Bullying

St Mary's is a Bully Free Zone!

At St Mary's, we’ve outlawed bullying as it has no place in our school! We want to create an environment where all of our pupils, staff & visitors feel equally welcome, valued & respected whatever their background, race, religion, gender, sexuality or gender identity.

In order for St Mary's to be a ‘Bully Free Zone’ we work hard to ensure that this is really the case! Bullying is covered as part of the Establishment Phase & in assemblies in order that all children are very clear about what it is, what is isn’t & what to do if it happens. This is then picked up on in classes by teachers as part of PSHE, Circle Time activities & P4C.

We also work hard to ensure that everyone feels part of our school family & do not tolerate any forms of behaviour which can be described as discriminatory, whether that be racist or homophobic. 

Because our underlying ethos is Christian, we often refer back to the teachings of Jesus to “Treat others as you yourself would like to be treated” (Luke 6:31) & try to ensure that children are taught how to respect & relate to each other in the most positive ways possible.

Bullying is when one child, or a group of children, keeps on trying to make another child feel sad, lonely or scared.

Bullying can take many different forms, such as:

  • Physical: e.g. kicking, hitting and damaging belongings.
  • Verbal: e.g. name calling, taunting, threats and making offensive remarks.
  • Indirect: e.g. spreading nasty stories about someone, gossiping and excluding others from social groups like games.
  • Cyber: sending nasty emails, messages using social media, texts or making upsetting phone calls.

Bullying is NOT when children have a one off argument, say something unkind or have a fight due to what they are feeling at any one point in time. Bullying is done on purpose, over and over again, i.e. they MEAN IT & REPEAT IT!

Bullying is intentional (not an accident) where a bully hurts someone on purpose & bullying is repetitive. This means that the bully hurts someone over and over again – it isn’t an incident that happens only once! Bullying is where one person acts like they have more power than another and does whatever they can to hurt that person.

Our ‘Say no to Bullying!’ Poem!
If someone is trying
to make you feel bad
so that most of the time
you are frightened or sad,
just remember to tell!
When someone is hurting you
day after day
and whatever you do
they just won’t go away,
just remember to tell!
Telling is brave
and telling is cool!
Telling is one of
the rules of this school –
so remember to tell!
T-E-L-L, TELL!!!


Please see our policies page for our Anti-Bullying policy. 

We have also created a child friendly anti-bullying policy to suppport our pupils in school- Anti-Bullying Leaflet​