Any young person who has poor social and friendship skills or who is very unassertive should be offered help and support in order to learn appropriate social interaction. This should not be implied as a responsibility to stop the bullying for themselves. That is fine as long as the group take the responsibility to help her and the changes are within her ability. Conclusion Bullying is a serious problem which spoils the lives and learning of a significant number of young people in schools. It is time to stop collecting the data on frequency.
Bullying does occur in all schools.
Preventative approaches will reduce it but it will still happen and teachers need to know how to deal with it when it does. The No Blame Approach seems almost too simple and it is hard for teachers to let go of the traditional ways of dealing with the behaviour - interrogation and punishment. However, the students and parents tell us that all they care about is that the behaviour stops - and this intervention achieves just that. The teacher leads a structured series of chats, starting with the bullies, and elicits constructive agreements to help the 'unhappy' victim. Only suitable for older children, and may risk disorientating the victim with sudden overwhelming 'niceness'.