How To Support SEND Students Who Are Bullied
Young people with SEND are twice as likely as their peers to experience bullying at school, says nasen’s Jane Friswell – but with the right advice and resources, you can help keep every student safe…
We all place high importance on tackling bullying of every stripe. Many schools work closely with the Anti-Bullying Alliance to communicate how unacceptable bullying is and apply its practical information about how to address bullying against those with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).
The government’s 2014 SEND reforms called on schools to have a behaviour policy in place outlining how they would protect pupils from bullying. For schools looking for guidance on how to do this, the Anti-Bullying Alliance’s charter [PDF] is a good starting point.
Respect, trust, believe
Compiled by the Anti-Bullying Alliance in partnership with Achievement for All, Contact a Family, Mencap and the Council for Disabled Children, it’s influenced by young people with SEND themselves and presented as a charter that schools are encouraged to sign up to. it identifies the key commitments which schools should adopt when tackling bullying of children and young people with SEND. These are principles with which no one would argue, and they promote the embedding of this approach to stop this kind of bullying.
The charter lays out requirements for the school to become a ‘listening’ school’, in which all stakeholders are listened to. By doing so, schools will be able to ‘influence strategies and approaches to prevent, report and respond to incidents of bullying’.
Building on the core principle of respect, the charter further makes it clear that all staff are role models to others within the school in terms of how they treat others.
The challenges presented by, and associated with, bullying behaviour, attitudes, language and values is highlighted in the part of the charter that calls for ‘Disablist language’ to be taken as seriously as homophobic or racist language. However, the charter also recommends celebrating and welcoming difference ‘Actively and visibly’ across the whole school’.
Schools that evidence a clear understanding of what bullying is and what it isn’t is another important feature of the charter – one that reinforces the whole-school message of a common understanding by all.
Whole-school approach
Being understood and believed when reporting an incidenct of bullying is important to everyone – but particularly for pupils and students with SEND and their parent carers. The charter identifies as a key principle that those reporting their concerns are ‘Acknowledged, believed and taken seriously when reporting incidents of bullying’.
Reporting bullying and following through in terms of related action is often the point at which many parents and pupils will determine the success of a whole-school approach to anti-bullying. Knowing how and what to report, and to whom, is key information that all schools must provide to everyone. Schools must ensure that their approach to tackling bullying is made clear, and also that action required is taken appropriately and promptly.
By using resources such as these – as well as the additional free training provided by the Anti-Bullying Alliance and its partners – every school and setting can make bullying stop for every pupil. Just imagine the impact that this would have on improving outcomes for our children and young people.
Jane Friswell is the former chief executive of Nasen and present director of SEND Consultancy; for more information, @janefriswell. Browse resources for Anti Bullying Week.
