The Blog of Legends

As we finish off #AntiBullyingWeek, one our London teams share their views on bullying, the ways that it can present itself – and perhaps most importantly, how they’re doing their part to prevent it for the children in their schools. Over to you, Team Legends!

More than half of people under 25 have experienced bullying at some point in their life. 20% of people often say they experienced verbal bullying with 24% of young people stating that they are worried about getting abuse online. Bullying is a pressing issue in schools, and it is something City Year UK are aware of and work hard to tackle on a day-to-day basis.

Most people understand bullying as behaviour by an individual or group, repeated over time, that is intended to hurt another individual or group either physically or emotionally. The main types of bullying are physical, verbal, emotional, prejudicial and cyberbullying. Physical bullying is the most obvious form of bullying. It occurs when people use physical actions to gain power and control over their targets. This is the easiest form of bullying to detect. As a result, it is most likely what people think of when they think of bullying and has therefore, historically received more attention than the more subtle forms of bullying. Verbal bullies will use words, statements, and name-calling to belittle and hurt others. This is difficult to identify as it often occurs when adults are not present and often seen to not impact others significantly so are told to “ignore it”.

Verbal bullying, however, can leave deep emotional scars with its victims. Emotional bullying is a type of social manipulation where people try to hurt others such as spreading rumours. Prejudicial bullying is based on prejudices people have toward others of different races, religions, or sexual orientation. This type of bullying is often severe. Cyberbullying is a form of bullying via electronic means. This is often by sending hurtful messages, making threats or posting harmful images. This is becoming more common due to the anonymity people can maintain online. It is an increasingly common and serious issue amongst young people.

All types of bullying can leave children feeling isolated, worthless, anxious, powerless, depressed and much more. All bullying should be taken seriously.

We are Team Legends, and we work in a secondary school in London. We work incredibly hard with the students in the school to attack the verbal, physical and online bullying. We hold 1–1’s with the students who feel like they’re getting bullied, talking them through the situation, giving them advice and passing it on appropriately. We work closely with the Heads of Houses to ensure the students feel safe and comfortable in and outside school. We also work closely with the students in lessons but also on break duties to ensure we are there for the students if they are having a problem.

We believe that In order to reduce bullying, it is very important to change and build the school environment against bullying itself. The implementation of anti-bullying policies in school provides awareness and suggests that bullying is actually an ‘uncool’ act. In order to change the school environment and to implement a zero tolerance to bullying the participation of all school staff is required. All staff at the school should be trained in bullying prevention and intervention. In-service training can help staff to better understand the nature of bullying and its effects, how to respond if they observe bullying, and how to work with others at the school to help prevent bullying from occurring. As part of our City Year training, we were given a lot of strategies and tips on how to deal with bullying and have since worked with the school to implement their policies.

From our experience of working in a school, we believe that it is important that there is a good involvement from the parents in regards to bullying, this can be done by informing the parents of any behaviour changes from the child whilst they are in school.

We all feel very strongly about the prevention of bullying and will continue to do all we can to tackle it and implement the schools policies and procedures.

If you are experiencing bullying or know someone who is, please visit the Anti-Bullying Alliance or @ABAOnline on Twitter for information and resources — because no one should ever have to experience bullying, whether that’s in school or not. Be kind, be thoughtful… and be a friend, not a bully.