6. What is the Welsh Government doing to help prevent bullying in schools? OAQ54756

Thank you, Joyce. I have published this month a suite of guidance entitled 'Rights, respect, equality: Statutory guidance for governing bodies of maintained schools', outlining our new statutory guidance for schools and local authorities to help address and prevent bullying in our education system. These are supported by advisory guidance for children and young people themselves and their parents and carers on how they can help those affected by bullying.

Thank you very much. The impact of bullying on an individual's mental health can be devastating and can last for a lifetime. With one in 10 secondary school pupils in Wales experiencing bullying each week, it is crucial that everything that can be done is done. So, I am really pleased to see the launch of the new anti-bullying guidance from the Welsh Government that you've just mentioned. It does include a wealth of resources for schools, governing bodies, parents and carers as well as for children and young people, and I'm sure that it will help all those individuals or has a capacity to help those individuals move forward.

As I've said, there are resources there that parents and carers can access, and I think that that's of the utmost importance, and that the message that bullying is not okay needs to come from home as well as the school. So, I would be very interested to know if schools are actively encouraging parents and carers to access that information so that they can work on the resources at home with their children.

Thank you, Joyce. Obviously, these are relatively new resources that have been made available to schools, but it would absolutely be my expectation that schools should be able to signpost parents and carers to the resources that are available specifically for them to address behaviour in their own children, understanding what drives a child to bully in the first place and how to support that child. But also, if you are the parent of a child who is subject to bullying, which can be an excruciating position for a parent to be in, not knowing what to do for the best, this latest guidance is a really valuable resource for parents to help them navigate and negotiate that very difficult situation.

But we're not leaving it to schools. Members, if they choose to, today can look on the Education Wales Facebook page, where we are actively targeting parents to make them aware that this guidance is available to them. So, we're not leaving it to schools, we, as a Government, are trying to get out there, using a variety of platforms to draw parents' attention to these new resources.

Minister, Estyn's 'Healthy and happy' report, published in June, highlighted that only a minority of schools keep useful records about bullying, with schools often only recording what they regard as serious. However, by not recording carefully any allegation of bullying by pupils, schools are unable to effectively evaluate their policies, and are actually at risk of being unable to build up a picture over time about pupils whose well-being may be at risk. In light of this, what steps is the Welsh Government taking to encourage schools to record all incidents of bullying? As well as publishing the guidance you've just mentioned, how is the Welsh Government working with schools to develop whole-school approaches to tackling bullying, which has been proven to be the most effective approach to tackling bullying in our schools? 

Thank you, Paul. All schools must, by law, have a school behaviour policy in place, and the 'Rights, respect, equality' statutory anti-bullying guidelines outline the Welsh Government's expectation that all schools in Wales will have a specific anti-bullying policy, setting out how the school will record and monitor incidents of bullying to help take proactive steps to challenge that. So, a crucial part of our new guidance is exactly that. It includes mandatory reporting of bullying incidents, so that schools and local authorities are better equipped with the data that they need; they can monitor trends over time; and they can evaluate the impact of the policies that they have in place in their own school. So, we hope, as a result of this new guidance, there will be a more robust set of data and recording, going forward, which was—I'd be the first person to admit—missing in the old system.

I believe that we've all had an e-mail from a very concerned grandmother in Wrexham, who tells us that she feels her granddaughter's school is simply not following procedure on bullying, and, in fact, it appears to her that the school is actively obstructing any move to deal with the issues, regardless of the guidelines, past or present. Can you send any extra message that is loud and clear that bullying is not okay and that schools must take allegations seriously, ensuring that all voices are heard and logged?

Thank you for that. I am very glad to have another opportunity to state quite clearly that there is no place for bullying in any of our educational institutions: our schools, our colleges or our universities. As I said, each school is required by law to have policies in place. If a parent or carer feels that the school is not implementing that policy, in the first instance, that parent or carer should raise those issues of concern with the chair of governors, and there will be robust complaints procedures in place within the school and, indeed, within the local education authority for that parent or carer to follow.

The grandmother that the Member has just referred to may want to avail herself, again, of the new resources that are available for parents and carers, which will be able to provide additional information about what they can do in this situation.