Ballarat High School Newsletter

Kindness Culture

On Wednesday 23rd March 2022, Ballarat High School participated in the National Day of Action against Bullying and Violence (NDA). The NDA is Australia’s key bullying prevention initiative, connecting schools and communities to find workable solutions to prevent bullying. The theme for the 2022 NDA is Kindness Culture. Ballarat High School will demonstrate Kindness Culture by promoting inclusiveness, respect and community belonging for all students. Planning for a safe and supportive school community requires a whole-school community approach. Whole-school responses to bullying prevention build positive and supportive school environments by incorporating strategies for intervention at all levels, inclusive of students, teachers, parents and carers. 

 

Three 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 of bullying include:

  1. power imbalance
  2. deliberate intent to cause harm, and
  3. ongoing and repeated behaviour.

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 entire 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. Students participated in a range of activities including completing personal kindness pledges to create a ‘kindness wall’ and ‘helping hand’ pledges which are displayed across a number of areas of the school, sharing messages of kindness and encouraging upstander behaviour. The aim of these sessions was about encouraging and promoting conversations around kindness and being an upstander as well as upskilling students on the impacts of bullying and the supports available to them both within the school and through wider community supports. 

 

You can read the Ballarat High School bullying prevention policy file:///C:/Users/09498435/Downloads/BHS_Bullying_Prevention_Policy%20(1).pdf to  learn more about our school’s process for managing incidents of bullying. 

 

 

 

Georgia Leorke

Mental Health Practitioner