At the Leys Primary school we have zero tolerance to BULLYING. When anyone joins our school, they sign up to this agreement. We have the highest expectations of personal conduct and behaviour, and we expect all members of the school community to be role models and responsible citizens.
We have worked very hard to ensure all our pupils are safe from peer on peer abuse, improve the effectiveness of our anti-bullying practice in order to reduce hurtful behaviour and pupil vulnerability. In recognition of our efforts we were awarded the Hertfordshire Anti-Bullying Accreditation Award in 2016.
Our approach is to build positive relationships between peers through a ‘listening’ and ‘nurturing’ school. We take time to help the children to think about their emotions and behaviour. We do this through:
• Whole class circle time - children are able to discuss any problems that have happened.
• Anti-bullying week - teachers set work to raise awareness of bullying and how to deal with it.
• Peaceful Problem Solving cards - contains a script to help children solve problems calmly.
• Protective behaviours lessons - helps children to know how to keep themselves safe through recognising their own feelings.
• Social skills groups – builds confidence in making and maintaining friendships, teaching children valuable skills
• Peer mentors – Trained by the school to provide positive support for their peers.
All staff have Anti-bullying induction when they join the school, to ensure they can recognise the ways Bullying can present itself:
• PHYSICAL
• EMOTIONAL
• VERBAL
• PREJUDICIAL- RACE, RELIGION, NATIONALITY
• CYBER-BULLYING
• HOMOPHOBIC
• RELATIONAL AGGRESSION
We use our school policy to respond to any report of incidents in school, and within the community, in line with our zero tolerance policy.