Lord Bishop of Derby

The department collects and monitors data on bullying of children and young people through robust national surveys such as the National Behaviour Survey, the Health Behaviours of School-aged Children Study and the Crime Survey for England and Wales.

Schools should develop their own approaches for monitoring bullying and exercise their own judgement as to what works best for their pupils. All schools are legally required to have a behaviour policy with measures to prevent all forms of bullying. Schools have the freedom to develop their own anti-bullying strategies appropriate to their environment and are held to account by Ofsted.

Decisions relating to teachers’ professional development rests with schools, headteachers and teachers. They are in the best position to judge their requirements and access development.

The department published advice in 2017 to support schools with addressing incidences of bullying. The guidance is clear that schools should make appropriate provision for a bullied child's social, emotional and mental health needs. The guidance is available here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/625ee64cd3bf7f6004339db8/Preventing_and_tackling_bullying_advice.pdf.

In 2016, the department also published a practical tool to help schools, which can be found on the Educate Against Hate website, here: https://educateagainsthate.com/resources/respectful-school-communities-self-review-signposting-tool-2/.

The department is currently reviewing the impact of these previous programmes and considering next steps to tackle bullying in schools.

The Government is committed to raising the healthiest generation of children ever, giving mental health the same attention as physical health. We are reforming the National Health Service and have committed to providing access to specialist mental health professionals in every school, so every young person has access to early support to address problems before they escalate. The Government will also be putting in place new Young Futures hubs, including access to mental health support workers, and will recruit an additional 8,500 new mental health staff to treat children and adults.

There are no current plans to introduce a national wellbeing measure for children. The Office for National Statistics publishes a range of children’s wellbeing measures. The Department maintains ongoing monitoring of the national data landscape and research on children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing, to support its policy making.