Anti-Bullying
Tell, Text, Mail: Saying No to Bullying at The Hazeley Academy
Email: AB@haz5d.com
Everyone has the right to learn and work in a school community free from discrimination or harassment and where, fundamentally, they feel safe. The Hazeley Academy prides itself on having very low annual levels of reported incidents that might be classified as ‘bullying’; and most of these appear to start as problems outside the school gate or online at home or in the community. However, we recognise that the stresses placed on those that are bullied can have a detrimental effect on making progress. All of this can have far-reaching effects on their emotional health, well-being, attendance, educational successes and subsequent life chances.
The Hazeley Academy works with staff, students and parents to create an inclusive learning community and it is one where any form of bullying is not tolerated. We have a number of strategies to encourage others to tell us about incidents of bullying, so we are able to effectively offer support to those experiencing the bullying and to ensure those carrying out the bullying stop.
Types of bullying:
- Verbal abuse – name calling and gossiping
- Non-verbal abuse – hand signs or text messages, emails, messaging
- Emotional abuse – threatening or intimidating someone
- Exclusion – deliberately ignoring or isolating someone
- Undermining – constantly criticising or spreading rumours
- Physical assaults – hitting and pushing, punching or having aggressive contact
- Cyber-bullying – this form of bullying is becoming much more prevalent with the rise of social networking and use of mobile internet devices such as phones and tablets. Cyberbullying will be taken seriously and dealt with by the Academy in the same way as any other form of bullying.
offering support to students in need
THE HAZELEY ACADEMY DOES NOT TOLERATE BULLYING
The deliberate, conscious, recurring action to hurt, threaten or torment someone.
- The Hazeley Academy endeavours to prevent and tackle all forms of bullying and harassment; this includes cyber-bullying and prejudice-based bullying related to special education needs, sex, race, religion and belief, disability, sexual orientation, or gender reassignment regardless of the form the bullying takes; verbal or online abuse, physical intimidation or interference with property, or any combination.
- The Hazeley Academy is a supportive Academy; we know that silence and secrecy encourage bullying. You must tell an adult if you are being bullied, and you can expect that adult to try to do something effective to stop the bullying as soon as practically possible, either that day or the following morning.
- Tell someone — fill out a Witness Report Sheet (available from your Tutor, Progress Leader, R2L or any other teacher). Hand it to your Form tutor.
Email someone your worries to this address ab@haz5d.com. If the bullying continues, report the problem again, tell your parent/carer.
All desktops have the following anti-bullying button you can press to report any queries or concerns.
Concerned? Care? Contact! Are you concerned about a friend? Are you worried about a friend and drugs? Self-harm? Eating disorders? Worries at home? Personal relationships? Getting into trouble? Anxiety and not coping?
Anyone — parents, carers, student can send an email. The email is not checked at weekends or holidays. Issues will be addressed the next working day.
Concerns may be about a range of issues including: drugs, self-harm and mental health worries, trouble within the community or with the Police, child sexual exploitation, FGM or cutting, forced marriage, radicalisation or other unrelated concerns about a students well-being and behaviours. We recognise, not every student feels comfortable speaking to their Tutor, Progress Leader or R2L mentor, or that every parent would want to ring the Academy or email a concern. In order to overcome that potential barrier to communication and ultimately offering support to a young person, we have the worried email.
FOCUS on Cyberbullying
Cyber-bullying can be defined as “the use of Information and Communications Technology (ICT), particularly mobile phones and the internet, deliberately to upset someone else‟. More specifically, it can be defined as:
- Actions that use information and communication technologies to support deliberate, repeated, and hostile behaviour by an individual or group that is intended to harm another or not
- use of communication technologies for the intention of harming another person
- use of internet service and mobile technologies such as web pages and discussion groups as well as instant messaging, SMS text messaging or apps such as Snapchat with the intention of harming another person.
It can be an extension of face-to-face bullying, with technology providing the bully with another route to harass their target. However, it differs in several significant ways from other kinds of bullying: the invasion of home and personal space; the difficulty in controlling electronically circulated messages; the size of the audience; perceived anonymity; the profile of the person doing the bullying and their target.
It is important to state that cyber bullying can very easily fall into criminal behaviour under the Communications Act 2003, Section 127 which states that electronic communications which are grossly offensive or indecent, obscene or menacing, or false, used again for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety to another could be deemed to be criminal behaviour. Section 127 can be used as an alternative offence to such crimes for example as hate crime (including race, religion, disability, homophobic, sexual orientation, and transphobic crime), hacking offences, cyber bullying, cyber stalking, amongst others.
If the behaviour involves the use of taking or distributing indecent images of young people under the age of 18 then this is also a criminal offence under the Sexual Offences Act 2003. Outside of the immediate support young people may require in these instances, the Academy will have no choice but to involve the police to investigate these situations.
Please click on the links below for further information and guidance.