Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent steps her Department is taking to tackle bullying in schools.

The department has sent a clear message to schools that bullying, including cyberbullying, for whatever reason, is unacceptable. It can have a devastating effect on individuals, harm their education, and have serious and lasting consequences for their mental health.

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.

We recognise that bullying of any kind can now just as easily occur online as face-to-face. Cyberbullying can be a means by which face-to face-bullying is extended beyond the school day and by which bullying can start online and follow the child into school.

The department is providing over £3 million of funding between 10 August 2021 and 31 March 2024 to five anti-bullying organisations to support schools to tackle bullying. This includes projects targeting bullying of particular groups, such as those who are victims of hate related bullying and homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying.

In November 2018, the department published ’Respectful School Communities’, a self-review and signposting tool to support schools to develop a whole-school approach which promotes respect and discipline. This can combat bullying, harassment and prejudice of any kind, including sexual bullying and sexual harassment. It will help schools to identify the various elements that make up a whole school approach, consider gaps in their current practice, and get further support. Respectful School Communities is available at: https://www.educateagainsthate.com/resources/respectful-school-communities-self-review-signposting-tool-2/.

​We are also making sure that all children in England will learn about respectful relationships, in person and online, as part of new mandatory relationships, sex and health education (RSHE). These subjects are designed to give pupils the knowledge they need to lead happy, safe, and healthy lives and to foster respect for other people and difference, and to include teaching about online safety and harms.