Anti-bullying policies at school

Our school has just created a new anti bullying policy that they plan to implement in 2012. It's a great policy, but I have to wonder if this is policy-making just for the sake of it.

It's anti-bullying week and not a word has been said to the kids at school about it. Instead of having a whole school discussion or forum on bullying they had a whole school incursion on pets. :waitasec:
'Nuf said.

My DD is currently being bullied by way of exclusion by a group of 'mean girls'.
The ring leader of the group is always telling on my DD for the most ridiculous and often fictional reasons.

Because DD has an anxiety disorder, she gets so upset and flustered that she can't verbalise her side of things with the teachers. She feels too intimidated, and feels like they won't believe her over the ringleader anyway.
DD keeps getting the dreaded 'yellow slips' each time this girl tells tall tales about DD to the teachers on duty.
But this girl rarely gets yellow-slipped because nobody feels brave enough to tell on her for the things she does.
The teachers have now told DD she is not allowed to play with this girl, implying that DD is the trouble maker- and further excluding her. (Yet they have not discussed the issue with me at all).

DD has stayed home from school today, so she can have some much needed TLC and a break from the hopeless situation at school.

All of the stress lowers her immune system, so she's physically sick too.

I know most schools have a anti-bullying policy, yet they don't seem to be enforced unless it's on the extreme end of the spectrum....mostly violence.

Policies are great, but action is the solution.

Bullying is behaviour not tolerated by NSW Public Schools.

Bullying can happen anywhere: at school, in sporting teams, between neighbours. Bullying can take on various forms including giving nasty looks, making rude gestures, calling names, being rude and impolite, spreading stories and rumours and teasing.

This behaviour may include:

~ keeping someone out of a group
~ acting in an unpleasant way near someone
~ 'mucking about' that goes too far
~ harassment or any form of discrimination based on disability, gender, race or religion.

Click to expand...

More @ link:
http://www.schools.nsw.edu.au/studentsupport/studentwellbeing/anti-bullyingpolicy.php

My 13 yr old niece is being bullied big time.
It's another case of policies being in place but not enforced.

I've seen some of the bullying on her FB page and got screencaps including threats to bash her and her older brother with a baseball bat .
Her FB page is now set to private to avoid more of this.

The school won't do anything about that because it was out of school hours.
Besides, a lot of it does go on during school hours, because they have their phones in class.

The teachers don't give a carp if they use FB on their phones during class, but they have been told theywill be expelled if they record anything that happens at the school. (You will see the reason for this below and it's clearly a CYA move- not to protect students).

It's gotten so bad she's been skipping a LOT of school. She is afraid for her life. The school pays attention to the absences- though her dad's complaints about the serious bullying and threats that go on at the school fall on deaf ears.
What makes this even worse?

This is the same school that got international attention when a bullying victim faught back. And they still do nothing. We even have a thread about it here:

[ame="http://websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?t=130827"]Bullying Victim Fights Back - Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community[/ame]

I have been writing a series of articles for an anti-bullying website and one of the things that i recommended was to tape the bully in the act on the cell phone. That is the only way to get some school officials to see what is going on and to prove what really happened.

I say this as a former teacher who dealt with many incidents of bullies who turn into angels when they see an adult or when they are sent to the office. Record them in the act of being a bully and show it to an adult who will do something. Or get a friend to do the recording. A picture is worth a million words!