Asked by: Dan Norris (Independent - North East Somerset and Hanham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, when she plans to next update guidance on removing pupils from the classroom.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
In July 2022, the department published the updated ‘behaviour in schools’ guidance, which is the primary source of advice for schools on developing and implementing a behaviour policy, providing clarity and support to schools on removing pupils from the classroom.
Updates to the guidance were informed by a call for evidence in June 2021 and public consultation in March 2022.
Asked by: Dan Norris (Independent - North East Somerset and Hanham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent guidance her Department has provided on best practice for (a) responding to disclosures of bullying and (b) managing complex cases of bullying in schools.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
All schools are legally required to have a behaviour policy with measures to prevent all forms of bullying. They have the freedom to develop their own anti-bullying strategies appropriate to their environment and are held to account by Ofsted.
The department has published guidance for schools, which outlines schools’ responsibilities to support children who are bullied. These responsibilities to support children who are bullied include where bullying has a severe impact and the bullying incident should be addressed as a child protection concern under the Children Act 1989, where there is reasonable cause to suspect that a child is suffering, or where a child is likely to suffer significant harm. The guidance makes clear that schools should make appropriate provision for a bullied child's social, emotional and mental health needs. The guidance is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/preventing-and-tackling-bullying.