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individual’ and one ‘bad individual’ to be involved. There are multiple roles involved in bullying, which people can contribute to without even realising. When you talk to students about being influenced by people laughing and egging on the perpetrators, those students accused of bullying will tend to take those accusations less personally. (e.g. “ Are you telling me I’m a terrible person? ”). This way, perpetrators’ behaviour can be reframed as more a product of group behaviour that they can then work on with their teachers. That said, we fully support being clear with young people over what’s defined as ‘unacceptable behaviour’, and certainly wouldn’t oppose any punishments for such behaviours. We would simply call for a better understanding of the group dynamics typically at play in bullying behaviours. Are there any ‘tells’ that can betray bullies and the acts they’ve perpetrated? Young people can be very smart and adept at hiding their behaviours. Some cases of bullying are so covert that it might outwardly appear that the young people involved are good friends, when they’re not. Sometimes, the individual being bulliedmay not want to lose that ‘friendship’ by reporting what’s happening – despite it being a friendship that may have started well, but then tipped into something very different over time. It can also help to look for repetition. Your reporting system can help you here – if you see that someone reported being bullied a week ago, and it was concluded that the case didn’t amount to bullying, then a further case involving the same students should raise a red flag and be recorded. Victims of bullying often won’t look ‘sad’ to outside observers, as they’ll want to conceal howmuch bullying has affected them, while avoiding being a target for anyone else. What can then happen is that some students will act out – perhaps by being horrible to their siblings at home, or misbehaving in school to try and escape the situation they’re in. They may well go on to bully other students. How can schools encourage a default response of mutual vigilance and resistance to bullying among their students as a whole? Maintaining a respectful culture and ethos that’s modelled and agreed among your cohort is vital. As children enter Y7, there has to be clarity in terms of they how they’ll be expected to treat each other and the behaviour standards they must agree to. This could even take the form of a written contract they have to physically ‘sign’. At the same time, schools should concede that students aren’t always going to get on. There will be things that they wind each other up about – but ultimately, how do they want to be treating each other? Reiterate and model your culture and associated behaviours as often as possible, so that students see themwherever they go. That said, it’s relatively rare for a child to be severely bullied without them attempting to do or say something to their bullies in retaliation – perhaps via some form of action that they won’t want to share with you, the adult. In those instances, the school needs to make clear that staff will be understanding of such behaviours. There can be very punitive cultures in some schools, whichmay be needed at times – but they can also go too far, and discourage students from being honest. Students ought to be aware that there’s an attitude of ‘ We’re going to work it out together ’ that will support them, rather than the prospect of a detention for having sworn at a classmate. Finally, it’s vital to nip any derogatory and discriminatory language in the bud – even if it’s not being specifically used to bully. By failing to act on instances of, say, disablist or homophobic language, you risk creating a culture in which that language becomes acceptable, causing some groups to feel isolated. Anti-BullyingWeek 2025, organised by the Anti- Bullying Alliance, takes place from10th to 14th November and will be themed around ‘Power for Good’; for more information, visit anti-bullyingalliance.org.uk WHATMAKES AGOOD REPORTING SYSTEM? “No secondary school should still be using a paper-based reporting system, though we’ve seen how that unfortunately does still happen. The solution you use needn’t be an expensive one, but it’s vital that it be computerised. “Your reporting system isn’t just there to record incidents. It should also be a reflection of how well your anti-bullying strategy is working. One feature of good reporting systems that often gets missed is having a field for student characteristics – gender, age and so forth.We know, for instance, that students in receipt of free school meals, or who have SEND, are more at risk of bullying. Is that data being recorded, and can your recording system alert you to high incidences of a particular type of bullying? Your recording should be able to trigger safeguarding responses based on the locations where bullying is taking place. Bullying is more common during transition points on the way to and from school, for example. Are you recording whether bullying is occurring on buses transporting your students? If so, are you then feeding that data back into your wider anti-bullying strategy? 25 teachwire.net/secondary B E H AV I O U R