Schools: Bullying and Racial Harassment

(asked on 2nd July 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the prevalence of racist harassment and bullying in schools.


Answered by
Vicky Ford Portrait
Vicky Ford
This question was answered on 7th July 2020

Racism in all its forms is abhorrent and has no place in our society. Schools play a crucial role in helping young people understand the world around them and their place within it. All schools are legally required to have a behaviour policy with measures to prevent all forms of bullying and they have the freedom to develop their own anti-bulling strategies and monitoring approaches to best suit their environment.

Our guidance on preventing and tackling bullying (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/preventing-and-tackling-bullying) sets out that schools should develop a consistent approach to monitoring bullying incidents and evaluating the effectiveness of their approaches. It also directs schools to organisations who can provide support with tackling bullying related to race, religion and nationality.

The department asks teachers about the prevalence of different types of bullying in its regular school snapshot surveys. The latest survey is from July 2019: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-snapshot-survey-summer-2019. This survey suggests that, over the previous 12 months, 56% of school leaders and teachers had ‘never’ or ‘rarely’ seen any of the types of bullying mentioned. 18% reported seeing bullying linked to race and ethnicity ‘sometimes’ or more often.

On 7 June, we announced more than £750,000 for the Diana Award, the Anti-Bullying Alliance and the Anne Frank Trust in order to help hundreds of schools and colleges build relationships between pupils and to increase their resilience as well as to continue to tackle bullying both in person and online (https://www.gov.uk/government/news/extra-mental-health-support-for-pupils-and-teachers). The department has also made resources available through the website Educate Against Hate (https://educateagainsthate.com/). This website provides teachers, school leaders and parents with the information, guidance and support that they need to challenge radical views, including racist and discriminatory beliefs.

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