Bullying Prevention Strategies At Your School

One of the toughest challenges facing schools today is how to effectively and proactively address bullying on their campus in order to have a safe and healthy school campus.  

Sadly, bullying is more common than many people realize. In 2019,  22% of students reported that they had been bullied during the school year (School Crime Supplement of the National Crime Victimization Survey, 2019).  That means more than one in five students  are experiencing something that can have far reaching impacts on their mental health and their academic performance. 

So what can schools do to address bullying? Below are three tips to help prevent bullying on your campus. 

Talk About It!

• Encourage teachers to hold class meetings to really discuss what bullying is, the impacts of bullying, and any bullying behaviors that have been noticed. 
• Have students talk about bullying on the morning announcements.  Sharing what bullying looks like and how it can feel to the person being bullied is powerful information to share. 
• Get parents involved by including tips for parents to address bullying at home. 

Focus on Social Emotional Learning skills such as compassion, problem solving, healthy communication, and kindness. 

• Social emotional learning can help students develop skills that can reduce instances of bullying on campus.  
• Brainstorm with your class on ways to show kindness as this will increase their participation. 
• Encourage a “thank you” or kudos wall where students regularly provide compliments and positives about their classmates from the week. 
• For more information on bringing SEL to your class check out: 
  • https://www.electronic-therapy.com/blog/bringing-social-emotional-learning-to-your-classroom/ 

Start a Bullying Committee

• Create a bullying committee at your school dedicated to stopping bullying in your campus.  This committee can have both staff and student sub-committees.  Consider partnering with community partners and your parent organization. 
• Some things this committee can work on include:
  • An anti-bullying event at school. 
  • A kindness poster campaign. 
  • Helping incorporate national anti-bullying events or campaigns into your campus. 
  • Developing morning announcements that help develop compassion, kindness, empathy, and healthy communication skills.
    

While bullying can feel like a huge challenge for a school, there are countless ways you can start proactively stomping out bullying on your campus.  Just remember to get creative, make it a priority, and don’t stop talking about it!