AQW 28820/22-27
Mr Nick Mathison
Alliance Party
Strangford
Tabled Date: 17/06/2025
Answered On Date: 25/06/2025
Priority Written: No
Question:
To ask the Minister of Education for his assessment of the effectiveness of anti-bullying legislation.
Answer:
The Addressing Bullying in Schools Act (Northern Ireland) 2016 came into effect in September 2021, and it requires schools to record incidents or alleged incidents of bullying type behaviour, their motivation and their outcome. Each school’s Board of Governors (BoG) has responsibility to oversee the implementation of the Act in their school. The Act places a statutory duty on a BoG collectively to take responsibility for the development, implementation, monitoring and periodic review of the school’s Addressing Bullying policies and procedures. The Addressing Bullying in Schools Implementation Team (ABSIT) within the Education Authority (EA) was established in September 2022 and provides support for schools, educational settings, young people and parents to help them understand the requirements of the Act. The Department has worked closely with the EA’s Addressing Bullying in Schools Implementation Team (ABSIT) who provide the Department with termly reports in relation to the referrals they deal with, the training they undertake, and the associated outcomes for both. The latest data in relation to ABSIT’s three tier training provided to schools indicates agreement from 90% plus of those who have undertaken the training that, where appropriate across the three tiers, the training has resulted in the following impacts in relation to bullying type behaviour for those who have completed the training: increased capacity to address bullying type concerns more effectively; better understanding of statutory requirements; more able to implement systems and processes in relation to bullying type behaviour; more awareness of effective approaches in relation to bullying type behaviour; more able to lead school systems and processes; more able to map whole school preventative approaches; and more able to lead the selection and implementation of effective responses. The recently published School Omnibus survey also contains data relating to schools’ understanding of the Act and its outworkings, which indicate a high level of compliance and impact within schools. For instance: 97.7% of schools who responded were aware of the duties the Act places on their school. A similar pattern was found for the awareness of schools Boards of Governors. All school who responded stated that they had implemented the legislative definition of bullying and have an anti-bullying policy with preventative measures updated at intervals of no more than four years. Almost all schools (96.4%) had implemented the statutory duty that Governors must ensure the Anti-Bullying policy is properly implemented and preventative measures kept under review so that it is fit for purpose, and 92.3% had implemented the statutory duty to engage with pupils, parents/carers and the school community when developing and reviewing the anti-bullying policy. Almost all schools (96.8%) had implemented the statutory duty to record incidents of bullying and alleged bullying behaviours including the motivation, method and how each incident was addressed together with the outcomes. Approximately three quarters (73.6%) of schools believed there has been an increase in awareness amongst school staff of bullying type behaviour since the Act came into force in 2021 (15.9% did not believe this was the case and 10.5% did not know). I believe that this emerging data provides a positive indication in relation to the impact effectiveness of the Act, however I recognise that even more can be done to understand the implementation and effectiveness of the Act. Therefore, officials are progressing work on a number of fronts with to secure access to robust data to: ensure the Act is being implemented by schools; to better understand the impact of the Act and the work of ABSIT; to understand the frequency and trends in relation to the methods and motivations of bullying type behaviours in schools; and ultimately to inform future policy and practice for both the Department and ABSIT. For instance, the EA’s digital transformation programme, EdIS, has provided officials with an opportunity to engage with the EA with a view to obtaining comprehensive anonymised regional data via of the digitisation of the Bullying Concern Assessment Form.
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