them to understand racial and discriminatory behaviour.
Staff communication and professional learning
Staff are supported with professional learning that provides evidence-based ways to encourage and teach positive social and emotional wellbeing and discourage, prevent, identify, and respond effectively to student bullying behaviour.
- The school leadership team play an active role in building a positive learning environment where the whole school community feels included, connected, safe and respected. School leaders provide support and professional learning for teachers and other school staff on how best to maintain a positive school climate
- New staff participate in the staff induction program where they learn about:
o The school's wellbeing system,
o The student behaviour expectations matrix, and
o The Student Support Services Team & Wellbeing Team
This program empowers all staff with the capacity to respond to specific instances of student need in order to protect students safety and wellbeing.
- The Support Services Team, which consists of the Senior Executive, Student Support Officers, School Psychologist and WHIN Nurse meet each week to discuss and plan for student wellbeing.
- The schools Wellbeing Team, which consists of the Deputy Principal, Wellbeing Manager, Year Advisers and faculty representatives meet each fortnight to discuss and plan for student wellbeing.
Partnerships with families and community
Our school encourages parental and community involvement in student wellbeing. This involvement is strongly related to improved student learning, attendance and behaviour. Our school proactively builds collaborative relationships with families and communities to create a shared understanding of how to support student learning, safety and wellbeing. Families and community members should report all wellbeing and bullying issues to the school immediately.
Our school Anti-Bullying Plan provides resources which support families to help their children regulate their emotions and behaviour and develop socially. Information is provided to assist if children have been involved in bullying behaviour (as the person engaging in bullying behaviour, as the person being bullied or as the person witnessing the bullying behaviour).
Communication with parents
Our school provides information to parents to help promote a positive school culture where bullying is not acceptable and to increase parent’s understanding of how our school addresses all forms of bullying behaviour.
- Each Term the school leadership team meet with members of the P & C to build collaborative relationships and create a shared understanding of how to support student learning, safety and wellbeing.
- The school website has a published copy of the school's Anti-Bullying Plan and the school's Positive Behaviour for Learning framework.
- School events such as the Meet the Teacher evening, Subject Selection evening and Report Collection evening provide the opportunity for parents and members of the school community to receive information regarding the school's Best Man education program, the school wellbeing system and the school wellbeing support team. This information helps to foster family-school partnerships that are based on existing good practice.
- Members of the wellbeing team regularly make contact with parents and members of the school community to foster and maintain positive, caring and respectful relationships among students and staff and between school and home.
Support for wellbeing and positive behaviours
Our school’s practices support student wellbeing and positive behaviour approaches that align with our school community’s needs. Social and emotional skills related to personal safety, resilience, help-seeking and protective behaviours are explicitly taught across the curriculum in Personal Development, Health and Physical Education (PDHPE).
Examples of other ways our school will embed student wellbeing and positive behaviour approaches and strategies in practices include the following:
- The schools and PBL framework along with its Wellbeing system promote and acknowledge student behaviour that is safe, respectful and responsible. All new students undertake a wellbeing education session where the school expectations and merit system are explicitly taught. Student success is also regularly celebrated at termly year meetings and semesterly rewards excursions.
- As part of the schools Best Man program, all students participate educational workshops that teach pro-social skills such as effective communication, relationship building, problem-solving and conflict resolution. These skills are vital to counter bullying and also provide students with strategies for coping effectively with peer challenges. The program also promotes a positive school culture that does not support aggressive or unfriendly behaviour, such as bullying.
Resources
The NSW anti-bullying website provides evidence-based resources and information for schools, parents and carers, and students. Members of our school community are encouraged to visit the website to support whole-school prevention, early intervention and response approaches and strategies for student bullying behaviour.
Other evidence-informed resources that provide a proactive approach to bullying prevention and education include: