Durham Cathedral Schools Foundation is very excited to announce that we have been presented with a Bronze Award for our work on Anti-Bullying and our support for the United Against Bullying Campaign (UAB). This is the first year that the Foundation has engaged with this award, funded by the Department of Education and National Children’s Bureau, and we are thrilled that we received a Bronze status.

Mrs Thompson as Director of Wellbeing, Mrs Balfour as Pastoral Lead at Chorister School, and Ms Thompson as Deputy Head Pastoral, spent last academic year creating a whole school audit of our current practices and strategies when tackling bullying across the Foundation. We also surveyed our pupils from Year 3 to Year 13, on two different occasions, to get an inclusive and in-depth view of our students’ wellbeing.

Each and every year, our school is involved with Anti-Bullying Week, which brings into focus this topic, which can affect many (both children and adults) in the UK. Our school community is always very mindful of our MARK values and how they work to tackle problems such as bullying. The award was another opportunity to celebrate the fantastic work we do in school, but to also be aware of the ongoing work that must take place to keep bullying out of our community.

We would like to thank everyone involved in the work achieved last year, particularly students for their support and proactive approach to our anti-bullying projects. We now have a stand-alone anti-bullying policy, which compliments the Behaviour Policy we have, but has a direct focus on this vast area. This policy is going through some final stages and we will release this in due course, alongside a pupil-friendly version for primary and secondary.

We have a 360 audit of the anti-bullying strategies and approaches we take across the Foundation and what work is still to be achieved; this will be the bedrock for our work as we go forward. We have been able to offer free CPD to all staff, parents, and Year 13 leaders, on bullying awareness training, plus we have a comprehensive overview of the wellbeing of our students through the UAB questionnaires’ which help form our planning for the year ahead.