Anti-bullying

Welcome to our anti-bullying page! Here you will find all of the information you need about our school as a KiVa school to combat bullying.

As a Catholic school, all of our teachings have Christian values as the foundation that teach our children the difference between right and wrong rooted in the teachings of the Bible.

We also provide a safe and secure environment where all can learn without anxiety and measures are in place to reduce the likelihood of bullying. We therefore do all we can to prevent it by developing a school ethos in which bullying is regarded as unacceptable. By developing positive approaches and attitudes to the diverse needs of others, we enable children to become responsible and active members of our diverse society.

 At St Vincent’s, we take extensive measures to both prevent and tackle all forms of bullying behaviour.

 Our School is a KiVa school!

 KiVa is a research-based anti-bullying programme that has been developed in the University of Turku, Finland, with funding from the Ministry of Education and Culture. The effectiveness of KiVa has been shown in a large randomised controlled trial. In Finland, KiVa is a sought-after programme: 90% of all comprehensive schools in the country are registered KiVa schools implementing it.

The KiVa programme involves both universal and indicated actions to prevent bullying and to tackle cases of bullying coming to attention.

The universal actions are targeted at all students in a school. They refer to efforts made to influence the group norms and to build capacity in all children to behave in constructive ways, to take responsibility for not encouraging bullying, and to support the victims.

KiVa is a systematic process to follow to help victims of bullying.

• In research studies of KiVa, the KiVa teams had on average tackled 6.5 bullying cases per school year
• In 98% of the cases the victim felt that the situation had improved for the better
• Nevertheless, only a minority of cases concerning children who are repeatedly bullied end up being addressed by the team!
• KiVa encourages pupils to report bullying.

KiVa aims:

• To reduce bullying
• To prevent new bullying cases from emerging
• To minimise negative effects caused by bullying
• HOWEVER, all pupils learn many other important things along the way:
  • treating others with respect
  • resisting peer pressure
  • taking responsibility

Click the link to read our SVP Behaviour Anti-bullying Policy 2020