At Samares School we are committed to tackling bullying and creating a culture where all members of the school community feel safe and respected. Our Counter Bullying Policy and Procedures document can be read through this link. 

What is bullying? 

At Samarès School, we define bullying as:

“Bullying is a subjective experience and could take many forms. To be classed as a bullying act the perpetrator needs to have a social and pre-meditated awareness that the act is malicious and will cause physical and/or emotional harm.”

Bullying may include behaviour that is:

• Emotionally and/or physically harmful, carried out by an individual or a group

• Deliberate and wilful with a premeditated intent to harm

• Occurs more than once

• An imbalance of power, leaving the person being bullied feeling threatened.

Not all acts of aggression can be classed as bullying therefore the school needs to investigate all incidences thoroughly to determine whether it can be recorded as ‘bullying’ or whether it needs to be recorded under another behaviour category.

Reporting a bullying concern.

It is important that regular communication with parents and school occurs to ensure that any incident of bullying can be dealt with swiftly and effectively.

If your child is being bullied it is really important you come into school and speak with either your child’s class teacher or Mr Lumley, our counter-bullying lead.

All accusations of bullying will be investigated thoroughly, and appropriate steps and actions will be taken on a case-by-case basis to ensure your child is well supported. 

If you would like to report a bullying concern please speak with your child's class teacher, Mr Lumley, or use the following link on our website: Report a Concern.

What happens for the child who has been bullying?

We will also be working with the child who has bullied to ensure that the reasons for why they had been bullying are addressed, to help stop this behaviour continuing. If your child is bullying, we will invite you in to school and explain the next steps and actions that will be taken. We believe that children bully when they are trying to ‘problem solve’ something in their life that they are not happy with. It is important therefore, to support and help your child work through this and to remove their ‘need’ to bully. Our well-being programme in school will help to do this.

Appropriate sanctions, in line with the school behaviour policy, will be implemented and this will be dicussed with the parents of the child who has been bullying.

Evaluation and feedback

We are constantly reflecting and looking for ways to continually improve and develop our policies, procedures and practices.

If you have reported an incident of bullying to a member of staff at school it would be greatly appreciated if you could spend a couple of minutes filling in this short Form to help us evaluate the effectiveness of our response. Bulliyng feedback form.