Anti Bullying: September 2024 - September 2025

PROCEDURE TITLE: Anti Bullying
DOCUMENT NUMBER: 3.2
PROCEDURE GROUP: Equality and Diversity
AUTHOR / REVISOR / OWNER: Greg Corcoran / Carina Tomlinson
DATE OF CURRENT VERSION: September 2024
REVIEW DATE: September 2025
IMPACT ASSESSED: Yes
APPROVED BY: Board of Governors
DATE: 20/02/2025

The policy applies to the whole College community and should be read in conjunction with the Code of Conduct, College Values, Equality and Diversity and Behaviour Management Policies.  The policy applies to all college related activity both on campus and via remote learning.

The purpose of this policy is to demonstrate the College’s determination to ensure that all students can enjoy a student life free from bullying of any kind physical or emotional via direct or distant (cyber bullying) interface.

To comply with the KCSIE 2023 recommendations on Child-on-Child abuse.

East Durham College is committed to providing a safe, secure and positive environment, both physical and virtual, in which everyone can develop and learn, making full use of the range of facilities available to them.

The College provides an environment free from discrimination and does not tolerate discriminatory, offensive, violent and inappropriate behaviour.

All who use or work in East Durham College are entitled to be treated with respect and understanding, and to participate in any activity free from intimidation.

All staff at East Durham College are expected to listen actively to young people and other learners and act appropriately on information received in order to ensure that a safe, secure, positive environment exists.

AIMS

To prevent bullying of any form, physical, verbal, cyber or mental.

To ensure that everyone is aware that bullying will not be tolerated.

To comply with all relevant Human Rights legislation.

To ensure that everyone understands that they have a responsibility for the safety and wellbeing of others.

OBJECTIVES

To provide and encourage a safe, listening environment in which people feel free to discuss their concerns regarding bullying behaviour

To raise everyone’s awareness of bullying

To identify and provide appropriate training (staff development) in relation to identifying and preventing bullying

To review regularly the policy and procedures relating to bullying

To monitor procedures and their effectiveness in preventing bullying

To investigate fully any incidents of bullying

- To take positive actions to deal with bullying behaviour

- To provide appropriate training and support for victims of bullying and those involved in bullying behaviour

College Code of Practice

• All members of the College Community have a responsibility to ensure that learners and staff are free from bullying.
• All staff should monitor their conduct and language to eliminate bullying behaviour and practices and should actively counter such behaviour amongst learners
• All staff and learners should be aware of the procedures for complaints, details can be found in College handbooks and by asking at Student Services
• Parents and carers should contact their son/daughters Progression Coach or follow the College complaints procedure if bullying occurs or is suspected
• Learners should report bullying to any member of college staff
• Staff should follow the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) to ensure that any data collected is protected and is private
• Staff should take immediate action if bullying is reported or suspected – all cases should be logged on My Concern – and the Progression Coach should be notified immediately so that corrective or disciplinary action can be taken
• An allegation of bullying will be fully investigated and dealt with appropriately to reduce the likelihood of it happening again
• When a person is suspected of bullying every effort will be made to establish the facts and appropriate action will be taken to ensure there is no recurrence
• All parties will be offered support, including counselling, if required

The College regards bullying as a serious offence and will apply College Behaviour Management Procedures where appropriate.

GENERAL GUIDANCE

The Nature of Bullying

There is no legal definition of bullying, however it can be defined as repeated behaviour which is intended to hurt someone either emotionally or physically and is often aimed at certain people because of a vulnerability, a protected characteristic or other aspects such as appearance.  Bullying can take many forms including physical assault, social bullying, threatening behaviour, name calling and cyberbullying.   It can also include up-skirting, sexting and initiation / hazing type violence and rituals.

It is often a repeated behaviour and intentional and can also be an abuse of power by an individual or group with the intent and motivation to cause distress to another individual or group.   It may occur frequently or infrequently, regularly or irregularly, but it should be taken seriously even if it has only occurred on one occasion.

Bullying is not a phenomenon which occurs solely between young people.  The above definition can also be seen to characterise some adult/adult, adult/child and child/adult relationships.

In more serious instances where adults abuse their power over a young person or a young person does over another young person bullying may be viewed as child-on-child abuse and should be seen within this context.

Child-on-child abuse is most likely to include, but may not be limited to

• bullying (including cyberbullying, prejudice-based and discriminatory bullying) 
• abuse in intimate personal relationships between children (sometimes known as ‘teenage relationship abuse’) 
• physical abuse such as hitting, kicking, shaking, biting, hair pulling, or otherwise causing physical harm (this may include an online element which facilitates, threatens and/or encourages physical abuse)
• sexual violence,9 such as rape, assault by penetration and sexual assault; (this may include an online element which facilitates, threatens and/or encourages sexual violence)
• sexual harassment, such as sexual comments, remarks, jokes and online sexual harassment, which may be standalone or part of a broader pattern of abuse 
• causing someone to engage in sexual activity without consent, such as forcing someone to strip, touch themselves sexually, or to engage in sexual activity with a third party 
• consensual and non-consensual sharing of nude and semi-nude images and/or videos11 (also known as sexting or youth produced sexual imagery) 
• upskirting,12 which typically involves taking a picture under a person’s clothing without their permission, with the intention of viewing their genitals or buttocks to obtain sexual gratification, or cause the victim humiliation, distress, or alarm, and 
• initiation/hazing type violence and rituals (this could include activities involving harassment, abuse or humiliation used as a way of initiating a person into a group and may also include an online element).

Not all aggressive behaviour is bullying.  Behaviour, which appears to be bullying, may be exhibited by some young people without the intention or awareness that it causes distress.

Some individuals may feel they are being bullied, even when there is no intention from others to cause them distress.  Such perceptions of bullying should be taken seriously, and action taken to address them.

Why it is important to do something about bullying

Bullying is always damaging to those involved.  The victim, the bully and those who witness or even know about the bullying are affected.

Victims
Victims may spend their lives in fear.  They often feel isolated from their peers and may believe that it is something about themselves which has led the bully to pick on them.

The victim’s life may be characterised by unhappiness, a sense of desolation and desperation and exclusion from normal social experiences.  Those feelings can permeate all aspects of the victim’s life and may lead to a strong desire to escape the situation by running away from home, truanting from school, college, absences from work, and in some cases, self-harming or taking their own life.

The victims of bullying may have reduced self-esteem and self-worth and their performance in school, college, work and other areas often deteriorates.

Research evidence has shown that victims of bullying may be more likely to experience mental health problems and also that they are more likely to become bullies themselves.

Bullying Behaviour

Bullying is not a natural behaviour pattern and should not be seen as such.

People who bully are likely to experience difficult and unhappy relationships with their peers and frequently need help to overcome these difficulties.

People who bully are unlikely to stop if they continue to be unchallenged.

Cyber Bullying

Bullying also occurs by misuse of technologies e.g. virtual learning platforms, emails, text messages, social media and the internet.  All occurrences must be tackled with equal importance.  Learners must be aware that by forwarding inappropriate messages or images, they are equally as culpable as the originator.  Progression Coaches will include sessions in the tutorial programme which deal with bullying and how to protect yourself on-line. The college has invested in programmes to monitor and detect cyber bullying in an effort to reduce the likelihood of occurrences and to protect students on line.

Others

Bullying behaviour includes up-skirting, which typically involves taking a picture under a person’s clothing without them knowing, with the intention of viewing their genitals or buttocks to obtain sexual gratification, or cause the victim humiliation, distress or alarm; sexting (also known as youth produced sexual imagery); initiation/hazing type violence and rituals.

Bullying behaviour does not just affect the victim and the perpetrator.  Those who witness or know of bullying may live in fear that it will be their turn next.

Bullying promotes poor models of behaviour and may encourage others to imitate these models.  People who have been bullied in one setting may well become bullies in another.

For children transferring from primary to secondary schools the fear of bullying is widespread.  This may also apply when transferring from school to college, or college to work.

Evidence has shown that bullying is a major concern for parents and young people of all ages.

Organisations

Organisations which encourage or even tolerate bullying are less effective.  Where the values and culture of the organisation are dominated by fear and subordination, individual are less efficient, moral is lower and absenteeism is more frequent.

PERFORMANCE INDICATORS

Incidents of bullying will be recorded and analysed.
Learner surveys will be conducted and analysed to monitor instances of bullying.
Awareness raising for learners will be conducted during induction and throughout the tutorial programme.
The Anti Bullying Policy will be reviewed annually.
A summary report will be incorporated into the Equality and Diversity report.