Anti-Bullying Week at Hazlegrove

Mrs Mahony reports back on Anti-Bullying Week at Hazlegrove

Years 3 to 8 had an Assembly based around this year’s initiative from the Anti-Bullying Alliance – Reach Out. We started with Westlife’s ‘Reach Out’ and accompanying video, showing band members supporting each other in low moments, and we went on to talk about definitions of bullying and unkindness.

We thought about a whole range of scenarios that commonly happen in even the kindest of schools, and agreed that bullying is just unkindness stepped up to being done on purpose and being targeted - and we looked at all the ways in which that might happen. Often, the children think that bullying is only bullying if it is repeated, but, nowadays, that might not always be the case and we want them to understand that. We finished by considering what it means if you are being a bystander. Is that just as bad?  And then how can you be an upstander instead, and reach out to offer support and do the right thing, another key point of this year’s campaign?

Tutors and PSHE teachers are following this up in more detail as well as looking into the effects of bullying and unkindness.