At St Mary’s Church of England Primary School, we are committed to providing a caring, friendly and safe environment for all our pupils, so they can learn and play in a secure environment. The school treats all reported incidents of bullying-type-behaviour and bullying seriously.
 
St Mary’s Church of England Primary School is committed to being a ‘telling school’: all pupils and adults should be able to tell someone they trust and know that incidents will be dealt with promptly and effectively. Anyone who knows that bullying is happening is also expected to tell someone they trust. Our pupils are encouraged to be a power for good to make our school a safe and welcoming place.
 
We have been working with staff, pupils and parents to create a school community where bullying is not tolerated. We are at present working towards achieving the Leicestershire County Council’s Beyond Bullying Award. This award is given in recognition of the schools work to further improve the culture in the school and for its achievements in embedding effective anti-bullying practice.

What is bullying?

Bullying is repeated behaviour by an individual or group that deliberately

hurts another individual or group physically or emotionally.

Types of bullying

​​Bullying-type-behaviour, which can lead to bullying if it is repeated, includes:

Emotional (being unfriendly, name calling, making offensive comments, teasing,

spreading hurtful rumours, inappropriate sarcasm, excluding, mocking, taunting,

tormenting, using threatening gestures);

Physical (pushing, kicking, hitting, punching, spitting or any use of violence;

plus taking other physical-bullying-actions such as tacking, hiding or damaging belongings);

Racist (racial taunts, gestures);

Sexual (unwanted physical contact or sexually abusive comments);

Homophobic (focusing on the issue of sexuality);

Other prejudice-based bullying (e.g. religious beliefs, physical appearance, disability,

perceived intelligence, perceived economic status);
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Cyber (sending abusive or nasty e-mails; sending computer viruses; sending inappropriate images

or videos by e-mail; using instant messaging and chat rooms to send threatening or abusive

messages to someone else and asking others to join in; using another person’s account,

without their permission, to send abusive messages to others; writing nasty or upsetting

comments on someone’s profile on social networking sites; making jokes or comments about

people on their own profiles; writing comments underneath other people’s bullying posts;

setting up a fake profile dedicated to bullying someone else; abusing or harassing

someone through online multi-player gaming sites; sending abusive texts, video or

photo messages, or sharing videos of physical attacks on individuals (for example

‘happy slapping’ or ‘blue jacking’); ‘sexting’, which is encouraging someone to share

intimate pictures or videos of themselves and then sending these on to other people;

posting photos, personal information, fake comments and blogs, or pretending to be

someone online without that person’s permission).