Question reference: S4W-29762
- Asked by: Ken Macintosh, MSP for Eastwood, Scottish Labour
- Date lodged: 9 February 2016
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Current status: Answered by Alasdair Allan on 29 February 2016
Question
To ask the Scottish Government how it is promoting the need to maintain clear lines of transparency, communication and accountability between everyone involved in responding to bullying incidents.
Answer
This government wants every child and young person in Scotland to grow up free from bullying and to develop respectful, responsible and confident relationships. Bullying of any kind is unacceptable and must be addressed quickly, whenever it arises.
Each local authority is responsible for the care, safety and welfare of pupils in school in the authority area. We all know that children and young people need to feel safe and secure in their learning environment to fully grasp the benefits of the curriculum. That is why anti-bullying policies should be at the heart of a whole school approach to creating a positive and welcoming ethos, and why health and wellbeing sits alongside literacy and numeracy as the responsibility of all staff. This includes each practitioner’s role in promoting open, positive, supportive relationships across the school community.
We have established and wholly fund respectme, a national anti-bullying service, to build confidence and capacity to tackle bullying effectively, aligned to the National Approach to Anti-bullying for Scotland's Children and Young People. respectme provide direct support to local authorities, schools, youth groups and all those working with children and young people.
We expect that all local authorities have an anti-bullying policy that covers all of their schools/establishments and each school/establishment should develop and implement an anti-bullying policy in line with this. All staff and partners working with children and young people should have a good understanding of the anti-bullying policy and clear expectations of their role in its implementation. This policy must be shared with a clear expectation that all staff, volunteers, children, young people and parents and carers have a clear understanding of the policy.
In particular, the anti-bullying policy and procedures should be communicated and shared to ensure that children and young people and their parents and carers know who they can talk to, what they can expect if bullying occurs and how bullying incidents will be resolved.
The refreshed national approach to anti-bullying, which is due to be published in spring 2016, makes clear of the role of all adults and children and young people in preventing and dealing with bullying, as well as what they can expect from others.