Anti Bullying Policy

Anti-Bullying Policy: Our Commitment to a Safe Community

At Mayflower Secondary School, every student has the right to learn in a safe, enabling, and respectful environment. We are committed to fostering a gracious school community where every individual is valued and protected. We want to nurture students who are kind, supportive and respectful.

Our Stance: Zero Tolerance Towards Bullying

Mayflower Secondary School maintains a zero tolerance policy towards bullying. We take a firm stance against all forms of hurtful behaviour. We do not distinguish between "minor" or "major" incidents when it comes to the dignity of our students; every report is taken seriously. We provide support for students affected by bullying, corrective guidance to those whose behaviour has hurt others and restoration to all parties involved.

Defining Bullying

Bullying is the wilful conscious desire to hurt, threaten or frighten someone else. It can be a one-off incident or a persistent, intentional act. This includes, but is not limited to:

Verbal: Insensitive comments, name-calling, or spreading rumors.
Physical: Any form of physical violence or intimidation.
Social/Psychological: Exclusion, gestures, or hostile body language.
Cyberbullying: Harassment via social media, text, or digital platforms.

Our Proactive Approach

We do not just react to bullying; we work to prevent it through:

Character and Citizenship Education (CCE): Equips students to build respectful relationships, recognise and stand up against bullying both online and offline and develop the confidence to be positive influences who support their peers.
Peer Support: A trained network of students who act as the "eyes and ears" of the school, offering a first line of support to their peers and positively influence them.
Communication: Regular briefings for both students and staff to ensure everyone recognises the signs of bullying and actions to take should it occur.

We adopt a positive and proactive discipline approach to develop our students to be kind, caring, assertive and to seek help when targeted.

Reporting and Intervention

We provide accessible and safe reporting channels. Students can report incidents to any teacher, Year Head, Student Management Team (SMT) member, School Counsellor, School Leader or use our dedicated internal feedback platforms.

Our Response Process:

Safety Plans: Immediate measures to ensure the victim feels safe and supported at school.
Communication: Engage parents promptly upon becoming aware of an incident. We will reach out to both parties to acknowledge the situation, lay out our follow-up actions and provide regular updates along the process.
Investigation: Prompt and thorough fact-finding to understand the situation.
Consequences: Consequences meted out aligned with the school’s code of conduct.
Restoration: We believe in Restorative Practice. We seek to facilitate the restoration of relationships through guided mediation and counselling to heal the community.

Partnership with Parents

We believe that a safe school environment is a shared responsibility. We hope parents would partner the school in this effort by:

Monitoring their child’s well-being and relationship with their peers.
Monitoring their online activity and guiding them to refrain from liking, sharing or commenting on hurtful posts.
Communicating openly with the school if they suspect bullying is occurring, whether of their child or of their peers.
Reinforcing the values of respect and empathy at home.
Supporting and guiding their child to take on upstanding behaviours (i.e. provide a listening ear, show empathy, defend the victim and report the incident to a teacher).
Encouraging their child to look out for friends in need and provide support to them.

Our Promise:

All students learn and grow best in a caring and enabling Mayflower Community. We are committed to acting swiftly and fairly to ensure our school remains a safe and supportive environment for all students.