Hints and tips to prevent bullying in your class
With this week being Anti-Bullying Week I thought it might be a good idea to look through all the information and guidelines coming out from all the charities and put together some hints and tips for new (or old!) teachers about ways to deal with bullying. I have taken a lot of this information from the Anti-Bullying Alliance and Bully Free, so feel free to have a look on their websites as well if you need any further help.
1) Try and give your class a sense of unity by creating things together that they can be proud of, such as a class picture board or collages. Enter competitions as a class and encourage them to be proud of their achievements together (such as this Anti-Bullying Week art competition).
2) Furthermore, finding a third party to mutually dislike can prove beneficial in bringing your class together, such as animal cruelty, water pollution and world hunger.
3) Always keep grades a secret, perhaps by collecting any marked work at the end of the class. Do not draw attention to a pupil’s weakness, like speaking in public, but always try and celebrate their strengths (but not so much that the other pupils become jealous).
4) Keep a ‘Tell the Teacher’ box in your classroom so your pupils can report any unfriendly behaviour to you privately if they are too shy to speak to you about it.
5) Consistently investigate all reports of bullying and make sure you have a well-defined system in place to deal with any unacceptable behaviour i.e. a three strike system.
These are only a few tips for minimising bullying in your class and they may not work for everyone, a lot of the time it depends on what age group you are teaching and the individual students. A particularly good website is Bully Free and you can find a number of other helpful hints and tips here, as well as their renowned anti-bullying programme which is available to buy for schools. We have a couple of anti-bullying posters on the ELHQ website which you may also find of use:
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