Special Educational Needs: Bullying

(asked on 4th September 2014) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what records are (a) maintained schools and (b) independent schools required to keep of instances where students have verbally abused a student with special educational needs.


Answered by
Edward Timpson Portrait
Edward Timpson
This question was answered on 10th September 2014

The Department for Education has not issued specific guidance for schools on what action to take when a student with special educational needs (SEN) is physically attacked by other pupils. Schools have a duty to safeguard all children, particularly those in need of additional support which includes pupils with SEN. An attack may constitute a criminal offence and our anti-bullying advice to schools is clear that staff should seek assistance from the police if they feel an offence has been committed. In April 2014, the Department issued guidance which sets out what schools and colleges must do to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and young people under the age of 18.[1]

The Government has made tackling all forms of bullying and harassment in schools a priority. It is never acceptable for any child to be bullied, victimised or harmed in any way. We have issued guidance for maintained and independent schools on preventing and tackling all forms of bullying.[2]

In February and March we issued updated advice on tough but permissible sanctions to manage poor behaviour which includes bullying;[3] issued a leaflet about bullying which outlines in one place schools’ responsibilities to support bullied children;[4] and issued case studies on how good schools manage bullying.[5]

Schools are not required by law to collect information on the number of students with SEN who have been verbally abused. However, all schools, are required by law, to have a behaviour policy with measures to address all forms of bullying. Schools have the freedom to develop their own approaches for monitoring bullying; for some, this may involve recording and monitoring specific incidents, while others prefer to survey pupils anonymously. Whatever method schools use, maintained schools are held to account by Ofsted for how well they deal with pupil behaviour and safety, which includes scrutiny of records and analysis of bullying including disability-related bullying. Independent schools are held to account by the Independent Schools Inspectorate (ISI) for their effectiveness in promoting good behaviour and guarding against harassment and bullying, including unacceptable behaviour, taking due account of any related difficulty or disability.

In addition, we are providing £4 million of funding over two years from spring 2013 to four organisations- Beatbullying, the Diana Award, Kidscape and The Anti-bullying Alliance (ABA) with the National Children’s Bureau (NCB)- \to develop effective initiatives that prevent and tackle all forms of bullying. The ABA/NCB project also trains schools to prevent and tackle bullying of students with a special educational need or disability. It has published a guide to cyberbullying for SEND young people, which contains advice for schools on developing effective anti-bullying practice and we link to this report in our Departmental advice on bullying.

[1] www.gov.uk/government/publications/keeping-children-safe-in-education

[2] www.gov.uk/government/publications/preventing-and-tackling-bullying

[3] www.gov.uk/government/publications/behaviour-and-discipline-in-schools

[4] www.gov.uk/government/publications/preventing-and-tackling-bullying

[5] www.gov.uk/government/collections/managing-behaviour-and-bullying-in-schools-case-studies

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