The Problem . . The Challenge . . The Tools . . The Solution . . !

The Challenge: Have you ever wished you could contribute to reducing bullying in your school? Where would you begin? There is a lot of information available as to the nature of bullying, where, why and how it takes place, the damage it does and the urgency of preventing it. Bullied students and their parents are advised to report bullying to teachers. However, there seems to be a scarcity of ready-made and easy-to-use practical tools that busy teachers in secondary schools everywhere (age 12-18) can use in a campaign to minimise bullying and to deal with bullying incidents when they arise.

The Tools: We are offering secondary teachers/schools, free of charge, downloadable anti-bullying tools and a school-wide framework in which to use them for such a campaign. We have been developing them or adapting them since 2004 in Coláiste Éanna, Ballyroan Rd., Dublin 16, Ireland (a school in the Edmund Rice Schools Trust - formerly C.B.S.). We have been guided by the wisdom of such well-known writers and researchers in this field as Dr. Mona O'Moore (Ireland), Dr. Dan Olweus (Norway) and Dr. Ken Rigby (Australia). This development is ongoing, as we try to assemble a bank of effective anti-bullying resources suitable for secondary schools everywhere. We offer what we have to colleagues, encouraged by the fact that by using them in our school the number of students bullied was reduced by half in three years. We offer them free of charge since we believe that anything that supports student welfare and safety should be an essential priority in education and not an additional commodity with a price-tag. We offer them in the hope that other teachers who have useful anti-bullying tools/resources will share these with us and through this website with colleagues in other schools - akind of teachers' anti-bullying co-operative. Then students can benefit even more.

The Solution: Using these tools bullying can be minimised and in the process bullies can be reformed, bystanders can become more vigilant and supportive of targeted students and the lives of targeted students can be made a lot happier. There will probably always be some bullying in schools, as elsewhere, but using these tools a culture of the Three "R"s can be developed in schools, a culture where bullying is Recognised, Rejected and Reported. These tools can help teachers respond effectively to such reports. But they are not a "quick-fix" solution to bullying. They depend for their effectiveness on the willingness of teachers to use them proactively to deal with bullying. There is work involved in this but no work teachers do is more important than this. The tools we offer free of charge are ready-made to facilitate this "front line" work in schools with minimum time lost by teachers on planning and preparation.