General Chat

Hi, just catching up on this thread. I agree with Cat's comments, and tried to find some other sources.

These paragraphs are from a Daily Telegraph story in Oct 2009:

"Schools were placed under a duty by the Government in 2002 to monitor and report all racist incidents to their local authority

(.....)

After the introduction of the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000, which put public bodies under a duty to eliminate discrimination, schools were told they had to monitor the impact of their policies on the educational attainment of pupils of different races.

In 2002, racist incident forms were created that required teachers to name the alleged perpetrator and victim, and spell out what they did and how they were punished. Schools can keep these details on file."

Under the Freedom of Information Act, local authorities can be required to reveal the number of racist incidents recorded over a period of time, which seems to form the basis of most of the articles that can be found on Google.

It looks as if there are two ways to look at it:
1) To try and eliminate bullying, one can hardly demand that parents act responsibly (although each of us can do so ourselves, and encourage others to do so), so it is perhaps helpful that teachers should have their ears attuned for it, and that they must monitor whether the schools' efforts to promote an anti-bullying culture are working, or being counter-productive (it must be all to easy to end up showing an angry child yet one more weapon available to them!); or
2) To wonder whether anti-bullying campaigns are ever effective, so that the required reporting is a waste of everyone's time?

What does the local authority do with the information? Do they find that particular campaigns have worked in one school (in that there is a clear reduction in the number of incidents being reported by that school), and then arrange for other schools in the area to learn from that approach?

I heard an interesting radio interview last weekend about bullying. A (Swedish, I think) researcher who first encouraged schools to think about the problem is clear that an incident cannot be bullying at all unless it is part of a pattern of deliberate behaviour towards a definite target.

I hope that most schools would use discretion over the record keeping, with that definition of bullying in mind.

I've just realised that the Daily Mail article suggested that further provisions are to be brought in.

All I can find at the moment is a note that Ed Balls asked Maurice Smith in Sept 2009 to carry out a review by January 2010.

This webpage gives the progress, but, it seems, not the contents, of that review:

http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/mauricesmithreview/

"The Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families announced on 30 September 2009 that he had asked Maurice Smith, former HM Chief Inspector of Schools, to undertake a full and detailed review of the provisions which prevent the promotion of racism in schools. Maurice Smith has been asked to deliver his report by the end of January 2010"

Thanks for the tip Wend. Have been a big fan of Playing For Change from the beginning, love the songs, voices, and music... Deams of Kirina had me in tears, but makes me feel hopeful too, it is so moving to see and hear this beautiful song and people, the music is wonderful. Have listened and watched twice already.

Hi Ivy

Thanks for your comments - I agree that it would be a very useful tool for the Local Authority to monitor and tackle 'bullying hotspots' - providing the school has very clear guidelines to identify the genuine cases through consistant teacher training.

Anything that identifies trends has to be a good thing. If it directs funds more effectively - thats great too. A clearly directed antibullying strategy has to be a positive thing.

Providing a youngster who is found to be a persistant bully has the opportunity to address their behaviour and can demonstrate they have mended their ways - I feel that their name should be removed from the list. Otherwise it could be counter productive and no incentive to change as a young child moves in to secondary school.

Just to throw a spanner in to the works - It is not uncommon for victims of bullying to become bully's later in life.

Wend, all their music/songs are inspiring and lovely, but the Kirina song gets to me the most. In One Love, the pic. of Bob Marley moves me a lot.(I'm a big fan)The text "it's time for the world to unite as a human race" is all too true. Sad that this is not happening.All videos give plenty of food for thought.

I'm lucky because all my kids and g.children like Raggae too.Lol.Have you heard the song 'An Ideal World' sung by The Christians? I used to play that an awful lot, started listening again on youtube..the words echo my, and millions (thank goodness) of other's sentiments.

Eileen x