Agenda item
Bullying in Schools
The committee will receive a presentation on Anti Bullying in Brent. The presentation will focus on highlighting good practice in Brent Schools, the national and local picture and will include the views of young people from the Brent Youth Parliament and the Secondary Student Anti-bullying Council.
Minutes:
The committee received presentations from the Chair and Vice Chair of the Brent Anti-Bullying Council (ABC), representatives of Mosaic LGBT Youth Centre and from Stephen McMullan (Interim Strategic Lead for Behaviour).
The Chair and Vice Chair of ABC advised that ABC was principally formed of student members nominated by each of the 6 constituent schools and aimed to share best practice. They outlined the achievements of ABC and highlighted planned actions for the current year. The objective of ABC for this year was to spread awareness of the impact of bullying on education. It was emphasised that ABC supported a restorative approach to dealing with incidents between pupils. This approach focussed on helping the various parties understand each other’s perspectives and avoided labelling of victims and perpetrators.
The representatives from Mosaic LGBT Youth Centre explained that the centre provided support to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transsexual young people. The centre also offered a range of services aimed at addressing homophobic bullying. These services included conducting surveys of pupil views, assisting with campaigns in schools and the provision of workshops, conferences and staff training to schools and other related parties. Several key obstacles to the momentum of such work were highlighted. Of particular concern was staff turnover, where there had been one key member of staff leading on such work within the school. It was also considered that existing sex education did not sufficiently explore issues of homosexuality and gender identity and where these issues were addressed, it was only for older pupils. It was noted that anti-faith and racist bullying was dealt with very well in the borough and that it was important that homophobic bullying was considered an issue of similar significance.
Stephen McMullan concluded the presentation by noting that almost half (46%) of children and young people have said that they had been bullied at school at some point in their lives, and detailed several examples of good practice from Brent’s Schools. A new Ofsted inspection framework had been established and this placed greater emphasis around behaviour and safety. It was now necessary for schools to have mechanisms in place to deal with bullying to achieve an outstanding rating. To receive an inadequate rating for this area bullying would be frequent and/or the pupils would have little confidence in the school’s ability to deal with incidents of bullying. Thirteen schools had been inspected in 2012/13 under the new Ofsted Inspection framework, none of which had received an unsatisfactory rating.
The committee congratulated the young representatives of ABC and Mosaic LGBT centre on their presentations and commended the work undertaken by their respective bodies. With reference to the updated ABC leaflet which had been circulated to the committee, Councillor Cheese noted the importance of ensuring that the intended messages were clearly imparted to the target audience. The committee sought further details about the support systems in schools and Councillor Arnold (Lead Member for Children and Families) queried whether it was common for schools in Brent to have mentoring support and student counsellors. A further query was raised regarding ABC and whether any additional channels of support were required to realise any improvements. The committee noted that the take up of the free services to schools offered by the Mosaic LGBT centre was low and queried what prevented schools from making use of these resources. It was also queried what support systems were in place to help parents navigate issues of bullying.
The Chair and Vice Chair of ABC advised that in their school there were lots of mentoring tutors, a mentoring department and school counsellors who offered support. The Chair of BYP added that her school had similar arrangements in place. The main issue remained lines of communication and supporting pupils as they transition from primary school to secondary school. With regard to support for ABC, it was confirmed that attendance at the meetings by all of the schools was perhaps the only area that required attention. Steven McMullan explained that information for parents was set out in schools’ anti-bullying policies which detail how such issues should be approached.
The representatives of Mosaic LGBT youth centre explained that the underlying issue to the take up of their services was the independence of schools. Many schools were facing significant challenges at the present time and there was no requirement for them to address such issues. Steven McMullan added that there were also an issue of confidence amongst staff in schools about tackling these issues.
RESOLVED:
that the presentation be noted.