Blog – Latest stories tagged 'cyberbullying'

As I write articles for E-safety Support, I occasionally think that I’ve come across everything now, that nothing can really shock me or sadden me, but then I will read an article in the press or somewhere online and realise that this is not the case and that as long as there is the internet, there will almost always be something out there that is truly more bizarre, more sad or more sickening than what I read previously.

This is what I felt when I read about how some young people are actually going online and posting hurtful or abusive messages to themselves in the newest example of psychological self-harm. I have read countless articles about the increase in internet ‘trolling’ to the point that you can believe that at any one time, somewhere on the web, someone is receiving threats or being cyber-bullied in some way, most probably, by someone they have never met, but now it would appear that some people are actually doing this to themselves.

A study carried out by the Massachusetts Aggression Reduction Centre (MARC) discovered that out of 617 young people that were interviewed, 9% had actually cyber-bullied themselves online.

There are various ways that teens ‘troll’ themselves. One method is to set up numerous profiles and send multiple abusive messages to themselves, things like “You are fat”, “Nobody likes you”, God, you’re ugly”, etc.

But why would they do that?

Psychologists who have studied this area say that young people with low self-esteem do this so that the comments posted by the “other people” (even when it is themselves sending the abuse from pseudo-profiles) offers confirmation of their own poor opinion of themselves.

Another way of inflicting self-harm is to use the different forums or social media sites to post open questions about themselves inviting strangers to answer questions such as “Am I attractive”, ”Am I slim” or “Is my hair nice”, etc. Any negative responses that come back reinforce those feelings of lack of self-worth.

Rachel Welch, who is the director of a self-harming charity, says that although cyber self-harming does not leave physical wounds, it should still ring emotional warning bells.

“Self-harm like cutting yourself, is a physical response to emotional pain, it distracts the person from that pain. Cyber self-harm is replacing emotional pain with another form of emotional pain. This negative emotional reinforcement is extremely worrying. Self-harming behaviours can change rapidly and escalate.”

It is often a desperate feeling of shame that causes someone to cyber self-harm and they typically find it hard to reach out and ask for help. What can help is for a young person who is, or thinking of, cyber self-harming, to talk to someone who doesn’t know them personally such as a qualified counsellor or ‘nominated adult’ at school. They will help them understand the reasons why they are doing such things to themselves without judging them and help them to nurture better feelings and emotions about themselves.

For further information about self harm, visit stepup-international.co.uk where there is support for professionals and parents to help deal with this issue.

GNRN? PAW? Mean anything to you? These are acronyms or text language being used to facilitate the teen pastime of 'sexting'; it is currently estimated that at least 39% of teens are doing it. But it's not just all about the language; the sending of sexually suggestive pictures via phones, as we all know, is also a big problem in schools where photos become viral at the touch of a button. Before the sender knows it, the whole school can see them and teachers are left trying to ascertain who’s to blame and whether to involve outside agencies.

As educators, we are obliged to make intricacies of the law such as the possession and usage of images clear for our students. During my time teaching on workshops about this subject I frequently hold a class questionnaire on common scenarios; my observations are that on nearly all counts adolescents do not have a good handle on the law in this area. Knowing the law helps students make informed decisions and can make the difference in their behaviour; you can see ‘lightbulb’ moments when things are clarified and the realisation that something that can start of as ‘a bit of fun’ can actually be a prosecutable offence. A good example of this is when a male Year 10 student took some pictures for fun of another boy whilst getting changed for P.E, he then sent it to the rest of the class, he was completely aghast to know that his actions could be seen as distribution of indecent images of a person under 18.

Cyber bullying is still prevalent, being the medium of choice for many bullies who enjoy the power of being able to subject victims to nasty texts 24/7. I imagine for the victim it feels like a mixture of stalking and bullying, unable to escape the contact and not knowing in some cases who is doing it. It can be a challenge to reach the conscience of young people at times; they are still honing empathy skills and perhaps lack the maturity to see the consequences of their actions. This is where pre-planned lessons can really help; with these plans you can use real life stories as examples of the cause and effect of certain actions. Students can then relate to this, helping them see the ramifications of their behaviour.

Furthermore, sharp increases are being reported by CEOP in paedophiles’ targeting youngsters online to ‘groom’ them as a way of getting them to pass photos and take part in sexual talk through social networking sites. Sex offenders may be finding it easier to gain gratification this way, perhaps with less risk of being caught? Yet another sign of the times is that schools are having to shoulder the responsibility of warning students against such risks.

Complex issues require a head on approach; the E-safety Support assemblies and lesson plans provide an excellent opportunity to get the message across quickly and effectively to a large number of students. Many benefits are also seen in delivering to specific classes and year groups or targeted students identified as being vulnerable, acting as an early intervention strategy. The PowerPoints provided here really make this easy and problem free; the prescriptive nature of the assembly plan means that perhaps less experienced colleagues can gain confidence and feel comfortable giving information on this subject. It also makes the law surrounding this complex subject much clearer, which can only serve to act as a deterrent or at best a second thought before pressing send.

NB: text acronyms from above; GNRN = get naked right now and PAW = parents are watching

If you have any thoughts on this topic, we would love to hear from you. Please contact us using the form below.

This is the third in our series analysing the requirements of the Ofsted’s e-safety framework that was first issued to their inspection staff in September 2012.

In previous articles, we looked at three sections of the framework policy document: 'Whole school consistent approach', ‘Robust and Integrated Reporting Routines’ and ‘Staff’. In this blog we are going to focus on two more areas, those being 'Policies’ and ‘Education’.

Policies

In the section of the Ofsted e-safety framework entitled ‘Policies’, it describes the types and content of e-safety policies that a school should have in place. In order to demonstrate good or outstanding practice, these school policies must meet a number of criteria:

The e-safety policies and procedures that are in place should be rigorous and clearly written in plain, understandable English. (A template that schools can use to formulate their own specific e-safety policy is available from the E-safety Support. website.)

It should be evident that contributions from students/staff and parents have been made to the content and construction of these policies by the whole school.

- A good idea is to engage students in classroom activities focusing on what they believe would be important in policies regarding subjects that directly impact them such as e-safety, school filtering and ‘Acceptable Use Policies’. (These lessons should be recorded in some way so that the evidence can be shown to Ofsted during an inspection).
- Parents and carers should be invited to attend meetings and asked for their input into designing school policies (These events should also be recorded for evidencing).

Policies should be specific with regard to individual responsibilities and behaviour, technology usage etc. They should not be just generic documents.

- A useful suggestion is to categorise a checklist of the policies your school should have into “data protection’, ‘e-safety’ and ‘acceptable use policies’. Then, subdivide the policies in each of these categories into ‘statutory’, ‘essential’ and ‘recommended’.
- Examples of policies and their categories are as follows:
Data Protection policy (Data Protection, Statutory)
Freedom of Information policy (Data Protection, Statutory)
Data Exchange Agreement (Data Protection, Essential)
Data Privacy policy (Data Protection, Essential)
E-Safety policy (E-safety, Essential)
Use of students in images policy (E-safety, Essential)
Policy on the searching of electronic devices and deletion of content (E-safety, Recommended)
Password Security policy (E-safety, Recommended)
School Filtering policy (E-safety, Recommended)
Acceptable Use Policies for students, staff/volunteers, parents, technicians (AUPs, Essential)
Acceptable Use Policies for occasional visitors, personal devices and ‘Bring Your Own Device, (BYOD)’ (AUPs, Recommended)
Acceptable use of ‘Twitter’ (AUPs, Recommended)
- It is suggested that when the policies are revisited, updated and ratified, it should be carried out in a formal manner and the process recorded in some manner in order that the record can be shown to a visiting Ofsted inspector.

The e-safety policies should have full integration with other relevant school policies such as those concerning safe-guarding, anti-bullying or behaviour.

A particular important aspect in this area is the incorporation into the overall e-safety policy of an ‘Acceptable Usage Policy’ that every pupil and/or parents respect and have signed. This also applies to all school staff as well.

- In the case of students, they should be asked to sign the school AUP at the start of their time with the school. It would be helpful if parents countersign the document also.
- In the case of staff, this should be done as part of the school’s induction procedure for new staff. (There are a number of ‘Acceptable Usage Policy’ documents available to E-safety Support members - further information can be found here.)

Education

In this section of the framework, Ofsted focuses on a schools curriculum and, with regard to good or outstanding practice, is looking for certain aspects to be demonstrated:

The schools curriculum should demonstrate progressiveness and flexibility with regard to the promotion of e-safety across the whole school.

- Evidence of this could include a programme of key-stage specific e-safety lessons and assemblies that occur regularly throughout the school year. The E-safety Support website offers a number of informative lesson plans and assembly plans, for this purpose.

The curriculum is relevant and engages students by teaching them the importance of e-safety and how to stay safe when using technology.

- Lesson resources focusing on e-safety should be age-related and revisited regularly and up-dated if necessary as technology advances or new technology-orientated issues arise.
- Another suggestion is to engage students (maybe those involved in school councils etc.) in drawing up a school e-safety charter.

The curriculum should have content embedded that teaches students how to protect themselves from harm with regard to issues such as cyber bullying or contact with individuals who are behaving inappropriately.

- A suggestion is to use ‘what if’ case studies in lessons to teach students what the appropriate actions to take should they find themselves in circumstances that they are uncomfortable with.

Content within the curriculum should inform students of the importance of taking responsibility for the safety of both themselves and others.

- This issue can be incorporated in lessons and associated resources focusing on the development of knowledge and skills associated digital literacy and responsible use of the internet.

With regard to e-safety, the curriculum should demonstrate the use of positive sanctions to reward responsible use of technology and online behaviour.

- A suggestion is to reward good online behaviour with an invitation to be involved in online communities who promote appropriate online behaviour such as the ‘Scratch’ community. (This would require a parent or carer’s formal permission).

The curriculum should demonstrate clear evidence of peer-mentoring programmes.

We hope that you find these suggestions helpful. Please feel free to comment on the blog or if you have some other great ideas for embracing or engaging with the Ofsted e-safety framework within school please feel free to contribute below.