Hazel Glen College hosted a range of activities last month as part of National Day of Action Against Bullying and Violence to raise awareness of the issue in schools.
The school recognised the day on August 18 by organising activities with wellbeing leaders that focused on learning about bullying behaviours and connecting with students, with each activity catered to each year level with webinars, lunchtime games and colouring.
Engagement and wellbeing assistant principal Kristy Harvey said the college had ‘zero tolerance’ for bullying behaviour.
“We wanted to raise awareness at the college because it’s something that is constant within schools,” she said.
“We can’t control the actions of all of our students, so we’re doing the best that we can to educate them around what bullying is and how to respond to that.
“It’s about giving them strategies on how to resolve those problems when it occurs and then following up with the necessary steps if it is occurring.”
Ms Harvey said an important part of learnings from the day was understanding what bullying was in order to correctly identify it and implement strategies.
“One of the things we really talk about with kids … is really around those power imbalances and with that being what it is because often kids get confused with what bullying is,” she said.
“It’s getting them to understand that it is repeated behaviour … that’s really targeted. There’s always reasons why someone might do that … we can slap [bullies] with consequences but it doesn’t always solve the problem.”
To complement the activities, the college collaborated with Brainstorm Productions – an educational theatre company that delivers live performances of anti-bullying, cyber safety and student wellbeing programs.
Performing across three days to each of the school’s student age groups, Ms Harvey said the current world of social media and online interaction was inspiration to organise a live production.
“We decided to start the conversation on bullying by hosting a production, where young people can see firsthand what bullying looks like and the damage it has on their wellbeing and mental health,” she said.
“This is the first time Hazel Glen College is introducing the concept of an anti-bullying production as a way of tackling the issue and a first step towards starting the conversation.”
Year five leadership academy member Vinuli said it was good to see the school taking a stand against bullying.
“Our school is very kind to [victims of bullying] because not many schools actually support them,” she said.
“They just leave people to get bullied and don’t do anything about it, so Hazel Glen actually supports anti-bullying.”
