Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): I welcome Dr Noel Purdy, the chair of the Northern Ireland Anti-Bullying Forum, and Mr Lee Kane, the forum's regional anti-bullying coordinator. I invite you to make a 10-minute presentation, after which I will open the session for questions.

Dr Noel Purdy (Northern Ireland Anti-Bullying Forum): Thank you, Chair and Committee members. As well as being the chair of the Anti-Bullying Forum I am director of research and scholarship at Stranmillis University College, and I represent all the initial teacher education providers in the forum. I am accompanied by Mr Lee Kane, who is the regional coordinator of the Anti-Bullying Forum.

Thank you for the invitation to present to the Committee this morning. I want to do two things: first, I want to assure the Committee of our commitment to the need for an Addressing Bullying in Schools Bill and our broad support for it, and, secondly, I wish to summarise why we believe that the Bill needs to be amended in a number of ways that, we believe, will strengthen it and allow us to tackle bullying more effectively in our schools.

The Anti-Bullying Forum brings together over 20 regional statutory and voluntary sector organisations, acting together to end the bullying of children and young people in our schools and communities. The forum was formed by Save the Children at the request of the Department of Education in August 2004 and was formally launched in November 2005. The forum is currently hosted by the National Children's Bureau in Northern Ireland, and its activities are funded by the Department of Education.

In September 2013, the Minister invited the forum to carry out a review of existing legislation, policy, guidance and practice in Northern Ireland in relation to bullying in schools. That comprehensive review was submitted to the Minister in December 2013 and identified four areas most urgently requiring attention. The first was the need for an agreed definition that would be the cornerstone of a school's detailed anti-bullying policy. The second is the need for schools to record centrally details of any incidents of bullying behaviour. The third is the urgent need for additional training and resources to be made available to schools as they seek to address new and complex forms of bullying in particular. The fourth is that an evidence-based approach to addressing bullying must be adopted at all times, on the basis of international research and best practice.

The forum welcomes the Bill in broad terms as an important and timely step forward in the Department of Education's work to support schools in their efforts to address bullying. In our written evidence, which you have all received, we went through each of the three clauses in some detail. This morning, I want to concentrate on what we see as the main issues that need to be addressed.

I will begin by looking at clause 1. Recent research that I have conducted along with Professor Peter Smith of Goldsmith's College, University of London, and which was outlined in detail in the submission from Stranmillis University College highlights that there is wide variation in the definition of bullying currently in use across school policies in Northern Ireland. Indeed, we found that the existing Department of Education definition was used in just 20% of the policies, and many inadequate definitions were found. It is clear that there is much confusion among pupils, teachers and parents as to what exactly is meant by bullying and that this can lead to inconsistent understanding by pupils, parents and teachers but also inconsistent reporting and responses by schools. It is, therefore, fundamentally important that we have a robust definition of bullying in the Bill as the very foundation of our efforts to address bullying.

Bullying is not just a problem for a handful of schools in Northern Ireland; it is an issue in every school in every country. Similarly, over the past 40 years, there has been a growing body of international research into bullying in schools that has considered the nature and incidence of bullying and the effectiveness of different forms of intervention. In responding to bullying in schools in Northern Ireland it is, therefore, vital that we do not ignore that international body of knowledge. We are part of a global research community but also a global community of teachers and parents who want to end bullying in schools, so let us learn from our global colleagues.

There is now widespread international agreement that there are three core components to any good definition of bullying behaviour that distinguish it from all other forms of aggressive behaviour. First, the definition must include reference to an intention to harm; in other words, the behaviour is not accidental. Secondly, bullying behaviour is repeated behaviour and not a one-off action. Thirdly, there is an imbalance of power in which the victim finds it difficult to defend himself or herself. This is, of course, not to suggest that other forms of aggressive behaviour that do not meet those three criteria should be condoned by schools but simply that they should be dealt with under the school's discipline policy rather than its anti-bullying policy.

The Anti-Bullying Forum wishes to focus the Committee's attention on the fact that this anti-bullying legislation should relate to bullying in schools alone. In advocating a definition based around those three core criteria, we refer in some detail in our written evidence to the leading anti-bullying experts in the world — Professors Dan Olweus from Norway, Ken Rigby from Australia and Peter Smith from London — all of whom include an imbalance of power in their definitions. Indeed, reference must also be made to the existing Department of Education definition, which is included in its 1999 child protection guidelines, where bullying is defined as follows:

In proposing a new legal definition in the Bill that omits the criterion of an imbalance of power, we would be ignoring a key element that is now well established internationally. The forum believes that this would be a very retrograde step.

The Anti-Bullying Forum has been informed that the legal advice received by DE states that it is not possible to enact a definition that includes an imbalance of power. In response, we draw the Committee's attention to the Accepting Schools Act 2012 from Ontario, Canada. In that Commonwealth country, where the legal system is based on the same common law principles that prevail in the UK, the legislative definition clearly includes all three core criteria — intent to harm, repetition and an imbalance of power. In our written evidence, we set out this definition in full — at the bottom of page 4 — but we draw the Committee's attention to the Canadian legislation, which states that the bullying behaviour:

Therefore, I emphasise to the Committee this morning that it is possible to enact a legal definition that includes an imbalance of power. However, it is also important for the Committee to be confident that the definition in the Bill is legally workable. In an effort to address the issue, we contacted the leading anti-bullying expert in Ontario, Canada. Professor Wendy Craig is professor and head of psychology at Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario. When asked if she knew of any difficulties with the inclusion of the imbalance of power criterion in the definition, she replied, "No problems to my knowledge". We also contacted the Minister of Education of Ontario, Liz Sandals, to ask about the legislation. Replying on her behalf, Eileen Silver, director of the safe schools and student well-being branch at the Ministry of Education, told us:

Ontario, though, is not alone in including that in its legal definition. By way of just one further example, in the state of Texas, House Bill 1942, enacted in 2011, also provides a definition of bullying. It refers to behaviour that:

In considering the proposed definition of bullying in clause 1 of this Bill, the Anti-Bullying Forum would therefore argue that we need to amend the current proposed definition to include an imbalance of power. If we fail to do so, we will have a definition that is contrary to all leading international definitions. Moreover, we will have a definition that allows some forms of aggressive behaviour — for example, repeated intentional acts of aggressive behaviour between equals — to be included as bullying behaviour. That will mean that schools will mis-record such aggressive behaviour as bullying, which will inflate their incidence levels, and schools will effectively be recording many more incidents than is necessary.

One proposed solution might be to leave the legal definition as written in the Bill but include the imbalance of power criterion in the ensuing statutory guidance. However, that would effectively create two definitions, which simply confounds the current situation highlighted by my research when we are seeking precisely to agree one common definition moving forward. If schools are then asked to tick a box in the reporting system to indicate whether there is an imbalance of power, surely they are capable of identifying that at the outset. As a teacher, I believe that teachers are capable of identifying bullying situations where there is an imbalance of power, but they need the right definition at the outset.

Finally and crucially, having provided evidence that an imbalance of power can be successfully written into anti-bullying legislation, we would argue strongly that it should be included in our definition, too. I will set out below how we think that must be worded to achieve the objectives that we are all seeking to achieve. In clause 1, we would simply add a paragraph (e) at the end that would include the words:

We would put in just one final caveat to the clause. It follows the advice of another leading expert in Canada, Professor Faye Mishna, dean and professor of child and family at the University of Toronto, who noted that the Ontario legislation was accompanied by mandatory staff training to make sure that all teachers had a clear understanding of the nature of bullying. We would, of course, welcome such support here for the training of teachers, both pre-service and in-service.

I have just two brief comments to make on clauses 2 and 3. Do not worry, they will be much shorter than previous comments.

On clause 2, we recommend a brief amendment to clause 2(1)(c)(i), which states that the board of governors of a grant-aided school must review its anti-bullying measures "from time to time". We believe that that is really too vague and recommend that the subsection be amended to read:

We have two points to make on clause 3. We suggest making two minor amendments to the clause, which relates to the duty to keep a record of incidents of bullying. The first amendment provides that a record under subsection (1) must state what, from all of the circumstances, appears to be the method and motivation of the incident; in other words, we are adding the words, "method and". In seeking to analyse the incidents of bullying, it would be essential that schools record not just the motivation for the bullying — for example, whether it is homophobic, disablist or racist — but the method and whether it is physical, verbal, cyber, social exclusion, material, indirect and so on. Indeed, we had suggested that already in our 2013 review for the Minister. Secondly and finally, we recommend the addition of a new subsection (2)(c) to state that a record under subsection (1) must

This would ensure that schools must keep records securely for what we believe is a reasonable time.

Chairperson, members of the Committee, that concludes our opening statement, and we are happy to take questions.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): Thank you Noel, the issues that you drilled down on were extremely helpful. I would like to clarify a couple of points. In terms of the imbalance of power, and you have suggested a form of wording for clause 1(1)(e), I notice there are a couple of definitions that state, unless I have picked this up wrongly, an imbalance of power real or perceived. When you gave us your draft definition, it did not include that additional bit of wording. Would that be something that was helpful or unhelpful? What is your view?

Dr Purdy: My view is that it is potentially unhelpful to include "real or perceived", because it just introduces another element of doubt to the definition. That is a matter that would have to be proven, in any case, so to add the additional uncertainty of perception there would be potentially unhelpful. That is why we deliberately did not include "real or perceived" in our proposed amendment.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): OK, that is helpful. In terms of the scope of this, could you address whether cyberbullying should be included in the Bill and specifically referenced or should simply be a part of guidance? I am interested in your views on that.

Dr Purdy: My view is that cyberbullying is in the scope of this Bill as it stands. Cyberbullying is, of course, a very important and significant form of bullying. It is very much in the headlines at the moment, but it is not to play down other forms of bullying. As a forum, we see all forms of bullying as something that we want to end, be it homophobic, racist, because of a child's appearance or in another of its multiple forms. We believe that cyberbullying is included here. The Bill makes reference to electronic communication in the definition in clause 1, and we believe that there is a very important role for the statutory guidance that will come out as a result of this and, within that statutory guidance, there is clearly a need for a significant section in relation to cyberbullying. As a parent —

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): To sum up, from that point of view, this is adequately covered in the Bill, and there is no amendment needed. As with a lot of issues, the meat can be put on the bone when it comes to the statutory guidance. Is that a fair summary of your position?

Dr Purdy: That is exactly right. I actually agree with what it states in relation to the limits of the Bill in clause 2, where it mentions cyberbullying. This is an area that I have done some research on, in relation to the legal responsibilities of schools for cyberbullying incidents that take place. Of course, most of them take place outside school hours, at home, at the weekend. The wording of clause 2 is very reasonable. No school that I am aware of would want the responsibility of any cyberbullying incident 24/7, during school holidays and so on. The limits set in clause 2 are entirely reasonable.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): OK. The final point I want to make is this: you made what seems to be a very reasonable point about recording methodology as well as motivation, and it seems fairly sensible to me that it is something that is also recorded. That can presumably help identify trends in the methods used, but, at this stage, are you aware of any methods of bullying that you feel need to be explored or researched further? Are there any other deficiencies that you can think of?

Dr Purdy: It is really more of a general point. It is about getting statistics about the incidents through the different methods. We are aware from the most recent Department of Education research in 2011 that the most common form of bullying in year 6 and year 9 is actually direct verbal bullying — being called mean names and so on. That is consistently the most common form of bullying, not cyberbullying. I would make the point that that research was carried out in the spring of 2011, and we are now in 2016. Clearly there is a need for more research to update that. My point is not to focus on one method of bullying; it is simply to have the data. Motivation is very important, but so is the method.

Mr Hazzard: Thanks for that. The discussion has been very thought-provoking, particularly on some of the areas that have been touched on. When we look at the additional motivating factors that should be included, how far should we go? There is already an extensive list, but what should we be looking to add? Physical appearance, social status and, maybe, care status? Apart from those, we are going to get quite —

Dr Purdy: I am drawn to clause 3(3), which states:

I am aware from discussions with the Department of Education that the list is not exhaustive. We have been informed that it is based on the section 75 categories, although the wording is slightly different. I would even question the order in which they are listed; maybe it would make more sense to use the wording from section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 to avoid confusion.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): I am guessing, so I might be wrong, but to try to suggest that one is not more important than the other the order seems to have been done alphabetically. I do not want to speak on behalf of the Department, but I assume that they are trying to suggest that there is not necessarily a hierarchy and that they are not making a value judgement on what is more likely to be on it.

Dr Purdy: It might have been helpful for them to make it more explicit that it was based on section 75 categories, because some people we have spoken to wondered where the list came from.

I take your point absolutely, Mr Hazzard, that the list is not exhaustive. In the statutory guidance, there are many other motivations for bullying, and you have mentioned some of them. Those would need to be referred to in the statutory guidance. As long as the Bill says that the list is not prescriptive, I have no real problem with —

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): We may be dancing on the head of a pin a little bit. Whenever you are looking to add categories to the list, there will be an argument about what you put in. I appreciate that the word "may", by its definition, does not exclude things, but maybe there should be something at the end of the list to act as a catch-all, saying "or other forms of motivation" or something of that nature.

Mr Hazzard: Physical appearance and social status, apart from homophobia, racism and sectarianism, are probably two of the biggest motivations and should be included on the list. I accept the points that have been covered.

Mr Lee Kane (Northern Ireland Anti-Bullying Forum): It is really important to say that that would make it difficult to future-proof the Bill. Looking back 10 years, we would not have been looking so much at issues such as transphobic bullying. "Islamophobia" is a word that did not really exist 10 years ago and is something that we see much more these days. We should think about 10 years from now and whether we will need to come back and amend it then. Can we make it so that it will still be appropriate 10 years from now?

Mr Hazzard: Finally, I want to ask about method. I agree entirely about social exclusion being a very prominent method of bullying. You mentioned material and indirect methods, which I am not overly aware of. Can you give a bit more detail on them?

Dr Purdy: The term "material bullying" is used in reference to the extortion of money and the stealing of possessions; for example, taking a school bag and throwing it out the window. That is what is meant by material bullying. "Indirect bullying" is often referred to as rumour-spreading or gossip. That is the terminology.

Mr Lunn: Thanks for your presentation. You comment in your paper on the words "repeated use". Your view appears to be that bullying is only bullying if it is repeated. The Children's Law Centre will be talking to us shortly, and it takes a different view, as would I instinctively. A one-off bullying incident is still bullying. There is some comment about the ability of a teacher to react to a bullying incident if it happens only once and what happens if he or she cannot nip it in the bud on the first occasion. What is the rationale for the use of the word "repeated"?

Dr Purdy: It goes back to what I was saying in the written submission about aggression. There is international agreement that bullying is a subset, if you like, of aggressive behaviour. All bullying is aggression, but not all aggression is bullying, if you follow what I am saying. To go back to the incident that you propose, of course a school and a teacher need to respond to any incident of aggressive behaviour. As you say, if it can be nipped in the bud, that will help to stop it developing into something more serious and repeated. The most common international definitions of bullying talk about a repeated act. It is a pattern of behaviour, not a one-off incident. That is not to say that a one-off incident is any more or less serious or worthy of a school intervention, but the definition is as it stands. Bullying is a pattern of intentional aggressive behaviour against someone who finds it hard to respond and defend themselves.

Mr Lunn: I have had occasion to talk to people whose children were bullied at a primary school. They reported the circumstances to the school at a very early stage, and the school's response was, "OK, we'll keep an eye on it", which I am sure it did. Without boring you with all of the details, the conclusion was that two children were moved to another school because the first school was not dealing with it properly. It was not physical, so I can well understand that it is quite hard to deal with. You need particular skills, but it just worries me that that early intervention may be slightly stymied by the requirement for repetition.

Dr Purdy: I disagree with that. I do not think it should be stymied in any way. Any school has a behaviour and discipline policy that should be implemented immediately if there is any report of aggressive behaviour. All we say is that, for it to be defined as bullying, it must be a more repeated pattern of behaviour. From what you tell me today, perhaps that school did not respond as effectively as possible, but it should have had not just an anti-bullying policy but a discipline policy. Under either but certainly under the discipline policy, the school should have intervened more effectively.

Mr Lunn: The school had posters all over the walls about zero tolerance of bullying.

The imbalance of power thing seems to receive fairly unanimous support. You have suggested paragraph (e) to add "where there is an imbalance of power". Is it as simple as that? Is it sufficiently clear that that does not just mean physical power but mental power as well?

Dr Purdy: I think it is clear. Again, we need to be clear about the difference between what goes into the legislation and what goes into the statutory guidance. I read out the long paragraph from the Ontario legislation, which goes into considerable detail. My only fear with that, as soon as you start defining it like that, is about what you have left out. It is much more difficult to change primary legislation, whereas, if we have the term "the imbalance of power", which I think is clear enough and which does not say just physical power, the statutory guidance is the place to spell out in more detail examples of an imbalance of power.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): Noel, just to pick up on that point, would that be commonly understood by practising teachers or at least relatively easily interpreted by them?

Mr Kane: Definitely, from our direct work with schools and teachers, it would be. There are various forms that power can take, so it is not just about your physical presence. It is about the person whom everyone is friends with and who can manipulate people to do the things they want, the person who has all the friends or the person whose birthday party you want to be invited to. It is that concept of power.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): I should say that both I and the vice Chair are Whips in this place, so we may be taking notes at this point on the use of power other than physical threats. [Laughter.]

Mr Kennedy: You have nothing to learn. [Laughter.]

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): I will take that as a compliment.

Mr Lunn: I am not necessarily disagreeing with you about imbalance of power; I am just exploring the possibilities here.

Finally, I want a comment from you on the non-exhaustive list of motivations. Fair enough, there will have to be some sort of catch-all, which would be quite normal. One of the things on the present list is "marriage". I am struggling to think of an example.

Dr Purdy: I was a little surprised to see that, but I am reassured that the list is based on the section 75 categories, and that is included.

I suspect that it is not a common motivation for bullying or not the most common. I have not done a lot of research into that. There has to be some starting point for the motivation categories. Section 75 seems to me to be a reasonable enough starting point, but it is not an exhaustive list.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): Without getting into the mind of the Department, I am trying to think about that a little. I wonder whether that could refer to someone having a go at a pupil because of the marital status of his or her parents, for instance.

Dr Purdy: Quite possibly.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): It could be that the child of a single mother is bullied. That might be the motivation, but I am just making a supposition.

Mr Lunn: It sounds like one that would come under a catch-all, rather than being listed, but it is not vital.

Dr Purdy: In the guidance, we certainly need to look at the issues raised by Chris. Social status is one motivation. Physical appearance is a very common motivation for bullying, particularly among younger children, as is care status. There are lots of others that could be added to the list and will, I am sure, be added over time.

Mr Lunn: If it said something like "family status", would that make the meaning more obvious?

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): We may need to quiz the Department on that because I am just guessing what that means, and I might be completely wrong.

Mr Lunn: I was wondering what Noel thought.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): I suspect that this question will come up when we have the Department —

Mr Kane: We would refer to it as "family situation".

Mr Rogers: Most points have been addressed, but will you clarify one point? Are you really saying that we need a reference to an imbalance of power in the legislation that the guidance can then tease out?

Dr Purdy: Absolutely, yes. We need something short and sweet in the definition to ensure that imbalance of power is there. I would leave the exemplification to the statutory guidance because it is much easier to update guidance than change primary legislation. As long as it is there, we, as a forum, would be satisfied with the definition.

Mr Rogers: The other point is to do with clause 3(1)(b) on incidents that take place travelling to and from school. Have you any thoughts on that? Clause 3(1)(a), which deals with incidents on school premises, and clause 3(1)(c), which deals with incidents when under the control of staff, are clear, but what about travelling to school?

Dr Purdy: We know from research that a lot of bullying takes place on school buses on the way to and from school and even in bus queues, at bus stops and so on. It is reasonable to include that. Indeed, it was the focus of Anti-bullying Week a few years ago, was it not?

Mr Kane: Our focus in Anti-bullying Week in 2009 was the journey from home to school. We looked at the need for a partnership approach to keeping children safe on that journey. There was a role for the school — in fact, a lead role for the school — and roles for members of the community and transport providers, such as Translink, which supported the campaign. The statutory guidance accompanying the Bill will need to look at that a little more closely. If a child leaves school at 3.30 pm on Friday, goes into town for a bit of shopping, goes somewhere else in the evening and then gets home at 10.00 pm, there are issues there. However, that can be picked up in the statutory guidance.

Mrs Overend: Thank you very much. It has been very useful to hear your views this morning. I want to go back to the definition and the inclusion of a reference to an imbalance of power. I presume that you are saying that such a reference would eliminate the overbureaucratic recording of every wee argument between pupils. Very often, two people just have different personalities and disagree, but that is not really a form of bullying. We can all think of such incidents from our schooldays. That does not include me — I only watched it, obviously. [Laughter.]

Dr Purdy: You were a bystander, perhaps — a witness to those incidents. [Laughter.]

We believe that schools and teachers are capable of making the distinction between bullying and a playground fight between equals. That is the kind of situation that I remember from my schooldays, when people would crowd round and watch, almost like a sport. A playground fight between two equals is very different from what we say is a bullying situation, in which the victim, the target of the behaviour, feels powerless. It is not a situation involving equals. They feel powerless, defenceless. They rely on the people standing around to intervene, often on their behalf, because they lack the confidence to support themselves. Perhaps they are physically weaker or verbally less fluent. As already noted, it is not all about physical power. Perhaps a pupil is outnumbered or lacks social status or social support. For all those reasons, there can be an imbalance of power that makes a pupil feel defenceless and at the mercy of the child who is carrying out the bullying behaviour. There is an important distinction, and we think that it will be feasible for schools to continue to record incidents, as many already do, using precisely that kind of definition.

Mrs Overend: I also want to ask about the recording of bullying, where that information goes and how you feel it should be recorded. Have you any further concerns? I am thinking about freedom of information (FOI) requests and the creation of a league table of schools, for instance.

Dr Purdy: We have concerns about this. We raised them back in 2013, in our review for the Minister and have discussed it already with DE officials. It is a real concern for schools. However, we think that the benefits outweigh the disadvantages. There is a duty on us as a forum and on society more broadly to educate maybe even the press in this. We do not want unhelpful freedom of information requests to be granted and league tables to appear in local papers. That would not be a helpful situation for anybody.

If I were to go into a school and carry out an anti-bullying programme, one of my key messages would be to encourage children to report bullying. Often, the children, these powerless victims, feel that they cannot tell anybody. I would say, "Tell your teacher". If I did that in a school, the incidence of bullying — the official statistics that are being submitted — would go up, but, in many ways, that is a very good thing and a very powerful message. The children in that school would feel empowered to report the bullying, and the school, I hope, would take it seriously. We need to educate schools and the broader public about how they look at the statistics. A rise in the number of reported bullying incidents is not necessarily, in the first instance, a bad thing; it may be a positive sign that the school is opening those channels of communication and children are feeling capable of responding.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): Noel, you talk of educating schools. Is there any concern that, if the system were susceptible to FOI requests, some schools might be reluctant to record bullying because of the impact that it would have on whatever statistics were being gathered? Do you think that that might happen, or are you not worried about it?

Dr Purdy: I would worry, but I cannot comment on whether there are any schools in that situation.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): Sorry, Sandra, for interrupting.

Mrs Overend: That is OK, Chair.

I am just trying to tease this out in my mind. Is there a way in which the schools could record the bullying and keep their records up to date and then the Department would come in to analyse them, rather than the Department taking and recording that information? I am just trying to find a better balance.

Dr Purdy: Yes. In our original review, which we submitted in 2013, all we called for was for the schools to record centrally. The Department has come forward with the proposal that it would have access to the statistics. We were simply suggesting that, if, for example, there were an inspection in a school, the reports would be made available or evidence would be made available to inspectors that the school was following due process and so on. There is the potential for that. I think that the Department is keen — I will let the officials speak for themselves when they are here — to get the overview of trends in Northern Ireland. That is its motivation, if you like, for writing this into the Bill.

Mrs Overend: Yes. The Department wants black-and-white data.

Dr Purdy: We are making the point to the Department that it does not replace the research studies, three of which were carried out and funded by the Department over the last 15 years, the most recent in 2011. That is a very different set of statistics. I remind members of the Committee that those studies were anonymous questionnaires that were handed out to over 1,000 children in P6 and year 9 right across Northern Ireland. Last time, they used 60 schools, I think. The questionnaires asked children whether they had been bullied in a number of different ways over the previous couple of months. They produced a very different score or incidence level from the statistics that will come from this. We know from international research that, often, even in the most open and progressive schools, children do not feel that they can report every incident of bullying. They might admit it on an anonymous questionnaire, but they will not necessarily have reported it to a teacher, or the teacher may have chosen not to report it formally in the school records.

Mrs Overend: Thank you.

Ms Maeve McLaughlin: Thank you for your very clear presentation. My initial observation is that I am firmly in favour of maximising section 75 in its broadest sense. Often, it has been cherry-picked. However, I think that this legislation may come up against issues in that regard because it affects schools. The monitoring and tracking of section 75 categories might, because this relates to schoolchildren, involve issues with which the Committee and wider society will have to grapple.

My view is that the imbalance of power is related to bullying, but there is a process for who decides what constitutes such an imbalance. You said that it needed to be in the Bill and that other issues would be dealt with by a school's discipline processes. Can you give us an example of those other issues? Will the definition of an imbalance of power be at a school's discretion? Does that set schools against each other?

Dr Purdy: I hope not. I go back to Trevor's question: there is a difference between bullying and a one-off incident or an incident in which there is no imbalance of power, which would be dealt with under a school's discipline policy, as distinct from the anti-bullying policy.

I take your point, but I think that, with a little training, this will work. I take the Ontario example very seriously. Ontario has written into its legislation mandatory annual training for schools on anti-bullying measures. We have not included that in our submission to the Committee, but, when I read that, I thought that there was very much a need for it. Our review in 2013 included the need for staff training. Irrespective of the issue of imbalance of power, you could argue that staff training is required to look at issues around intent, as well as the different and very complex forms of bullying that we would like to see covered in the statutory guidance, let alone all the forms of intervention on which the Anti-Bullying Forum, particularly Lee, has done a lot of work through going into schools. There is a serious need for training, not just on the imbalance of power. I take your point that staff need to be clear about what that means, but there needs to be clear guidance on the whole realm of anti-bullying responses by schools, and we would like that to be well supported by the Department through training. The forum is well placed to help to deliver that.

Mr Kane: I will give an example of something that would come under the legislation — incorrectly — if we did not include imbalance of power. Two pupils just do not get on with each other. They just do not click, and there is a bit of friction between them. Over a number of months, there have been fallings-out and arguments that might have resulted in a physical fight. However, they are of equal power, and they are of equal status in the school and in their peer group. It is just the clash of personalities that leads to the fallings-out, arguments and physical fights. That is unacceptable behaviour. Arguing and fighting with each other in the playground is unacceptable, but such incidents are very different from a bullying incident in which one person picks on the other and repeatedly, over a period, uses his or her power to put the other down. Those are very small details, but they can have a big impact.

Ms Maeve McLaughlin: I am not opposed to the notion, but it needs to be very clear. What I am hearing is that it is more about repetition, and this goes back to Trevor's point: a pupil does something once that could be seen as involving an imbalance of power, but, because it does not happen a second time, it falls outside the anti-bullying strategy. In a nutshell, bullying starts somewhere. Schools, of course, have discretion, but one school's perception of what is a power imbalance might not be the same as that of another school. What does that say about wider society? It needs to be very clear and defined.

Dr Purdy: I totally agree. It needs to be defined in the statutory guidance. I will give another example. There has been a lot of discussion of cyberbullying in the media and so on, but incidents often described as cyberbullying are not really cyberbullying incidents at all. There are general e-safety issues, including grooming and any number of abusive behaviours online. It is aggressive online behaviour, but it is not cyberbullying. There are many instances of that.

As a Committee, you need to be clear about what the Bill is setting out to do. It has limits, and it is only right that it has limits. We are not trying to deal with all aggressive behaviour in schools through the Bill. That is far beyond the remit of what the Bill sets out to do. As long as we acknowledge those limitations, it is very workable.

Mr Kane: I would like to respond to the comment that you made about section 75. When talking about a bullying incident and using those terms to describe prejudice-based bullying in particular, be it racist, sectarian, homophobic, transphobic, disablist etc, it is important to remember that we are talking about the behaviour being displayed rather than just the people involved. We know that an awful lot of homophobic bullying is experienced by non-LGBT young people and that a lot of racist bullying and bullying through the use of racist language is aimed at white young people. It is really important that, when looking at the motivating factor, we look at both the behaviour being displayed and the young people. It is the idea of what the motivation is rather than who is the target.

Ms Maeve McLaughlin: It is the method as well.

Mr Kane: Absolutely

Mr Kennedy: Thank you for the presentation. I have a slightly different query. I am a member of three boards of governors. On the future legal liability for incidents of bullying that take place in a school, you said that you thought that records should be maintained for at least a couple of years beyond a pupil's student career. Do you have any thoughts on the legal liability that schools or boards of governors would have at that point or even beyond?

Dr Purdy: We have suggested one or two years, but we are open to discussion on that. As the Bill stands, there is no duty on schools to retain the records at all. We say that records need to be kept for as long as pupils are registered at a school and for a reasonable time thereafter, and we are open to discussion on what that reasonable time might be.

We want to make the retention of records reasonable for schools. There have been cases of pupils who, having left school, report an incident of how their school did not deal effectively with bullying behaviour. The point is that there has to be some duty on the school to retain the records, and that period cannot end when a pupil leaves the school. Some pupils, during their time at school, might feel unable to report bullying, simply because they are still at school and are fearful of getting themselves into further trouble. As long as the keeping of records continues afterwards, we are open to discussion on the policy on exactly how long that should be. It is a fair question.

Mr Kennedy: There is an issue of affording protection to boards of governors by not making it open-ended. Twenty-five years after leaving school, people should not be able to say, for example, that their behaviour relates to how they were bullied and that, because the school did nothing about it, they will claim against that school. How can you avoid that situation?

Dr Purdy: I am a member of a board of governors as well, and I see that concern. We have not looked at that in detail, to be honest, but we can consider that and come back to you on it. I appreciate your concern.

Mr Kennedy: It will be interesting to hear what the Department has to say on that.

Dr Purdy: I think so as well. It is important that there are reasonable limits on the responsibilities of governors. Already, it has changed from being the responsibility of a single governor to the responsibility of the board of governors, and that is a positive step.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): Before I go to the next member, I welcome the school council of Cairnshill Primary School to the Public Gallery. I saw them as they were coming into the Building. We are looking at bullying in schools and what can be done about it, so we are taking evidence from experts in the subject.

Mr Newton: I thank the members of the forum for coming. It has been extremely useful. Having been described as experts in front of Cairnshill Primary School —

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): Your answers had better be good.

Mr Newton: My concern is the imbalance of power. You have answered most of my queries, but you said that training would be needed. Presumably, that would be built in to teacher training and then refresher training as part of continuing professional development (CPD). Some schools are quite big now.

Mr Kane: Yes, some have 2,000 or 3,000.

Mr Newton: Determining the imbalance of power might be a difficult thing for teachers to do. You said that Canada had built training into its legislation: if we did not build it in, what might the impact of that be?

Dr Purdy: First, thanks for the reference to my being a bullying expert; I am not sure whether that was a compliment.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): It may have been a back-handed one.

Dr Purdy: Perhaps an "anti-bullying expert" would be better.

I will make a point about the importance of training. I work in Stranmillis University College, and we educate all our student teachers in the policy and guidance on anti-bullying. We talk about many forms of bullying. We have compulsory and optional modules at undergraduate and postgraduate level, and the postgraduate CPD courses are very popular.

It is vital that all student teachers coming into the system are aware of the importance of bullying. Some may have been involved in bullying, but all teachers need to be prepared for it. There is a need for further in-service training. When the statutory guidance is published, the Anti-Bullying Forum will be very well placed, but I imagine that it will need support in providing further training, through the Education Authority, to schools in different regions in Northern Ireland. That will require funding. I am sure that you are aware of how tight budgets are, but these are, as I said, complex issues, and it is vital not only that student teachers receive the training but that experienced teachers have refresher training. Ontario, as I said, has annual mandatory training built into its legislation. I am not sure that we need to go that far, but there needs to be regular updating of policies and training for staff.

You asked about the impact of not having imbalance of power in the legislation. This goes back to my opening statement: not having it simply means that schools would record many more incidents of aggressive behaviour that are not defined as bullying. The playground fight that I mentioned earlier and similar incidents in which both combatants were of relatively equal power would have to be recorded as bullying. You would find confusion, and we would be out of sync with the majority of accepted definitions internationally. I do not think that that is the way forward for Northern Ireland and for the legislation. This is a tremendous opportunity for us to get the best possible legislation for our schools and our children. It seems unwise to go against the leading advice from experts all over the world. It would lead to further confusion in schools. More than anything else, a definition that allowed many other forms of aggression to be counted as bullying would create problems for the courts.

Mr Kane: Training for teachers is important, but we must remember that staff training needs to go beyond that. We need to look at the support staff in schools — classroom assistants, lunchtime supervisors etc — and at the boards of governors. Governor training will be very important to the success of the Bill.

Mr Newton: In the investigative process, if that is the right term, whereby a principal or teacher wishes to determine whether there is an imbalance of power, it seems that you might almost be approaching a police investigation in the school. Am I right in that?

Dr Purdy: I do not think that it is any more of a police investigation than trying to work out whether it is an intentional act or a repeated act. That is part of what teachers do day in, day out when trying to find out what has happened by speaking to the pupils involved. I do not think that teachers would like to see themselves as police officers, but, with any incident, teachers have to find out what happened, and they do that by asking questions of the pupils. In that respect, yes, there is a bit of detective work involved, but I do not think that it is unnecessarily complex or beyond the skills of a well-trained member of the teaching profession.

Mr Craig: Thank you, Chair, and I put it on record that you are definitely not a bully as the Chief Whip of our party. [Laughter.]

Mr Kennedy: He told you to say that, didn't he?

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): Jonathan, you may be sucking up to the wrong person.

Mr Craig: Who knows?

It is good to see the experts here. I want to get to the root of this, which is, unfortunately, about where the balance of power lies and how to protect a school from litigation. I admit that I am on two boards of governors and chair of one of them. When there is a bullying incident in the school, the parents of the offended party are probably the first to come to you, telling you that the school is not doing enough. Of course, the parents of the pupil who has been reprimanded then come to you and say that what you have done went too far. As a board of governors, you cannot win because, ultimately, it is a judgement call, no matter what you do. It is just like our legal system, if truth be told.

What protections can be built into the legislation? I am not thinking of the board of governors; more important are the schools whose reputation suffers when situations are not dealt with properly and there is no proper response to bullying. What is built in to protect schools? Some parents will never be satisfied, no matter what you do with regard to sanctions on the offending party.

Dr Purdy: I appreciate your point, although I think that it is perhaps beyond the scope of this Bill. Nonetheless, I suggest that the starting point for any school response is its anti-bullying policy. The foundation of the anti-bullying policy is its definition of bullying. We constantly emphasise the same themes. The research that I carried out, which I mentioned earlier, looked at 100 anti-bullying policies in 50 primary and 50 post-primary schools across Northern Ireland. I found an enormous variation in the quality, breadth, content and definitions of those anti-bullying policies. Some of the definitions were very poor: some were one-page long, and some had last been updated in 2005. I suggest that any school that bases its response on a 10-year-old one-page anti-bullying policy is taking a risk in terms of protecting itself. In answer to your question, I think that the best thing a school can do to protect its staff is to have an effective, robust policy and a sound definition, and that is what we are arguing for this morning.

There should be clear procedures for reporting incidents and how members of the school staff, teaching and non-teaching, should respond to incidents. There should also be a clear reporting system. There should also be support for both the pupil being bullied and the pupil carrying out the bullying behaviour. Crucially, as you know, a policy is only as good as its enactment, and we argue that a policy has to be consulted on. By law, since 2003, there has to be consultation with the registered pupils and parents. Moreover, there should be consultation with all members of the school staff, teaching and non-teaching, and that needs to be understood and followed by all members of staff and pupils. That is the best protection. If somebody questions the school response, they will see a robust policy that is being followed effectively. If a school does all that, it is in a very strong position.

Mr Kane: In 2013, NIABF released guidance and a range of strategies to schools called 'Effective Responses to Bullying Behaviour' that looked at alternative responses that schools could take to bullying. Earlier, we had a question about investigating an incident. That sounds very much like the police; it is very legalistic. We like to gather facts and opinions to build a picture of what is going on and then select an intervention from a range of interventions to best meet the needs of the children involved. Very often and from listening to your question, we hear about what the views of the parents are — those are very important — but we know that one of the reasons why young people do not tell us about the bullying that they experience is that they feel that they will lose a sense of power. It stops being their story, and other people take it on. We need to make sure that the children involved — both the child experiencing the bullying and the child or children displaying the bullying behaviour — are at the centre of that situation. They need to be involved in making the decision about what will happen next. I always say that we might look at days one, two and three of sorting out the situation, but my interest is always in day four to see how we make sure that it is safe for child A and child B to be in the same classroom in the same school and how we get past that situation.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): OK. Two members want back in briefly. Trevor.

Mr Lunn: Thanks, Chair. I will not —

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): Sorry. Jonathan had not finished.

Mr Craig: Sorry about that. I am fascinated by your answer because I can happily say that, in the school that I am involved in, a lot of that is already in place. You are right: that is the ultimate protection for a school. Sadly, it is not the case everywhere; even in some very good schools it is not the case.

I would like to explore another thing with you, and it is the ultimate bugbear for any school: the social media bullying campaign. I know what you are saying — some of it can be aggressive, and some of it can be downright offensive — but, ultimately, it is a form of bullying. I think that, frankly, we are playing catch-up on this, because probably my generation and older generations do not even understand the concept of it. It was not there when we were at school. It is very aggressive and, in some cases, it has serious negative mental impacts on children. A lot of it is done outside school. Where will it fit into the legislation?

Mr Kane: I agree entirely. In the past 10 years, we have definitely seen a rise in bullying on social media, but 10 years ago we did not have social media — it is a very new tool that we are still getting to grips with. I like to split "cyberbullying" into two words. Look at the term "physical bullying". We understand "bullying"; now let us explore what we mean by "physical". As we have been dealing with it for centuries, we understand "physical". So let us unpick what we mean by "cyber". What are we talking about? When we start digging down and looking at the definition of "bullying" as set out in the Bill, we are talking about repeated, intentionally hurtful behaviour, which is moving and expanding into an online world. It is those behaviours that we have concerns about. It is the negative, aggressive behaviour that we engage in when we call people names, make fun of them, tease them, spread rumours or start stories. That is the behaviour that we have an issue with. Now for the "cyber" part. We have made wonderful advances in technology, which are very positive. We need to target negative behaviour to say, "That is unacceptable. It is unacceptable to call someone a nasty name or to write something nasty about somebody, whether it is online or in the playground". Intentionally setting out to hurt somebody repeatedly is unacceptable, and we need to be unequivocal about that.

We need a better understanding of how to respond to bullying incidents that happen through the use of electronic technology outside the school day and outside the areas covered by the Bill. That is why, in my opinion, we need joined-up partnership working between everyone involved in the life of a child. We need to look at the role of the school, the parents and the friends, and we need to look at the role of the PSNI and understand law enforcement. I represent the Northern Ireland Anti-Bullying Forum on the Safeguarding Board's e-safety forum, and we have been doing a lot of work to understand that wrap-around protection for young people. We know that sending grossly offensive messages through electronic communications is an offence, but we do not want to start criminalising 13-year olds. How, then, can we find that balance to protect them? To me, it comes back to a phrase that is used both in the Education Order and in the Safeguarding Board Act, the duty:

We have that role in keeping them safe. If something happens in school, what are we doing to minimise that risk and make sure that it is safe for children to be there? Also, how are we promoting their welfare? That comes very much into the preventative strategies and the preventative curriculum used by schools to raise awareness, to raise capacity and to build that ability in our young people to recognise that.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): We will try to be relatively brief. I will just bring in Trevor and then Chris for a follow-up.

Mr Lunn: When you visit schools and advise them, what evidence do you see of the pupils not involved in the bullying being bullied or intervening and asserting themselves? I will give you a brief anecdote. When I was at primary school, about age 10, there was a lad in our class who was bullied unmercifully. It would have been a scandal nowadays but not in those days. There certainly was not an imbalance of power physically. He was a big fella, but he also was not the brightest star in the universe. He probably would have been categorised as special needs now. After a few months, his mother invited half the class to his birthday party, and we all went. After that, the bullying did not stop, but pupils intervened on his behalf, big time, including some who had been bullies. I am not saying that you should instruct pupils on how to intervene, but what evidence is there that that happens to any extent?

Mr Kane: If we look at the 2014 Anti-bullying Week, which I am sure you all still have your posters from, we will see that the theme was "Together we will make a difference". It looked at the role that everybody in the school community plays in tackling and intervening in any bullying situation. Whether it happens in the playground, in the corridor or in the classroom, there is a role for everyone who witnesses it or has a concern in tackling it. Now, it may not always be safe for a pupil to step in and say, "Stop doing that!", so we need to make sure that young people understand how to keep themselves safe in that situation. We want to encourage young people to think about the different ways that they can take action and how they can intervene. There is still a real issue in our society about telling tales or touting, and we have tried over the past few years to change the language so that it is no longer "I am going to tell on you"; it is "I am worried about you. I have a concern about you, so I am going to share that concern with someone".

Mr Hazzard: Just touching on that, is there space in the Bill to build on the requirement for schools to provide support for the bullied child once the experience has taken place? Obviously, this is prevention and reporting, but what about the support that a bullied child may need? Should we look to address it in the Bill?

Dr Purdy: If it is not in the Bill, it certainly needs to be in the statutory guidance; that is very important. The research that I carried out recently found that the policies were generally quite good on the support that they offered to a child who was being bullied but far fewer of them referred to what they did to support the child who was carrying out the bullying. Even fewer detailed what that support might entail.

That is an excellent point with which to finish: it is a complex picture, and it involves a range of pupils, from the child experiencing the bullying to the child who carries it out and the bystanders whom Trevor talked about. It involves parents, teaching and non-teaching staff and governors. It is a very complex issue, and we want to ensure that the Bill is as strong as possible so that it can combat it.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): OK, Noel and Lee, thank you very much for your evidence today. It has been very helpful in our deliberations, and we will be carrying on with our sessions.