In 1997, the British Columbia Ministry of Education collaborated in the Ministry of Attorney General and started a Safe Schools Initiative that addressed student safety in BC schools and communities. In December, these 2 ministries opened a Safe Schools Center that provides information, resource materials, and examples of successful practices to address safety difficulties for example individual safety, violence prevention, early intervention for youth at risk, encouragement of social responsibility, diversity, along with a positive school atmosphere (British Columbia Ministry of Education & Ministry of Attorney General, 1998). As well as the Safe Schools Initiative and the Safe Schools Center, the ministry of education as well as the Attorney General decided to expand these initiatives by developing a violence prevention program for BC schools.
Throughout the following year, the federal government of British Columbia announced a plan to help prevent bullying in schools. Due to this initiative, the Vancouver School District developed and ‘piloted’ a new technique that targets bullying in BC Schools (BCME & MAG, 1998). This technique was titled Focus on Bullying: A Prevention Technique for Elementary School Communities. On November 16th, Education Minister Paul Ramsey and Attorney General Ujjal Dosanjh launched this technique at Hastings Community School in Vancouver. In a news release provided by the Ministry of Education, Dosanjh states that “we must do everything we can to prevent violence and fear from occurring…schools ought to be safe and nurturing environments where children can find out and grow into healthy, productive members of society” (Dosanjh, 2). As a result, the Ministry of Education, in partnership in the BC Safe Schools Center, the British Columbia Teachers’ Federation and also the British Columbia Principals’ and Vive Principals Association, have supported the implementation of this process by sending a copy of this resource to all of the Superintendents in British Columbia.
Focus on Bullying: A Prevention Method for Elementary School Communities was produced to address major problems in education while advertising a safe, comfortable environment for children. This process intends to assist build a school community that understands the acts and problems that surround bullying and harassment, although strengthening the social skills with the students. In addition, this proactive system provides a step-by-step method for generating a school-wide plan for ones prevention of bullying while offering strategies for responding to incidents of bullying and/or harassment (BCME & MAG, 1998).
The very first section of this resource provides educators with a rationale, information, and myths on bullying. In 1997, the National Crime Prevention Council of Canada reported that approximately 8.6% of kids in grade one through eight admitted to bullying others during a six week time period while 15% of young children reported that they have been victims of bullying during the exact same time frame. While this statistic looks alarmingly high, quite a few incidents involving bullying aren't reported regardless of whether it is physical-aggressive behavior or emotional abuse. In addition, many longitudinal studies conducted over two decades have known bullying behavior as a precursor of violent behavior and criminal exercise in adult life (BCME & MAG, 1998). Therefore, this process offers guidance for responding to bullying incidents inside perspective on the bully, the victim, and the witness.
Focus on Bulling provides a seven-step system which will support within the implementation of this program. Step a single of this procedure involves the establishment of the working group which will support aid the project, namely teachers, administrators, help staff, parents (PAC), students, as well as other interested community members. After this working group has been established, they need to recognize and discuss the difficulties associated with bullying behavior. Being a result, this working group need to identify bullying prevention being a priority while critically examining this resource so it to becomes a component with the schools long-term plan. The Focus on Bullying resource outlines the duties from the working group while providing them with an action checklist which will assist on the implementation of this program. The next 2 phases, outlined within the Focus on Bullying implementation sections include the involvement of the parents, as well as the students. This section includes PAC meeting agendas and overheads that offer a basic overview on the program as well as action checklists and simple fact sheets for both the parents as well as the students (BCME & MAG, 1998).
The latter four stages of this implementation technique involve doing a brand new school statement, building a supervision plan, and developing and implementing the new plan. As soon as doing a school statement for bullying prevention, this resource encourages the input in the school staff, students, and parents. Secondly, it's critical for any school implementing this resource to modify their existing supervision plans by determining the new role of staff and aides and identifying and monitoring high-risk areas for bullying occurrences. Focus on Bullying supports and encourages pro-social behavior, for that reason they've formulated special tickets titled ‘Good Stuff’ to acknowledge this behavior. These tickets are created for and distributed by supervisors on a playground. Lastly, this system encourages schools to develop a response plan for bullying behavior. In producing so, educators have to have detailed guidelines and procedures that are consistently followed. They have to identify strategies to support students who are bullied, and techniques to respond to students who bully others although planning restorative interventions to bring together all parties that have been involved in a bullying incident (BCME & MAG, 1998).
The following section of Focus on Bullying: A Prevention Technique for Elementary School Communities addresses bullying prevention via classroom lessons. The lessons provided in this resource are intended to accompany and compliment interpersonal skill programs for instance Personal Planning. These lessons offer specific classroom based instruction to students that deal with the concepts of bullying, the school prevention plan, and particular strategies how the students can use to prevent or respond to bullying situations. The lessons supply are organized by grade and contain three modules.
The very first proposed module for each grade deals with the definition of bullying. This module provides students in the opportunity to recognize the difference in between bullying and other playground problems. This module encourages the students to share their past experience while relating and empathizing to people those who have been victims of bullying. In addition, there are lots of role-playing activities that allow the students to demonstrate assertive response methods to bullying attempts. Module two enables the teacher and students to thoroughly discuss the school plan in detail. The lessons in this specific module help students to develop a clear understanding on the schools expectations for behavior though committing towards goal of building a bullying-free school and community. The final module encourages students to develop the necessary insight and skills for dealing with bullying incidents. The lessons in this module permit on the students to discover and course of action assertive responses to bullying behavior, understand when and how to seek help, and methods wherever the students can protect others from bullying behavior.
Each lesson plan provided contains a content section that explains the focuses and objectives of the lesson, and an instructional approach section, which describes the proposed program of instruction, such as the resources offered (worksheets, scripts, etc. In addition, the insight and understanding section in the lesson plan enables the teacher and students to discuss specific topics using various interactive methods for example role-playing and communication circles. Every lesson provides the needed vocabulary and definitions and extra materials and resources for the lessons. Lesson scripts for each lesson are also provided, should the educator must refer to them, and you will discover also proposed assessment techniques at the end of every lesson to aid in the evaluation system (BCME & MAG, 1998).
Focus on Bullying also provides curriculum links that connect this program towards Personal Planning K to 7 Integrated Resource Package (1998). This portion of the resource provides educators with specific learning results that are applicable for the proposed content of this program. The curriculum connections are divided into separate grades and cover 3 major elements from the Individual Planning Curriculum, namely, mental well-being, infant abuse prevention, and safety and injury prevention (BCME & MAG, 1998). These 3 sub-sections contain a minimum of two relevant prescribed learning benefits each, thus providing a minimum of six outcomes per grade level. These curriculum connections will make the implementation procedure of this technique more attainable while giving educators the opportunity to integrate the difficulty of bullying across the curriculum.
The last section of this resource also promotes integration by providing the necessary publication info on extra resources that could possibly be used to compliment the program. The resource section contains non-fiction and fiction and fiction resources for students, teachers, and parents. These extra resources include stories, novels, videos, and posters that deal in the issue of bullying.
The trouble of bullying affects each school and typically each baby at 1 issue in time. As a result, the Ministry of Education proposes many programs that support deal with these tough issues. One such procedure is Focus on Bullying: A Prevention Method for Elementary School Communities. This specific process was produced during the second phase with the Safe Schools Initiative. While this resource provides tremendous insight with regards to the problems of bullying, the implementation of this resource requires professional training provided by the BCTF and the BCPVPA facilitators for ones teachers, administrators, and assist staff who wish to participate (BCME & MAG, 1998). This two day training program consists of two phases: the awareness phase and the implementation phase. Whilst the workshops are funded by the BCTF and the BC Safe Schools Center, it may possibly prove hard for all interested men and women to participate. In addition, in order for this method being entirely successful, all parties involved for instance administrators, staff, students, parents, and community members have to assist it’s implementation. This may possibly also prove tough considering the complexity and density of this program.
Focus on Bullying: A Prevention Method for Elementary School Communities is really a complex procedure that's intended to cover all aspects of bullying including, uncomplicated data on bullying and harassment, strategies for coping and responding to bullying in addition to social skills training (BCME & MAG, 1998). However, this technique may not fit into the long-term plan of all schools. In addition, the success rate of this process is based entirely on a complete commitment of all parties involved. As we know, several educators can not commit to a minimum two-day training session due to the complexity of his/her unique yearly plans. Therefore, it would be quite hard for some schools, staff, and administrators, etc. to fully commit to not only the complex implementation of this program, but also the overall objectives and goals for your entire school year. However, this method does contain an abundance of beneficial resources, suggestions, and information regarding bullying that could prove valuable for quite a few educators as complimentary additions to their curriculum.
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