The fifth National Day of Action against Bullying and Violence will be held on Friday, 20 March 2015.

What is it?

According to the website, this annual Day of Action 'provides a focus for all schools to say Bullying. No Way! and to strengthen their existing everyday messages that bullying and violence at school are not okay at any time'.

The website includes resources for schools, students and parents about bullying and activities and ideas to promote the Day of Action and get all members of the school community involved in understanding the different types of bullying and how to educate students on the dangers of bullying and what to do if they need help.

School Governance has written many articles about the various types of bullying, including cyber-bullying, that can threaten the health and safety of students.

We've also written about the various tools and options that may assist schools to educate their students on bullying and how to help students cope with the stress and anxiety that may result from the use of social media.

School's duty

The increase in social awareness of bullying and its potential to cause serious harm to young people, including mental health issues, has lead to increased expectations of schools to help students who are being bullied and handle those that are bullying.

A school's duty of care to protect its students includes responding to online incidents as soon as they know about them, especially if the perpetrator is a member of the school community. While a school can't control what happens online 24 hours a day, it does have the authority to discipline students who bully other students if they are enrolled at the same school.

As part of its duty to educate students and provide pastoral care, including ensuring their well-being, schools should also be educating the school community on bullying and offering a support system to those affected.

Did you know?

The following statistics on bullying are provided on the Day of Action website:

• Approximately one in four (27%) Year 4 to Year 9 Australian students report being bullied every few weeks or more often (considered to be frequent) during the last term at school.
• Frequent school bullying was highest among Year 5 (32%) and Year 8 (29%) students.
• 83% of students who bully others online, also bully others offline.
• 84% of students who were bullied online were also bullied offline.
• Peers are present as onlookers in 87% of bullying interactions, and play a central role in the bullying process.
• Hurtful teasing was the most prevalent of all bullying behaviours experienced by students, followed by having hurtful lies told about them.
• Cyber bullying appears to be related to age (or access to technology), with older students more likely to engage in cyber bullying than younger students.

The following facts on cyber safety are also provided:

• 61 percent of 16 to 17 year olds accept 'friend requests' from people they do not know offline.
• 78 percent of 16 to 17 year olds have personal information such as a photograph of themselves on their social networking profile pages, compared to 48 percent of eight to nine year olds

Update on the Children's e-Safety Commissioner

As the above facts on cyber safety demonstrate, the safety of students online is a serious issue and one which becomes more serious as the popularity of social media grows. We previously reported on the Federal Government's initiative to introduce a Children's e-Safety Commissioner. Recently, the legislation needed to establish this Commissioner, the Enhancing Online Safety for Children Bill 2014 (Bill) was passed by the Senate. Once the Bill receives Royal Assent it will become law.

The Hon Paul Fletcher MP, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Communications, issued a press release about this important development (the press release was issued the day prior to the Bill being passed by the House of Representatives) in which he stated that:

• the Government expects to announce the appointment of the Children's e-Safety Commissioner in coming weeks; and
• following the appointment of the Commissioner the next priorities will be to commence the operation of the Office of the Commissioner, which will include significant resources transferred in from other areas of the Australian public service, and then to implement the operation of an effective complaints system to get harmful cyberbullying material down fast from large social media services.

Will your school be promoting the National Day of Action against Bullying and Violence?