Beyond Bullying Gold Award

First introduced in 2010, the Beyond Bullying Award provides schools with a valuable opportunity to demonstrate and gain recognition for the positive work they do to promote anti-bullying. At Humphrey Perkins, we are committed to creating a happy, supportive and respectful environment, and one that allows all our pupils to discover their passion and to flourish.

The award consists of six components – Leadership, School Culture, Pupil Voice, Staff Professional Development, Partnerships with Parents/Carers/Community and Behaviour, Rewards and Recognition – and, across the year, we undertook initiatives that aligned with these criteria, collating specific evidence which we then sent off to Leicestershire County Council. They then reviewed our submission and concluded that we met the Bronze, Silver and Gold standards across the board, thus making us a Gold level school overall.

Our Work

A key part of the work we do to promote anti-bullying is the Mentors in Violence Prevention (MVP) scheme, which we launched at the start of the year. The scheme encourages young people to be responsible upstanders and empowers them to speak up and report incidents of bullying.

We had 42 Year 10 students volunteer for the scheme and they subsequently received appropriate training. Then, this term, our volunteers hosted an enriching workshop for Year 7 students, discussing the roles and responsibilities of the ‘the bystander’ and using case scenarios to build up their confidence enough to speak out, report bullying and stop abuse.

Following the workshop, our MVP mentors then delivered a professional presentation to the Leadership Team, our Governors and local police, where they outlined their campaign and the steps they had taken to promoting anti-bullying.

Alongside the MVP programme, we have also trained 15 anti-bullying ambassadors who are there to offer to support and to lend a listening ear to students who need it. STOP boxes have also been introduced outside the library and students are able to discreetly drop in messages if they are concerned about anything, or if they want to talk to somebody. Similarly, a dedicated STOP e-mail address has also been set up to allow students to reach out.

To evaluate the methods we have introduced, we sent every student a survey with the question ‘have you been bullied in the last two weeks?’ Out of 849 students, 3% responded with ‘yes,’ a testament to the fantastic work we are doing to create a harmonious environment and one that children enjoy learning in every day.

Our work does not stop here, though, and, already looking ahead to next year, we have plans to continue this momentum and continue our outstanding work!