What Can School Staff Do to Prevent Bullying? - Essay Sample

Introduction

Bullying is common in schools where some student feels superior to others, the feeling of superiority in them makes them start intimidating others. The intimidation turns to be a harassment of other students which could threaten other students emotional and physical safety at school, which could have a negative effect on a student learning experience and ability to learn. (Orpinas & Horne, 2006). Bullying should be stopped as soon as it is noticed is students, so that some student is not emotionally tortured. There are so many ways in which staff can help stop bullying in schools to make the lives of students safer in learning environments. The paper will discuss on what can school staff do to prevent bullying.

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School staff and students should be trained to understand the negative effects of bullying on the victims of bullying. Training of students and staff will create awareness to the schools that bullying is not proper and should not be acceptable in any circumstance, if such information is in the student and staff fraternity then bullying can be sustained. (Maria & David, 2009). It is evident that bullying has severe consequences to students and it could result to social anxiety, depressions and suicidal thoughts on children who undergo the harassment. It should be made clear to the student that if they are involved in actions of bullying they will be endangering the lives of other students.

School staff should include anti-bullying programs that reduce victimization of other students. School staff should look for anti-bullying measures for the school, individuals and for classrooms. (JAANA & SANDRA, 2004) The intervention should include the intervention of teachers' meetings to discuss the ways in which they can improve student peer relationships. If they find a way in which they think will be most appropriate to handle bullying and harassment in schools then they should advocate for such an action to help manage student traumas while they learn, so that they have a better experience while they learn.

The staff should conduct meetings with parents to monitor bullying behaviors in children, if a student is observed to be a bully then the parents should be informed to provide guidance to their children in order to address and correct the behaviors of the growing children (Van Noorden, Haselager, Cillessen & Bukowski, 2014). The involvement of parents can be significant in helping reduce student victimization, parents understand their children better and they would easily find solutions to issues arising from their kids. School staff should, therefore, be dedicated to building their relationships ties to the parents who will help them mold students become better and bully-free.

Some bullying can be noted on the playgrounds, to find a solution to this the staff should include more supervision on the playgrounds which will help reduce cases of discrimination amongst students. Every student should feel equal as the other, once they understand that their relationships with other students are key in bettering their learning experience it would be possible to manage bullying and any other circumstances that result to victimization (Maria & David, 2009). While it is important to increase supervisions on the playing grounds it is also important to improve the playground facilities.

Teachers and other relevant staff members should involve students in devising rules against bullying. Students will have a better understanding of the set rules since they would have set them by themselves. The students would have better reasons for particular rules they would have set since it will give them more reason to want to learn. They are the one who understands the challenges that they go through, so the rules set will protect their stay in school. (Maria & David, 2009).

The staff should come up with classroom activities that involve students in role-playing activities which could help students have a better understanding of how better to manage bullying activities more successfully when they arise. It may be challenging to clear bullying from schools completely, and for this reason, it will be okay if teachers developed countermeasures for students who may be bullied. Such that even if a student is a victim of bullying they would not be prone to psychological trauma, depression and societal anxiety. It is important to prepare students for the different scenarios they are likely to encounter, this will prepare them psychologically as well as strengthen their emotional intelligence not to be affected by bullying even when it is not extreme.

Apart from allowing students to get involved in setting bullying rules, the teachers can also set rules to ensure that classroom and school bullying is in control. Students will know that their behaviors are monitored and that there are repercussions for their actions in school. The staff should have a series of meetings with students to keep informing them about the benefits of avoiding bullying as well as provide advice to the children so as to impact their progress at school.

Staff can as well reach out to individual students and talk to them about their behaviors, they can as well as involve their parents while they provide the necessary guidance for the school going children. The staff can as well as talk to the victims of bullying by proving them with support and assertiveness skills to help them deal with bullying successfully as well as talk to children not involved in helping them become better helpers to the victims of bullying.

References

Orpinas, P. & Horne, A.M., 2006. Bullying prevention: Creating a positive school climate and developing social competence. American Psychological Association.

Maria, M.T & David. F., 2009. What works in preventing bullying: effective elements of anti-bullying programs, pg. 1-13.

JAANA. J & SANDRA.G, 2004. Research Based Interventions on Bullying, pg. 1-27

Van.N , Haselager, Cillessen & Bukowski ,2014. proactive bullies vs reactive bullies: differences in cognitive and affective empathy, pg. 18-39