7th January 2022
Dear Parent or Carer,
Re: United Against Bullying programme
The St Lawrence Academy is taking part in the United Against Bullying anti bullying programme provided by the Anti Bullying Alliance (ABA). ABA is part of the National Children’s Bureau (NCB) and works to reduce bullying in schools.
In order to make sure that we are doing all we can to prevent and reduce bullying and to improve pupil wellbeing, we want to further investigate the levels of bullying in our academy and to find out more about how our young people feel about school. For this reason, we are inviting pupils at our academy to complete an anonymous survey. We will then ask pupils to complete the questionnaire again at the end of the programme.
The following information is important since it will explain about the survey and how the information gathered will be used.
Why are we writing to parents/carers?
We are asking for your permission for your child to be invited to complete the pupil questionnaire. If you are not happy for your child to be invited to complete the questionnaire then please let Mr Oates know by Wednesday 12th January. You can email me at [email protected]
If you give consent for your child to participate, completing the survey is still up to them. Please be reassured that you or your child choosing not to take part in the survey will not disadvantage you or your child in any way.
Why has my child been asked to take part and what will they do?
The pupil questionnaire has been specially designed by ABA. It is an online survey which should take about 15 minutes to complete. The answers your child gives to the questionnaire will not be seen by their friends, teachers or you, unless your child chooses an adult to help them complete the questionnaire.
Are there downsides to taking part?
There are no known risks or disadvantages to taking part. The survey has been very carefully designed so that it will be easy for children to answer. If there are questions they don’t like, they can leave these out. They will also be able to stop answering the survey questions at any time if they wish. Completing the survey should not cause them any distress. However, if they should become upset, academy staff will be on hand to offer support. Information will also be provided about other sources of advice and help, e.g. talking to their family, calling ChildLine and so on.
What are the possible benefits of taking part?
Mr Oates will receive an anonymised report of the survey findings for the whole year group that will help them review and support pupil wellbeing.
Your child’s responses will help shape the approaches we use as an academy when trying to prevent and tackle bullying. For example, it will help us to make sure that the academy’s anti bullying policy covers all the important areas that concern children in our academy. By asking these questions, pupils will also know we take incidents of bullying seriously as an academy and that we care about our pupils’ wellbeing.
What will happen with the information that your child gives us?
All information collected will be kept confidential and will be encrypted and carefully stored on a secure system held by ABA/NCB in accordance with the UK GDPR (Data Protection Act 2018 – “DPA” and EU Directive 2016/680 and Regulation EU/2016/679 – The General Data Protection Regulation “EU GDPR”):
Neither schools, nor the ABA/NCB will ever have access to pupils’ individual completed questionnaires – only year group or whole year reports which contain anonymous information.
Schools will not have access to individual completed questionnaires and whole year group reports will be sent back to them anonymously.
Some of the headline results may be shared with key people, like the school’s senior leadership team, governors and Ofsted. Again, this information is anonymised and it will not be possible to identify any individual pupils.
What we need parents/carers to do
We hope that you have found this information useful and that you will be happy for your child to be invited to take part in this survey. If not, please let me know by Wednesday 12th January..
If you are unsure about whether you would like your child to take part and you have some questions about the survey, you are welcome to contact me at the academy.
Yours sincerely,
Ryan Oates
Anti-Bullying Coordinator
