What do we do to prevent bullying? 

At Darras Hall Primary School, we work hard to prevent bullying occurring in the first place.  Our DARRAS Code places respect and resilience at the heart of our school environment.  We take part annually in the Anti-Bullying Alliance All Together programme and have achieved the award for two years running.

We have adopted the Anti-Bullying Alliance’s ‘Ten Key Principles’ Charter to prevent and respond to bullying.

• We are a listening school, in which children are encouraged to express their feelings, fears and concerns. This is facilitated through PSHE Curriculum, Assemblies, class discussion time and role play.
• We include everybody and celebrate difference through our assemblies, RE curriculum, specific religious celebration ‘days’ and through the wider curriculum enhancement
• Promote and reward positive behaviour, celebrate achievements and develop whole school and class rules – as highlighted in our Behaviour Policy – and challenge negative language or behaviours in response to an incident.  We respond as a whole school to negative behaviours through assemblies, or whole-school focused topics, to enable our school to continually evolve.
• We provide a positive learning environment and educate children, parents and staff so that all members of the school community are confident enough to report bullying and know how to do so.
• All staff members are trained and the pupils are regularly briefed on what bullying is, in order that the whole school community understands what bullying is and what it isn’t.
• Encourage the feeling of ‘belonging’ to a community and use peer group pressure to actively discourage bullying, especially through our work on the role of the ‘Defender’.
• We respect each other with careful consideration of how adults in school talk to children and children know that they will be believed by staff, should they need to report a bullying incident.
• We take action and respond to all incidents quickly.  We use CPOMS(electronic recording system) to record incidents, to ensure that all relevant staff members are aware and can take appropriate action.
• We have a clear policy in place that is shared annually with children, but reinforced termly.
• We use peer support systems: Buddies, Buddy Benches, as a point of contact for vulnerable children.
• We have a school council and a diversity council to encourage children to have a voice.
• We use School 360 and a weekly KS2 face to face online safety forum, which gives pupils a portal for reporting incidents online.
• We use Worry Boxes in classrooms and key adults for children who are particularly vulnerable
• We run Anti-Bullying Week annually and follow this up with termly Anti-Bullying Days.

We follow the Anti-Bullying Alliance All Together Program. We have been accredited with their Silver Award for our work with the children to promote anti-bullying.