Dear Parents and Carers,

With some concern in the community regarding bullying I am devoting this week’s newsletter to the subject. It is long but please read it. There is also important information after the first section, so please read on. 

Firstly, schools are required to have policies on behaviour, behaviour principles and anti bullying strategies. They can be found on our website https://combemartin-sch.org/cmps-policies/ If bullying is identified we will take action in accordance with our policies. We have currently taken action on all incidents we are aware of.

In order for the school to carry out its duty of providing all students with a safe environment in which to learn, grow and develop – we need to enlist the support and co-operation of all parents in the school community.

We have, as all schools do, a lot of children who present with different issues and difficulties in school. In the past year or so the impact of ‘screentime’ is becoming quite visible in the children’s ability to sit still, listen and maintain friendships. The social and emotional needs of the children are met through daily contact with the teacher and if assistance is required we have an Early Help teaching assistant (Mrs Lawson) to identify and plan provision. You can, if you wish, make contact with Mrs Lawson directly.

Children, as well as adults, have people they trust more than others. It is completely natural for children to not want to talk about things that are bothering them. In school there may be a person your child will talk to. It is usually the teaching assistant or teacher. However, there may not be ‘a person’. They may feel that their parent or sibling at home is the person they will talk to. This is where school needs your help to inform us of any growing issues. You have specific lines of communication open to you when you need to contact school: Dojo, email or a meeting. We would like parents and carers to see their role in communicating with school as an essential part of information sharing. Once either school or parents have noticed an issue then WE (parents and school) will decide what to do next. If your child has told someone at school but they think ‘nothing has been done’ a quick word with the teacher can help. We need to know if there is a bigger concern or if the incident was a friendship issue. We will take action to support either. It’s worth knowing that children think midday supervisors ‘aren’t doing anything about it’ when the child or group of children do not like the decision that has been made.

The majority of issues which are labelled ‘bullying’ are actually friendship disputes. Children, like adults when they work, are asked to share a common space - the playground or the classroom. Children all have specific needs in the classroom and the teacher is there to meet their needs. It is quite rare for problems to be displayed in the classroom - they usually occur during unstructured time like lunch and break. This is where children need to navigate complex social rules that we call friendship groups. As a school and as parents we need to teach children how to create and maintain friendships and most importantly how to feel and react when things go wrong. Things go wrong with children’s friendships a lot! Constantly falling out and making up does not necessarily indicate a problem more severe than two strong minded individuals. It is the shift in the ‘power’ a child has over another that we have to be vigilant over. Creating friendship ‘groups’ and ignoring or making children feel isolated or belittled is concerning and should be brought to their teacher’s attention quickly.

Children feel emotionally vulnerable when things are not going right for them. We need to explore the reasons for the breakdown of friendships and support our children to mend broken friendships or create new ones. The advent of ‘screen time’ has, in some cases, reduced the amount of time children play together. In other words, they are not as good at playing simple games together as they used to be. The complex nature of games that they attempt to create is due to elaborate computer games and TV programmes that they play and watch. In this complexity someone will not know all the rules or be able to interact as an equal - and a split in friendship occurs; along with the associated issues of taking friends away. Children need to know that it’s ok to play with other people - in fact, a wide friendship base is an advantage.

When playing games often a natural ‘leader’ will emerge. This is quite normal and most children are happy to take their turn being a ‘play leader’. Some children, however, like to be in control all of the time and manage to keep others from having opportunities to lead. This often leads to issues around sharing.

Games with complex rules following a computer game or TV programme generally have an element of rough play involved. This can upset some children who do not like rough play - especially when they are not expecting it or it happens too much or they get hurt.

In all of the cases above we need to be the guardians of our children’s developing emotions and responses. We need to communicate well-being between school and home and support in the development of positive behaviour strategies. The children who cannot operate in this area have Behaviour Care Plans.

In bullying we hear ‘zero tolerance’ as a means of addressing problems. Absolutely, we cannot allow children to be hurt in any way. However, we all know that children with emotional barriers which prevent good behaviour choices need to be helped as well. In our school community we look to support. There have been cases where exclusion has been necessary, however, our duty as a school is to look to intervene and support. Zero tolerance does not mean exclusion. Zero tolerance means we will act quickly to try and eliminate the issue through intervention, communication and support.

At school we use CPOMS, a recording database where we log concerns and track trends. Everytime a parent contacts a teacher they log your concern and we use the information to build a picture of the emerging issues. This complements the logging of incidents by all school staff and is the reason why communicating with school is so important. It gives us the information we need to act. Has your child’s mood changed lately? Are you worried? Have they started doing something out of character? If the answer is yes, get in touch with the class teacher. If it continues come in to see the Head Teacher.

Most incidents are dealt with the same day and have a clear action. However, some children need to have a lot of work done to help them overcome challenges in their development. Children may have experienced horrible things when they were very small. We work to protect them as we do the other children who have had better experiences. Punishment in vulnerable children creates rejection and breaks attachments and makes behaviour worse. All children, for they are children after all, need love, care and the opportunity to learn from their mistakes. They need parental and school support for when things go wrong and they need to know they are safe. Safe to say what they need to, when they need to, to whoever they have chosen to listen - knowing that person will act in their best interests by information sharing.

Please work with us. Many parents who do have seen the speed in which we can effect change. And when that change is harder to instigate, how hard we work with your children. There are always issues with children which go unsaid. If you notice them - tell us. If we don’t know we can’t act.

Talking to our children is a skill in itself. Please use the Class Dojo notifications to generate discussion around learning. Use the mid term reports to think about your child’s performance. If it has dropped there might be a reason why. As parents you will see changes in behaviour. If you are concerned let us know. We can work with you to help.

We watch, we record and we will be contacting parents quicker from now on. This is because we want to involve you in our actions from the outset. Hopefully early involvement will help us to support our children more effectively. If you know that there has been an instance of poor behaviour at school, as a parent you can act at home and we can act at school.

If you have a concern and can’t get to school you can use our CONCERN FORM on the school website here..

https://combemartin-sch.org/i-have-a-concern/

Suggested advice for you to give to your children...

Teach your child to use their WITS… Walk away… Ignore… TELL SOMEONE… then that someone will help by sharing the problem.

Choose Respect! The children discuss being RESPECTFUL as one of our three golden rules. We don’t all have to get along but there’s no need to be cruel. Be kind!

Give them advice about how to deal with a problem. If someone has taken a toy or spoilt their game - what should they do? Are they being too demanding? How can they try and make the situation right? When should they leave and get help? What is the right choice?

It’s your ‘choice’ what to do but you do not choose the consequences. Talk to your child about the right thing to do. Read the behaviour principles of the website and think about what school would do. What would work? What wouldn’t?

If you tell an adult at school make sure you tell me (the parent) too! That way you can ask about any incident. It’s always good to know both sides to a story - and there will be two sides!

Start with ‘I’... Don’t ask what the other child did or what happened to you... ask what they did. If children have to account for their actions you find out a lot more about the incident that has occured.



Please click below to say if this has been helpful or not...