At St Vincent de Paul Catholic Primary School, our mission “Serving with Love, Striving for Excellence” underpins everything we do. As a Catholic school, our approach to bullying is rooted in Gospel values, recognising the God-given dignity of every child and teaching the importance of kindness, respect and forgiveness.
We are proud to be a KiVa school, using this evidence-based programme to prevent and tackle bullying in a consistent and effective way. All staff are trained in the KiVa approach, and children are taught how to build positive relationships, stand up for one another, and understand the impact of their actions.
We are committed to providing a safe and secure environment where every child can learn and thrive without fear or anxiety. Bullying in any form is never acceptable. By promoting respect for diversity and the value of each person, we prepare our children to be responsible, compassionate and active members of our school and wider society.
At St Vincent’s, we work closely with children, staff and parents to prevent bullying and to respond swiftly and thoughtfully whenever concerns arise. Together, we are building a community where every child feels safe, supported and able to flourish.
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