Anti-Bullying

Hillbrook School is committed to providing all children with a safe and secure environment where everyone can learn in a positive and encouraging atmosphere. Bullying and harassment is unacceptable in our school and we ensure that, if our children do encounter intimidation of any kind, they have the strategies and support to deal with it.

At Hillbrook, our definition of bullying is:

When someone chooses to upset you on purpose, over and over again, even when someone has asked them to stop.

Staff at Hillbrook have created 3 simple, child-friendly steps to follow if children think they are being bullied:

1. Stand up tall and tell the person “I don’t like it when you…”
2. Talk to a friend about how you’re feeling
3. Walk away and tell an adult you trust 

One of the Hillbrook 3Rs is to be responsible. We often talk about having individual responsibility, but also collective responsibility. We believe everyone has a responsibility to do something if they witness bullying around them. Again, we created 3 simple steps to follow:

1. Be a friend 
2. Ask the bully to stop and be responsible for your own behaviour
3. Tell an adult

We also feel it is important for both children and parents to know what the adults in school will do if bullying is happening.

As a school we endeavour to:

• Listen to both sides, investigate what is happening and write it up
• Speak to the class teacher and other adults involved
• Keep an eye on the situation
• If necessary, tell parents and give out consequences

Each year at Hillbrook we hold an Anti-Bullying Week, where children across the whole school spend some time discussing what bullying is and how to deal with it. They do this through a variety of carefully planned and delivered activities which make the children think about the feelings of themselves and others. A survey taken after Anti-Bullying Week showed that 97% of our children know what to do if they think they are being bullied, and 93% know what to do if they think they see someone else being bullied.

As a school, we believe that kindness and positivity are the ways to stamp out bullying and this is the message we give to our children.