Back-to-school time not so joyous for some students (All Parents of school going children - Please Read)

Shocking news came out of the great U S of A earlier this week of a nine year old boy taking his own life after being bullied in school. One student actually told him to kill himself.

Jamel Myles had come out to his mom earlier this summer, and started wearing fake fingernails on August 20, the first day of school for his fourth grade year. Thursday, 23rd August at 11:17 p.m. was his time of death. 4 days back at school was all it took. 

   ...   4 DAYS   ...

(It's taken me longer to put this blog together)

Read more HERE, HERE and HERE.

As a parent of a school going child, are you aware that the school, under current guidelines from the Department of Education (Ireland) are supposed to have an Anti-Bullying policy? The full 45 page policy document from the department can be found HERE.Of course it is 5 years old at this stage so if school followed the guidelines back in 2013, they need to update their policy.

But, if you don’t have time to read it, here’s a summary:

1. All Boards of Management must formally adopt and implement an anti-bullying policy that fully complies with the requirements of these procedures. A copy of the policy must be available to parents, pupils, all staff and the Parents Council (if one exists).

2. The Department were very kind to provide a template document to schools, unfortunately a lot of schools have copy-and-pasted the template document and inserted their school header. Very little thought, in some cases, as been put in by the schools.

3. The policy should outline the actions to be taken in the instance of bullying, the procedures the school should take and a step-by-step recording and evaluation of ALL instances of bullying that have occurred.

4. All instances of bullying should be reported to the Board of Management and the BOM must undertake an annual review of all reported instances. This review must also be made available to parents. The school must put in place an action plan to address any areas for improvement identified by the review.

5. Descriptions of best practice, types of bullying and actions to be taken are all explained. Initiatives, programmes, awareness and prevention SHOULD also be a major part of the policy.

6. ALL instances of bullying of a serious nature and/or are ongoing SHOULD be referred to the HSE Children and Family Services and/or Gardaí as appropriate

7. The effectiveness of the school’s anti-bullying policy should be subject to continuous review in the light of incidents of bullying behaviour encountered.

Homophobic and transphobic bullying are specifically mentioned in the policy as areas that need attention. This is because of the following statistics:

70% of LGBT students do not feel safe in school

Half of all LGBT students reported that they had been bullied in the last three months. - One third reported frequent (weekly/daily) verbal abuse, with a slightly higher number (34.3%) stating that they experience frequent verbal abuse about their sexuality.

1 in 4 missed or skipped school to avoid negative treatment due to being LGBT+.

1 in 4 reported indirect verbal bullying through spreading of rumours and lies

1 in 3 young LGBT+ people aged 14 – 18 have attempted to take their own lives because of bullying, rejection and pressures to hide who they really are. 

1 in 10 young LGBT leave education early.

Sources HERE , HERE and HERE. 

Now, here’s how you as a parent can help.

Contact your school and ask for the following:

a. A copy of the Anti-Bullying Policy

b. A copy of the latest review by the Board of Managament

c. A copy of the action plan the school has to address the findings of the BOM.

AND FINALLY...

d. To highlight the concerns for LGBT pupils please ask the school to take part in the Stand Up against LGBTI+ bullying event that Belong to run every November.

(Belong to is a fantastic organisation that supports young LGBT people in Ireland. Find out more about them here: http://belongto.org/ )

Please pass this on to other parents you know. Between all of you, you can make your child's school a safer place. Please let me know if you get a satisfactory answer from the school.

Thanks

John The Captain Ryan.