Bullying at school: breaking the silence Thursday

The Government of Monaco has set aside Thursday November 3 as “No Bullying Day” and is asking all public and private schools in the Principality to show their support in the fight against this often invisible violence.

The day implemented by the Department of Education, Youth and Sport aims to give students a chance to speak freely on this phenomenon that often brings serious consequences with it. Students will be encouraged to think about bullying and will be taught how to avoid or stop being bullied.

In primary schools, CM2 students will participate in a meeting of awareness and prevention organised in class by their teacher, where they’ll be asked to express the theme artistically, which will allow students to have a more concrete approach towards bulling and the need to know how to cope appropriately, and school psychologists will be on hand in many of the institutions.

At the secondary level, educational activities fully adapted to each grade level will be offered to all students, inviting them to take an active part in art or writing workshops. They will also be encouraged to communicate about this subject in their establishment but outside the classroom with a poster campaign: slide projections, posters, computer screensaver messages , etc. These different activities will help raise awareness among high school students about this phenomenon.

On Thursday, an anonymous questionnaire will be given to 4me and 3me students, to get more detailed knowledge about bullying and to assess its impact. A similar survey in 2015 found that only 8 of the 400 students of 4me class said they had been subject to bullying, a level (2%) significantly lower than the French average.

This government’s plan is divided into three major areas. First, Prevention and Detection through a partnership with the Department of Education and Youth Sports. The association “Action Innocence” is instrumental in organising one-hour sessions with each class from CE2 to 3eme on the subject of bullying prevention and cyber-bullying. At Collège Charles III, a peer mediation process has been set up to defuse emerging conflicts between students.

Second, specific training on bullying is offered to adults dealing with students in schools in order to anticipate and detect possible cases.

And third, protocol on how to treat bullying has been developed and distributed to management and administrative teams. For exceptionally serious cases, the relevant service of Department of National Education, Youth and Sports is directly linked to a police referent of Public Safety and if the situation warrants, a report is made to the Attorney General.