Primary School children tackle school bullies

Children at a Herefordshire school are tackling bullying by developing their own unique anti-bullying policy which every child in the school will contribute to.

Marlbrook Primary School in Hereford, like all primary schools, already has an anti-bullying policy in place which has been put together by school governors with advice and guidance from the local authority.

However, Marlbrook wants to help the children write their own policy and has devoted a whole day, Wednesday 30th April, to focus on it.

In the morning, young people from the South Wye Drama Group will perform a short play exploring different types of bullying, the effects it can have on bullying victims and some strategies for dealing with it. The play has been put together by the young performers with support from Herefordshire Council's youth service and 2xl Youth Projects.

In the afternoon all the children aged from five to eleven will work within their year groups to create a mixture of posters, web pages, poems, stories, letters and pictures, all of which will become part of the school's new anti-bullying policy.

The children will also discuss the play they have seen in the morning and come up with their own suggestions about what needs to be included in the policy. Next week school council representatives will meet with the school's management team to draft the new policy and present it to the governing body and all the children's work will be appended to the policy.

Sarah King-Salter, Senior Teacher at Marlbrook Primary School, said: "We believe that an anti-bullying policy needs to be dynamic and interactive so that the whole school community can embrace it.

"All policies need to be easy to understand and relevant to the children which is why we feel that they should be involved. If children understand the issues and the consequences, they are more likely to embrace the policy and have ownership of it."