Planning for a safe and supportive school community requires a whole-school community approach.

To achieve this, our whole-school community must share an understanding of the definition of bullying.

Bullying. No Way! provides the national definition of bullying for Australian schools. The full national definition can be read here.

3 key characteristics outlined in the national definition of bullying distinguish bullying behaviours from other forms of peer aggression behaviours which do not constitute bullying. The key characteristics are of bullying include:

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

 

While the following behaviours of peer aggression do not constitute bullying, these behaviours may still be serious and require intervention at home and at school:

• Arguments and disagreements (where there is no power imbalance)

• Single acts of social rejection or meanness, or

• Isolated incidents of aggression, intimidation or violence.

 

It is important for our whole-school community, including our staff, parents, carers and students to have a clear understanding of the definition of bullying to be able to distinguish these behaviours from peer aggression, and correctly identify and respond to incidents of bullying.
 

Knowing the types of bullying behaviour can also help you identify if the incident is bullying, or peer aggression. While neither of these behaviours are tolerated at Fountain Gate Primary School, they do require different management strategies, and the first step for responding is to correctly identify the behaviour.

If you have concerns that your child is being bullied, please contact the classroom teacher in the first instance. You will be referred to the Student Wellbeing Leader if a satisfactory outcome is not achieved. If you believe the behaviour constitutes a crime, or is a serious incident of cyberbullying, please refer to the Bullying. No Way! website for information on how to report to other authorities and gaining further help.

 

You can read the Fountain Gate Primary School bullying prevention policy to learn more about our school’s process for managing incidents of bullying.

For more information, please visit the Bullying. No Way! website for additional resources.