The unpleasant act of bullying is a vindictive behaviour that can lead to a victim suffering physical or emotional abuse that might affect them for many years. At ISHCMC-American Academy, we take incidents of bullying extremely seriously and have therefore implemented a thoughtful and thorough process for dealing with this issue.
Bullying is an action undertaken by an individual or group to cause hurt to another person or group of people. The behavior will normally be repeated on a regular basis and it can occur in many ways and situations including physical harassment on the school campus and cyberbullying via the internet.
Types of bullying:
- Physical: pushing, punching, or hitting
- Verbal: name-calling or threats
- Psychological and emotional: spreading rumors or excluding someone from social interactions
Unfortunately the internet has made it easier for bullies to be cruel and in the case of cyberbullying, they can virtually follow their victims home and attack them during evenings and the weekend. There is less respite from harassment for school children being bullied today as their tormentors can also reach them via messaging apps and social media.
Possible signs of bullying in a child:
- feigning illness
- extreme stress and anxiety
- being quick to anger
- a reluctance to go to school
What you as a parent can do to help
Parents should speak to their children about the issue of bullying, how they can deal with it if it happens to them, and what they should do afterwards if it does.
- Always encourage your child to tell you if they ever feel worried or frightened by someone else’s behavior, either at school or online – tell your child they are not alone!
- Be sure you have knowledge of every area of your children’s activity online
- Teach your child to react calmly to aggressive people and avoid confrontation, and to not interact with bullies on online platforms
- Remind your child constantly about all the positive attributes that they have, to counteract any negativity from others – build their confidence at all times!
- Always work with a teacher or counselor at school to reach the best conclusion possible for your child if any incident of bullying occurs
- If the bullying is happening online then take screenshots of the messages as evidence, report the content and tell your child to block the offending user accounts.
Every school should have measures in place to prevent bullying and at ISHCMC-American Academy we think it is vital that children, parents and teaching staff are fully aware of our policy. We think it is important to tackle and highlight the issue of bullying on an ongoing basis and to establish an ethos within our school to hopefully ensure our students are never bullied at all.
However when this behavior does arise, ISHCMC-AA will react promptly to support the bullied student and to ensure that the bullying stops and doesn’t happen again.
ISHCMC-American Academy process to deal with bullying
- Student, parent and teacher to follow the ISHCMC-AA Student Support Services Referral Process for reporting bullying. There is a Student Open Mic that students can utilize to report concerns about bullying.
- Implement the protective measures to ensure the safety of the reporting student
- All cases must be recorded by the relevant teaching staff on PowerSchool
- In the case of serious bullying the Student Services Department will be informed immediately, and parents will be informed and called in for a meeting to discuss the problem
- All bullying behavior or threats of bullying will be investigated promptly and measures will be taken to stop the bullying
- Action will be taken to help the bully (bullies) change their behavior
- Counseling and other means of support will be offered to those who have been bullied
The school has a range of measures to use in our response to a bullying or harassment incident. These can include, but are not limited to: counseling, parental involvement and permanent expulsion from the school.
