The Aurora School Bullying Project
Related pages:
Supporting documents:
From the local press:
Director of Education and LGBT youth leader
Stonewall case studies:
See Also:
Press Release from 27th July 2008
Croydon Pioneers School Bullying Project
A
new approach to the problem of bullying in schools has been successfully
launched in Croydon schools. Sue Sanders, an established expert in this
field, developed the programme “Safer Schools through Acknowledging
Diversity” specifically for Croydon schools, and hopes to apply
it more widely in future.
The programme concentrates on understanding diversity, and valuing each student for who they are. This reduces bullying and allows students to learn better and achieve more.
The
programme uses the “whole school” approach. A series of
workshops get teaching and non-teaching staff to think of ways to apply
the new materials, skills and policies in their own school. Staff at
Westwood Language College for Girls said “I wish we could have
spent more time,” and “The best inset training we've ever
had.”
The project includes all the strands of diversity covered in recent
legislation: age, gender, faith, ethnicity, disability, and sexual orientation.
Each school was encouraged to tailor the project to its own needs; several
of them particularly asked for help in tackling homophobic bullying.
Pam Smith, Croydon’s Equalities Development Officer, said “I
was impressed by the research in the presentation Sue produced, and
even more so that she amended the presentation in response to feedback.”
The project was promoted
by Aurora, Croydon’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender police
consultation group, and was funded from the National Lottery, by Awards
for All.
Inspector Mary Wood, who represents Croydon Police on Aurora, said “With
education comes understanding. In this way we are better able to understand
that we are all different, and so tolerate differences in others. The
Police in Croydon are committed to dealing with hate crime when it happens,
but how much better if we can stop it.”