United Against Bullying
Mon 31 Oct 2022
Outwood Academy Shafton 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 find out the levels of bullying in our school and to find out how our pupils feel about school. For this reason, we are inviting all pupils at our school to complete an anonymous survey in Term 1. We will then ask pupils to complete the questionnaire again in Term 3 to see if the changes made have had an impact.
The following information is important since it will explain about the survey and how the information gathered will be used.
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 find out the levels of bullying in our school and to find out how our pupils feel about school. For this reason, we are inviting all pupils at our school to complete an anonymous survey in Term 1. We will then ask pupils to complete the questionnaire again in Term 3 to see if the changes made have had an impact.
The following information is important since it will explain about the survey and how the information gathered will be used.
Why we are writing to parents/carers
We are asking for your permission for your child to be invited to complete the pupil questionnaire. If you are happy for your child to be invited to complete the questionnaire then please let us know by Monday 14th November by filling in the Google Form https://forms.gle/NxjjioAfLkgHRRXB7 .
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 has been tried and tested with pupils with and without Special Educational Needs aged 8 and above. 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, school 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?
Mrs Riley 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 a school when trying to prevent and tackle bullying. For example, it will help us to make sure that the school’s anti-bullying policy covers all the important areas that concern children in our school. By asking these questions, pupils will also know we take incidents of bullying seriously as a school 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.
For further details of how data about your child will be collected, stored and analysed, please see the Data Protection Privacy Notice (Appendix 1).
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 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. Please let us know by completing and returning the google form consent https://forms.gle/NxjjioAfLkgHRRXB7 by 14th November 2022.
If you decide you would like your child to take part you are still free to withdraw your child from the programme at any time and without giving a reason; simply let the school know that you do not wish them to participate. Even if you decide this after they have already taken part, we are able to delete their survey responses from the system.
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 Mrs Riley
Yours sincerely,
Mrs Riley
Associate Assistant Principal
APPENDIX 1
Data Protection Privacy Notice
(Information about the processing of pupil data)
The United Against Bullying programme involves the collection and analysis of data about participating pupils, including a 15 minute online pupil questionnaire. The Anti-Bullying Alliance (ABA) is part of the National Children’s Bureau (NCB) - which is a registered charity, No. 258825, registered in England and Wales No. 952717, whose registered office is 23 Mentmore Terrace, Hackney, London E8 3PN, a Company Limited by Guarantee - has produced this privacy notice to provide parents of pupils with information about the data collected, processed and stored, for this specific purpose, and their rights in relation to it.
ABA/NCB is the organisation with responsibility for this data (the data controller) and all data will be processed in accordance with the Under 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”): and for that purpose NCB is the data controller, registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) registration number: Z7988835. Please visit NCB’s full Data Protection Statement at: www.ncb.org.uk/privacy-statement
The data is processed by Schnell Solutions Limited (the data processor) - a company registered in England and Wales under registration number 05879171 whose registered office address is 164 Bedford Road, Kempston, Bedford, United Kingdom, MK42 8B. Schnell Solutions Limited are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), registration number ZA295565. Their privacy policy can be accessed at: www.bespokesoftwaredevelopment.com/privacy-policy
What are the purposes for processing the data?
To help schools to understand levels of bullying and wellbeing among their pupils, by providing anonymised reports of survey findings.
- To help ABA understand levels of bullying and wellbeing at a national level.
How is the pupil questionnaire data stored, processed and handled?
The process to collect, store and handle pupil questionnaire data has been designed with data privacy at its core. All hardware and software components involved in the process work together to ensure data privacy and security. All data collected is solely used for the defined purpose.
The process to collect, store and handle pupil questionnaire data has been designed with data privacy at its core. All hardware and software components involved in the process work together to ensure data privacy and security. All data collected is solely used for the defined purpose.
What data are being processed?
The system uses two types of data about your child, which are connected together within the secure system to create a general picture about bullying and wellbeing:
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Child-reported surveys: This is to understand children and young people’s experiences of bullying behaviours, their wellbeing and how they feel about their school. The questions are outlined in Appendix 2.
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Information that schools already have about pupils: names, pupil ID number, year group, class name, gender, free school meal eligibility, special educational needs status, Looked after Children status, English as an Additional Language, faith and ethnicity. [Data on pupil ethnicity and faith may be added optionally] This is to understand if bullying or wellbeing is different for different groups of pupils. Once inputted to the secure system, this information is encrypted and is not accessible to ABA/NCB.
To connect together the two types of data, an anonymised ID number is given to each pupil before they undertake the survey. The resulting survey results comprise an anonymised data set that does not include any pupil names.
All data analysis for the purposes stated above will be carried out using the anonymised data set.
How long will the data be processed?
- At the end of the programme, all data is permanently deleted by Schnell Solutions Limited and delivered to ABA/NCB in an anonymous format for statistical analysis.
- All information related to this survey is securely deleted from ABA/NCB’s system after 5 years or when a school requests for it to be deleted.
- The anonymised data set will be kept for 5 years, after which it will be reviewed to determine whether it would be appropriate to delete it. Any analysis of the results will be kept indefinitely.
What allows the data to be processed lawfully?
We are able to process the data on the basis of consent. Consent is being sought from you as parents and carers for your child to participate in the United Against Bullying programme. Pupil’s consent is also sought before they undertake the survey.
Who will have access to the data?
[A named person within school] with log-in details for the school’s account on the system is responsible for uploading pupil data. Thereafter it is encrypted.
ABA/NCB and the school have access to the anonymised data set for purposes of analysis.
What rights do I as parent/carer and my child have?
Under the UK GDPR, you and your child have certain rights that can be exercised at any time, including withdrawal of consent to participate in the United Against Bullying programme. Should you or your child make any such request this will be undertaken by the school and ABA/NCB accordingly.
Who can I contact for further information?
With regard to the right of access, if pupils or parents would like to learn more about the categories of data about them, or their child being processed, please contact the Anti-Bullying Alliance at aba@ncb.org.uk.
APPENDIX 2: Questions pupils will be asked in the survey
The questions are presented in a child friendly, accessible format online as text and with audio.
Below is a list of the questions which pupils will be asked. The questions have been developed with the Anna Freud Centre and reviewed by Goldsmiths University. The questions have been piloted with children and young people.
Response options are ‘Never; A little; A lot; Always’.
PART ONE: SCHOOL
- I like going to school
- I feel safe at school
- I get on well with my teachers
- I feel like I belong at school
PART TWO: PUPIL RELATIONSHIPS
- I am hit, pushed or kicked by other pupils
- I am called mean names by other pupils
- Other pupils stop me from joining in with them
- Other pupils say bad things about me when I’m not there
- Other pupils are mean or rude to me online
- I hit, push or kick other pupils
- I call other pupils mean names
- I stop other pupils joining in with me
- I say bad things about other pupils when they aren’t there
- I am mean or rude to other pupils online
PART THREE: WELLBEING
- I am calm
- I sleep well
- I feel lonely
- I worry a lot
- I wake up in the night
- I hit out when I am angry
- I break things on purpose
- I am kind
- I feel liked at school
- I am happy
For further information on the development of this questionnaire, visit: www.anti-bullyingalliance.org.uk/tools-information/all-about-bullying/prevalence-and-impact-bullying/developing-bullying-surveys-or
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