A teacher from Armley has launched a national petition calling for new government regulation over the way schools deal with bullying.
The Safer Schools group is headed by Jason Barnett, who invited 650 ministers and MPs were to meet with the Campaign group in Parliament to listen to concerns over children being lost to suicide, or being seriously harmed as a result of bullying and violence in schools.
Mr Barnett said:
“Unfortunately only two MPs attended the meetings or made themselves available to say whether they agreed or disagreed with the proposed solutions. There wasn’t a Minister or MP who made themselves available to Sky News and ITV, who were filming live as well as reporting on the day.”
Mr Barnett is leading the campaign, which was launched at a public meeting in Leeds Town Hall last year following his own experiences of violence while working in a West Yorkshire school. He added:
“As a result we’ve launched a national petition and now our families want to appeal to the public to support our calls for a change in laws.”
The petition can be signed here.
The campaign group currently includes over 100 families from across the UK with more than 15 of those families having lost children to suicide and all of the families alleging in each case that the loss of their child or the harmed caused was as a consequence of unresolved bullying complaints in schools.
The proposed changes to laws and policies that the group are calling for include:
- Schools must all follow a National Code of Conduct/Practice for dealing with bullying and violence complaints.
- Schools must follow their written bullying policies by law
- Schools must record all incidents of bullying and violence brought to their attention.
- All decisions in relation to bullying and violence complaints must be appealable to at least one other independent body above the school and Governors.
- Details of outcomes of any bullying and violence complaints must be made available to the complainant from schools, local authorities, school inspection bodies and government education departments.