What is Bullying?

Bullying is a conscious act to cause hurt by one or more people against another person or people.

Bullying can last for a short period or go on for years and is an abuse of power by those who
carry it out. It is sometimes premeditated, sometimes opportunistic, sometimes occurs randomly
and sometimes serially.

Bullying relies on observers, onlookers, watchers doing nothing to stop the bullying or becoming
actively involved in supporting it. Although bullying can take many forms it can broadly be
categorised as physical and non-physical bullying.

Non-physical bullying can be verbal or non-verbal. Verbal bullying includes name-calling,

threats, spreading false rumours or teasing. Non-verbal bullying such as exclusion, ignoring,
graffiti, spiteful texts and emails and ruining friendships has been found to cause the most
damage in terms of mental health and yet is the hardest to recognise and respond to.

Children, young people and adults can all be involved in bullying. It is important to note that
bullying can be student to student, teacher to student, student to teacher, parent to teacher and
teacher to parent. Types and forms of bullying are also constantly evolving as society and
technology develops. There is no getting away from the fact that, for some children and young
people in our care, bullying is at least devastating and at worst a life or death situation. There are
on average 14 suicides by young people every year in the UK that are known to be a direct result
of bullying. Statistics are worrying reading. Yet we know that bullying is part of a social process
and is extremely common. It has a far-reaching, negative impact on all concerned.

It is therefore essential that schools, organisations, services and their communities take into
account culture, environment, attitudes and procedures that may silently condone or actively
encourage bullying behaviours. All of these dynamics should be considered within the whole
school or organisation policy. In order to address these issues, opportunities for discussion and
participation will enable children and young people to share an understanding of what bullying is
and fully engage in the processes to challenge bullying behaviour. The whole school or
organisations community needs to regularly engage in activities to raise awareness of the nature
of bullying behaviour in their community.

Defining bullying

We would recommend that every school, college, organisation and service has a clear definition
of bullying that is shared with everyone in the community.

The best definitions are agreed collectively involving staff, young people, children and
parent/carers.

The Anti-Bullying Alliance includes the following principles in its definition of bullying:

Bullying behaviour deliberately causes hurt (either physically or emotionally)

 Bullying behaviour is repetitive (though one-off incidents such as the posting of an
image, or the sending of a text that is then forwarded to a group, can quickly become
repetitive and spiral into bullying behaviour)
Bullying behaviour involves an imbalance of power (the person on the receiving end
feels like they cant defend themselves)

Bullying is not:

Teasing and banter between friends without intention to cause hurt

Falling out between friends after a quarrel or disagreement
Behaviour that all parties have consented to and enjoy (though watch this one as
coercion can be very subtle)

Types of Bullying that you should look for:

Direct physical bullying anything causing bodily harm or physical abuse

Indirect social type
Direct verbal verbal sexual harassment, racial or religious slurs, gay bashing,
threatening
Cyber Bullying being threatened using technology
Mental exclusion, public humiliation, sabotage of friendships or academic
achievements