Tackling Bullying
Every school experiences some level of bullying and Driffield School recognises the need to address this issue and deal with it effectively.
In 2005/6 we worked closely with an external partner, National Children’s Homes (NCH) to develop and begin to implement a whole-school approach to bullying.
We started by recruiting some students and a few staff members to help run a drop-in where students could go to report incidents or just talk to somebody. The Chat Room is located in West Building and is open every lunch time.
We now have over 30 trained Anti-Bullying Mentors amongst our students and a team of staff on duty each lunch time. We have also established special “zones” around school which the Mentors regularly patrol to check students are not being bullied.
The Anti-Bullying Committee meets every half term to discuss progress and implement new plans to ensure that incidents of bullying at Driffield School are kept to a minimum
Whilst we are proud of our achievements so far, we have a lot of ideas and plans for the future. We hope to:
- Begin a new recruitment drive to ensure we always have sufficient anti-bullying Mentors to carry out all the important anti-bullying tasks
- Recruit new staff to carry out specific roles such as promotion, assemblies, “zone” duties, etc
- Upgrade the Chat Room, making it more “user-friendly” and so promote our ethos as a caring school
- Produce a short film to help students find and use the Chat Room
- Use our Virtual Teaching and Learning Environment (VTLE) to build a communication platform which bullied students can use to report their concerns and issues
We will continue to develop our ethos to be an anti-bullying school which strives to offer a safe, happy and productive learning environment for all students. Please see our Anti-Bullying Policy and Procedures for more details.
Useful websites: