Peer Support in Action
Hinchingbrooke School, Anti-Bullying Committee
By Lynne Souter-Anderson. (Anti-Bullying Committee Co-ordinator)
The Anti-Bullying Committee was first set up in January 1993. Its purpose was to minimise bullying and to promote an even happier and safer school to belong to. The significance and success of the Anti-Bullying Committee could never have been forseen.
Now in its eighth year, the Anti-Bullying Committee is an, integral part of Hinchingbrooke School’s ethos and the Committee has gone from strength to strength. Recruitment for year eleven and sixth form befrienders takes place each March, in the form of an introductory assembly outlining the helpful qualities and the training provided in peer group counselling work. Training covers working with relationship boundaries, confidentiality, listening skills, questioning techniques, body language and voice tone plus coping strategies, and is frequently delivered by experienced befrienders along side the Co-ordinator. All participants are awarded a certificate for training and involvement. The Anti-Bullying Committee now provides two teams each lunch time, to be on duty in a designated room. The befrienders are available for younger pupils to drop in and talk through bullying situations. Sixth form students and teaching staff provide a safety aspect of the work through supervision sessions.
Parents, staff and school governors have voiced their full support for the work the year eleven students and sixth formers carry out.
Hinchingbrooke’s Anti-Bullying Committee has been listed as an example of good practice and is included in the CHIPS (Childline in Partnership with Schools) directory and has received national press coverage being featured in the Mail on Sunday’s "You" magazine published in August 1997.
This site will look much better in a browser that supports web standards,but it is accessible to any browser or Internet device.