Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): I welcome back a couple of familiar faces: Koulla and Mairéad. As everyone will know, Koulla is the Northern Ireland Commissioner for Children and Young People (NICCY), and Mairéad is the chief executive. I refer members to the written submission on behalf of the Commissioner for Children and Young People on page 93. Koulla, I will hand over to you to make a short presentation, and then we will open it up to questions.

Ms Koulla Yiasouma (Northern Ireland Commissioner for Children and Young People): Thank you, Chair. I do not want to repeat what you have heard before, which is why hearing what our colleagues in the Equality Commission and the Human Rights Commission said was very useful. I will try and make my opening remarks as brief as possible. As the Chair has rightly said, I am the Commissioner for Children and Young People, and you know that my role is to promote and safeguard the rights and best interests of children and young people. Mairéad McCafferty, who is next to me, is chief executive with NICCY.

You will know from our written evidence that NICCY and many others have done a lot of work on bullying, and it is an issue that has been raised consistently by children and young people, their parents and carers and schools. They want clearer guidance. For that reason, we really welcome the legislation and are very interested in making it work for children and for schools.

Recently, NICCY talked to about 500 children and young people across Northern Ireland to discuss various issues relating to their rights. One of the areas at the top of their list was bullying. Some of the young people felt that bullying was not addressed properly in school, and that can then cause anxiety and depression. The impact of bullying is very significant on the lives of children and young people. Many of the young people whom we spoke to felt that schools did not do enough to prevent bullying. In relation to the final conversation that you had in the previous session, children felt that teachers were not doing enough to prevent bullying and to promote positive attitudes towards different groups of young people. I will talk a little bit more about the groups.

We are all acutely aware of the prevalence of bullying in schools as well as its complexities and the difficulties associated with identifying, monitoring and tackling bullying incidents. As I mentioned, we are also concerned about the damaging nature of bullying and the potential long-term impact that it has on the lives of children and young people, including as they grow into adulthood. There has been a lot of research that has talked about children developing anxiety, depression, self-harm and suicidal thoughts, and even adults who reported that they had been significantly bullied as children talked about the impact on their self-esteem, confidence and ability to form relationships. Research conducted across the water also showed that about 70% of teachers reported that they felt ill equipped to support children with mental health issues related to bullying.

Moving on to the Bill, it is with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) in mind that I welcome clause 1 and the definition of bullying. It is absolutely right that we should have a statutory definition. We support a consistent approach to the prevention and tackling of bullying. The definition of bullying as a repeated act is welcome, but, again, you cannot ignore one-off incidents. When does it become a pattern? It becomes a pattern with the first incident, so it needs to be recorded and addressed properly. I am not asking necessarily for the definition to be changed, but we suggest that a one-off act or the first act is reported, recorded and dealt with properly.

The proposed definition of bullying also refers to the intention of causing harm, at subsection (1)(d). There is, however, no reference in the definition to the perception of the victim. Again, you had the conversation earlier. We wish to see the inclusion of the perception of the victim in the statutory definition. How I experience an act is almost as important as the motivation of the person who undertook the act. I am concerned — again, this is where it gets difficult — about the proposed scope of the definition of bullying. Again, I am cognisant that you have just had a conversation about cyber and online bullying and incidents that happen outside school. We cannot ignore that, as it is a huge issue for children and young people. No longer is it confined to school grounds or to incidents on the way in and out of school.

I want to read you a quotation from a young person who talked to us about this:

It is difficult to demarcate between school life and home life. Again, I am cognisant of the conversation that you had earlier. We need an online safety strategy, and I know that that is in the works, but we need it sooner rather than later. I am confident that the Children's Services Co-operation Bill that the Assembly passed in November will go some way to ensuring that there is better cross-departmental working. Online bullying and the outworkings of bullying are not the sole remit of Education and schools; they fall under the remit of a number of agencies and Departments, and they need to work better together to ensure that our children are safe and well. I have gone off-script.

I move on to clause 2. Again, I welcome the introduction of a legal requirement on the board of governors to be responsible for this area of school life. However, I add a note of caution. You have debated the Special Educational Need and Disability (SEND) Bill, which imposes a statutory duty on a group of people who are there on a voluntary and unpaid basis and often do it on top of a very busy day. As we did with the SEND Bill, we caution that the governors need to be properly supported and trained and given good, clear guidance to ensure that they can carry out that role properly. I am not saying that they should not do it — they should — but we just need to be wary about how much we ask our governors to do, and we should ensure that we properly support them. Let us not forget that, with anti-bullying, it is quite complicated and very emotional, and they will have to develop skills in conflict resolution because parents will often challenge some of the decisions made at school. That then raises the question about the role of the Education and Training Inspectorate (ETI) and the Education Authority. We need to see clearer monitoring and guidance given, particularly by ETI when it inspects, to make sure that anti-bullying measures and policies are properly executed and the board of governors meets its duties and responsibilities.

Clause 2(1)(d) places an explicit duty on the board of governors to consult pupils and their parents when determining or reviewing measures to address bullying. As you would imagine, we wholly welcome that, but I think that there is a typo because, at paragraph (f), there is no mention of making sure that there is dissemination of the policy and the statement to the children themselves. We mention the parents of registered pupils, other stakeholders and teachers, but we do not mention how we disseminate the information to the children and young people themselves in the school.

I have already mentioned the need to address texting and cyberbullying.

We now go on to definitions. I welcome the obligation on the board of governors to ensure that a record is kept of all incidents or alleged incidents of bullying, the motivation behind bullying incidents and information on how incidents are addressed. However, that needs to go further. I recommend that greater consideration is given to the mandatory reporting of all incidents of bullying by schools. That will ensure consistent criteria and processes for recording across all schools, which will enable the sharing of good practices and learning across the piece, bearing in mind that we are not for one minute advocating publishing league tables or anything like that. We expect incidents of bullying to go up as children and parents feel more confident about reporting it. That should be a good thing in the first instance.

I also wish to see the extension of the duty outlined in clause 3 to include an obligation on all school staff to report any incidents of bullying they witness to ensure that the incidents are dealt with promptly and without responsibility being placed on the child. We should not leave it to the alleged victim to report that they were bullied. If somebody in the school sees bullying occurring, they have an obligation to report it. That is really important.

Before I finish, I want go back to the definition of pupil-on-pupil bullying. Children and young people have told us consistently that, in a minority of incidents, teachers and adults in school are involved in bullying by being either complicit in it or through omission. The definition should include teachers, adults-on-children and children-on-adults; only having pupil-on-pupil is not broad enough. That is not to say that this legislation should supersede other things: there is professional conduct, and there are disciplinary measures. As colleagues from the two commissions said, there are other laws and practices that we have to take into account. Children and young people, particularly those from communities such as LGBT, are very clear: they say that teachers and adults in schools have often been complicit in the bullying. It is not fair to just blame the child and not take in the whole approach. It then speaks to how we resolve the issue, but we advocate including an adult-pupil bullying definition.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): That was very useful and interesting. I suspect that there will be different opinions. I think that Trevor raised with the Equality Commission and the Human Rights Commission the definition of the teacher-child situation. The counterargument is that there are mechanisms in place. Indeed, the mechanisms, particularly those in terms of implication, are more serious because, without minimising any of these things, a teacher-child abuse of power or harassment — however you want to put it — is, arguably, on a more serious level than many child-to-child situations. Is that not something that is already covered? There is a separate mechanism. There was a somewhat negative reaction from the Equality Commission and the Human Rights Commission; they said, essentially, that this is not the place to cover that. I appreciate that you have probably answered this to a large extent anyway, but is there anything else that you want to add to that in terms of the position as you see it from the Human Rights Commission and the Equality Commission?

Ms Mairéad McCafferty (Northern Ireland Commissioner for Children and Young People): In terms of the legislation, you are talking about adults who are complicit. Some of that, obviously, will refer to acts of omission. We are well aware of instances where bullying has taken place and teachers maybe have not acted when they should have to address the bullying. The fact that the legislation includes acts of omission is important.

I appreciate that there are other policies in place in terms of teacher-pupil bullying. Ultimately, the aim of the legislation is to look at how we address bullying in schools effectively so that we reduce and, hopefully, at some point, eliminate or eradicate it. We need to look at the whole-school approach. That involves all pupils, teachers and adults working in that environment. It is important that we develop in our schools a culture that bullying is unacceptable. That is not just the overt bullying that we witness; it is also about bullying that happens when young people are not protected and do not feel safe. Very often, that can happen when teachers or adults working in the school tend sometimes to think, "Oh, I'll not address that".

We also have to recognise that we have to help to support our teachers. As the commissioner pointed out, some teachers want to do something but are not sure what exactly they should do. There has to be a whole-school approach to how we deal with this, and it is not just about continuing professional development but early professional development in our teacher training colleges and raising awareness of how they can deal with the issue and give proper and appropriate guidance.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): I was interested in your remarks on clause 2. I am paraphrasing some of the evidence that we got from the National Association of Head Teachers, but, broadly speaking, there is an acceptance that, yes, it is important that there is a clear role for and, indeed, an onus on, governors. However, there is a constraint on that to the extent, as you say, rightly, that governors are there on a voluntary and part-time basis. The concern about clause 2 raised by the National Association of Head Teachers, which gave evidence jointly, I think, with representatives of special schools, was that the balance of responsibility shifted overwhelmingly towards the governor side and that there was not sufficient responsibility for tackling the issue on principals and schools, perhaps. Will you comment on that?

Ms Yiasouma: It speaks to the role of governors. Are they ensuring that there is an accountability mechanism? Are they ensuring that the school properly implements its policies? We need to be clear which ones are being responsible. Many of us round the table have been members of boards of governors and know how taxing it is. Children, young people and their families consistently say that bullying is one of the most serious concerns in schools. It behoves boards of governors to look at this properly. That does not mean that they go into the classroom and do the work themselves, but it is their job to make sure that the senior leadership team, particularly the principal, are discharging their duties and responsibilities properly. It is right that we put a statutory obligation on our boards of governors to do that. I do not think that it dilutes the authority or responsibilities of the senior leadership team and the principal, but I do think that they need to be able to account for how the school discharges its duties, as any organisation does to its governing body.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): I want to raise a final point, and I am interested in your views. Again, it is on an area that you have touched on. You mentioned the safeguarding aspects that are coming forward and the need to deal with cyberbullying particularly. There is a critical thing that goes beyond this. Within the specifics of the Bill, where do you see a restriction of this on the scope of the school? It is about trying to balance things and ensuring that bullying is fully covered. As indicated, a lot of the incidents will happen outside school premises. So, you have a situation where you want to ensure that things are covered fully, without placing an unreasonable onus on the school. Should a line be drawn on where cyberbullying, for instance, impacts on a school? Does it need to be drawn wider than where it is at present? Does it need to be more open-ended? What are your views?

Ms McCafferty: You have named it: it is very much about the impact of bullying. That very often is carried into the school environment. If it is something that happened the evening or night before, it will still be felt by the young person in the classroom, so it is something that the school should address.

Ms Yiasouma: As Mairéad said, you cannot divorce the issues. The relationship between the children was formed at school, and it goes into family life and into the home; it is very complicated. It would be unreasonable to place a duty on schools to address bullying outside their remit, as defined in the legislation. However, we may want to see a line that reminds them of their responsibility with regard to safeguarding. Regardless of where a child protection issue occurred, the school has a duty to report it under the joint protocol procedures, the minute the school becomes aware of it. We were asking for an amendment, and we were struggling to find whether we would suggest an amendment to be put in the Bill or whether to suggest that the guidance attached to the Bill should be very clear.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): Off the top of my head, one possible avenue for a potential amendment is in clause 2(1)(b), which lists where bullying incidents are to be circumscribed. It is in school, travelling to and from the school, and where pupils are in the lawful control of the school. A way around it might be for it to include something about where it has effect while under control of the school.

Ms Yiasouma: That may well be.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): I think that you said that this is one of those things where there is no perfect answer. If there were, we would have all gone for it.

Ms Yiasouma: We cannot overestimate the impact that online bullying has on our children.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): Robin is next.

Mr Newton: No, Chair, I am content. My question was about the teacher-pupil or the adult-pupil relationship.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): It is always good to have a content member of the Committee. There are maybe less content members coming up.

Ms Yiasouma: I would be surprised.

Mr Rogers: Mairéad talked about support for teachers. Two pupils may pass a cyberbullying text during the school day and then have it out with physical violence at the youth club that night. Every school is different. I listened to teachers from special schools last week saying that an incident in a school with children with special educational needs would be terribly different from one in another school. My concern is that the Bill is quite short but has major implications. Are you concerned about the lack of guidance for school leadership and teachers and for boards of governors, which have an increasing role? We do not know more. I speak as a member of a board of governors.

Ms Yiasouma: There seems to be a trend for short Bills with huge consequences: the Shared Education Bill was very short but said a lot. Harking back to the Special Educational Needs and Disability Bill, the devil is in the detail, and the guidance goes with this, including how you address these issues. Obviously, if a child is distressed, there are certain processes, but, where it is in the gift of the school to problem-solve and resolve the issues internally, we need to be sure that schools have the right tools and processes in place.

There have been lots of very effective problem-solving, mediation and restorative practices in schools; there is peer mediation and children supporting other children with what are called relatively low-level incidents. I do not think that we are asking them to do much more than they are already doing because most schools have some mechanisms. We are optimistic that the Bill will place a duty on the Department of Education and on our Education Authority to ensure that proper supports are in place to help schools to do their job. They are already doing most of those things. Some struggle, and there is patchy and inconsistent practice. We hope that it will become more uniform and that there will be clearer guidance, advice and support on how to address this issue.

Mr Rogers: My concern is that support for teachers is inadequate.

Ms McCafferty: It is, absolutely. I think that we recognise that a level of support and guidance is missing. I think that that is why 70% of teachers have already said that they would feel ill equipped to deal with it effectively. That is why the guidance is so important, and you are right to say that the Bill is quite brief, as Koulla also said. The guidance will be very important, not just for teachers and school leaders but for governors and young people, parents and families. This is about reassuring our parents and our children and young people that schools are dealing with this effectively and addressing it effectively. It is also about helping to support teachers. As a former teacher, I am the first to say that teachers need more support with guidance and training as well as all the other stakeholders involved, including governors.

Mr Lunn: Thanks, Koulla and Mairéad, for your presentation. I go back to your view that teachers and pupils should be included in this and vice versa. Would that include all staff in schools, such as ancillary staff and classroom assistants?

Ms Yiasouma: Yes.

Mr Lunn: You spoke about the duty on boards of governors. I declare an interest as a member of a board of governors, but what I am going to say does not apply to our school.

Ms Yiasouma: Of course not.

Mr Lunn: I suppose that it depends on the size of the school and perhaps the quality of the governors. I have the impression that, a lot of the time, it is not the board of governors that is telling the principal what to do and that it is pretty much the other way round, necessarily so because the principal has more expertise and more experience. Under clause 2, "Duty of Board of Governors to secure measures to prevent bullying", would there be any value in including "and principals" after "Board of Governors"?

Ms McCafferty: There is already a responsibility on principals and teachers to act in the interests of children. Would that strengthen it? Possibly. I take your point. Boards of governors, as Koulla said, are comprised of volunteers who give of their time, knowledge and expertise, and that is why it is so important that we provide guidance and support for them. You are right: when boards of governors meet, they meet the principals and the senior leadership teams who know the daily business of the school. This is about boards of governors taking their responsibilities seriously in how they monitor the recording of incidents of bullying but, more importantly, how it is being addressed, how practice in the school is changing as a result and ensuring that the culture of the whole school is such that bullying is unacceptable and is being addressed effectively.

We discussed earlier that some schools — it went back to the point that the Chair made in the previous session — may feel reluctant to record or identify certain behaviour as bullying. As a former teacher, a former governor and as a parent, I think that it is vital that we have confidence that schools are not afraid to be open and transparent, because a school that records incidents is a school that is, hopefully, addressing it effectively. As times goes on, you want to see a situation where we acknowledge that incidents of bullying should probably rise as people create more confidence, but, in time, they should wane.

Mr Lunn: I will go back briefly to the question of teachers bullying. Particularly at secondary level, a teacher may, with the best of intentions, be trying to get the best out of a pupil. That may involve putting pressure on the pupil, perhaps even singling them out, but certainly not intending it to be an act of bullying. Is there any danger that the two situations could become confused and perhaps produce what you might describe as a vexatious allegation?

Ms Yiasouma: There is a danger that that may happen in any circumstance. A child could say that another child is bullying them when they have actually had a falling out. I think that vexatious complaints are few and far between, but, when you are talking about somebody's career and livelihood, you have to take that very seriously. It will then fall to how the school handles it and how open it is about it. That could happen in any circumstance, not just with bullying. The reason for having adult involvement in the bullying legislation is that it is dealt with without using some of the more process-driven disciplinary measures. It could be dealt with in another way to establish the facts first. It may actually have the opposite effect. If there is a challenging relationship between a child and their teacher, that may manifest itself in different ways. I do not think that this will add to that risk. It may give comfort to children that they have a mechanism by which to seek resolution.

Mr Hazzard: Thanks again for the information. Last week, we looked at the need to maybe have something in here about support for the child who has been bullied and for the child who has been caught up in the bullying. Do you think that we should look at that? Is it doable in this legislation?

Ms McCafferty: In schools, we have the post-primary counselling provision, and I know that the Department hopes and intends to roll that out in the primary-school sector. That is one aspect of supporting a child who has been bullied. What we are looking at here is a systemic approach to bullying per se in the school. That will involve the young person or the pupil who is perceived as the bully. Often, schools can address bullying behaviour effectively if they do it openly and constructively. Koulla has already mentioned the strategies that some schools adopt. It is about being open about it and making sure that we support the bully. Very often, if a child bullies it is because they are being bullied elsewhere in their life. It is about identifying that and providing support, Chris; you are absolutely right.

Ms Yiasouma: You may wish to amend clause 2(1)(a), where it says that a board of governors has a duty to secure measures "to prevent" bullying, to add "and resolve". You may want to add to that, because that should be included in the measures. The measures and the guidance attached to the Bill should say the following: how do we identify, record and prevent bullying and how do we ensure that the adults and the young people involved receive the proper supports to make sure that it does not happen again? We need to ensure that any lasting effects are mitigated, perhaps through counselling, so that they can move on. We may want to look at using the phrase "prevent and resolve" to make sure that the measures are end-to-end.

I stopped, but I wanted to talk about recording and motivation.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): I am sorry.

Ms Yiasouma: No; it is just because you talked a lot about the list in clause 3(3) and how we would do that. We think that there is a real challenge around a list, because it can never be exhaustive. The discussion that you had was that it should be a guide that should be research- and evidence-based as well as guided by section 75. I am not averse to the suggestion that the Equality Commission made about children's gender identity. Gender assignment is not likely to affect many children because they have rarely been through the process at school. Sometimes they have, but it is about how they identify themselves. Young carers should be specifically mentioned as a category because people with caring responsibilities are mentioned in section 75 but also because the evidence and the research tell us that young carers, for a range of reasons, experience bullying, labelling and all sorts of things. Not everyone knows about it, but we would argue strongly that children with caring responsibilities, not just young mothers, should be added in a separate section.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): We want to make sure that whatever is there is got right. There are arguments about whether even the 10 grounds are necessary or the wording is precisely right. People will argue about the different grounds and ask how comprehensive it is. I wonder whether clause 3(3) may need to be amended to enable the Department to make regulations. I am thinking about adaptability. Whatever list we come out with, even if there is some form of catch-all category, I am conscious that we will have in primary legislation a list to which, in six months' or a year's time, somebody else will want something included that was not included at the time. Perhaps we should have something to allow for additions to the list. I am conscious of the fact that when you put through primary legislation — I know that the Equality Commission talked about a review in five years' time — and you make a mistake by way of omission, it is not as easy to add something to it. On the other hand, if you had a clear mechanism to put it in legislation, there may be an argument for that as well.

Ms Yiasouma: That is right, and I would endorse what colleagues said about socio-economic status, which is not mentioned in section 75 but is clearly an issue. We say that it should be evidence-based and that the regulations and guidance attached to the Bill need to be broad enough. Our submission is based on what groups of young people say. This speaks to the measures that schools can take generally around different groups of young people who are, particularly, LGBT, marginalised, newcomers or from black and ethnic minority (BME) communities. We are not plucking these out of thin air.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): I understand that.

Ms Yiasouma: We need sufficient scope to allow for that. Many children are bullied as a result of a falling-out. They have just fallen out, and then one is isolated from the friendship group and the others start bullying them. It is unlikely that such a child will fit into any category, and that is a huge challenge. We have to capture that information.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): I suspect that this was being drafted a year ago and one issue raised was that of refugees. That may not have occurred to people or it may not have been seen as a priority a year ago because Northern Ireland did not have much of a history of taking refugees, but it may move to be a bigger priority. It is about having a level of adaptability.

Ms Yiasouma: Absolutely. The world is changing all the time, and legislation is a snapshot of a moment in time.

Mrs Overend: The Bill addresses bullying in grant-aided schools. Have you had interaction with schools that are not grant-aided?

Ms Yiasouma: It should be any education establishment, independent school and education other than at school; it should be across the piece.

Ms McCafferty: Independent schools were included in the work that we did on shared education. There are 14 school types, so we wanted to make sure that the sample that we were working with was robust. That work was about the experience of shared education, but, again, bullying was cited as an issue for the children and young people. It is a current issue that is prominent in young people's minds. So, just to reassure you, Sandra, yes.

Ms Yiasouma: To be wherever a child is.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): I am just wondering out loud. It seems to be a very logical thing to say, "There's no great reason why 14 schools should be excluded". Maybe the Department needs to make a legal or technical adjustment". It seems a bit odd that they were not included, other than simply the way it was drafted. I cannot think why there would be a legal difficulty with that.

Ms Yiasouma: We just have to find a way to overcome it because it includes children educated in small projects other than at school, who are particularly vulnerable. There is a range of sectors.

The Chairperson (Mr Weir): That is something we will want to explore with the departmental officials, adding to a long list of things. Koulla and Mairéad, thank you very much. That was extremely helpful for our deliberations.