Examination of Witnesses (Quesiton 219)
JIM KNIGHT
MP AND MR
PARMJIT DHANDA
MP
24 JANUARY 2007
Chairman: I am going to ask Stephen to
lead on anti-bullying policy.
Examination of Witnesses (Question 219)
Q219 Stephen Williams: I want to start
off by looking at identity-related bullying or prejudice-driven
bullying. There is at the moment an anomaly between reporting
racist incidents and homophobic incidents of bullying in schools.
There is a specific statutory duty, which I think comes from the
race relations laws rather than education policy, for schools
to report racist incidents, but there is no corresponding duty
on schools to report, record or deal with homophobic incidents.
Do you think that is an anomaly that needs to be corrected?
Jim Knight: We recommend in our
guidance that schools should report all incidents of bullying.
We do not make it a requirement, as you say, except in racist
incidents, principally because of the burden that it places on
schools but also because there are some real difficulties around
definition and getting some consistency. We have some concerns
around that in terms of the reporting of racist bullying: that
some schools might be reluctant to report incidents because they
do not want to get a reputation as a school for having a racist
problem. We are working on guidance in respect of homophobic bullying
at the moment, because it is a very difficult issue. From the
feedback that we have had from schools, it is a very difficult
issue for them to be consistent about and in any behaviour policy
consistency is crucial. Things like the use of the word "gay"
as a derogative term to describe people is in fairly common usage
amongst young people in this country.
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