Tears well in Winmalee High School principal Voula Facas’ eyes as she sits across from the mother of a badly bullied child.
The mother says to Facas: “I am not the sort of person who comes in and yells the place down. I just didn’t want to see my child so depressed.”
Facas listens intently, as she has every time the parent has visited the school to report the bullying their child faces. Together, the pair has worked through the problems, creating a safety plan centred on making sure the child who was causing harm understood the consequences of their actions.
“That’s what restorative practice is about – it’s getting kids to understand their impact,” Facas said.
“You can discipline a child for doing the wrong thing, but if they don’t truly understand the impact, then nothing will change.”
This belief in restorative justice is the approach all NSW schools must soon follow. By the end of the year, schools are required to overhaul their anti-bullying practices to meet a new statewide framework, or face deregistration.
Under the new framework, bullied students must be given personalised safety plans that could include more supervision and their own “safe zone”, such as a library.
Schools must prioritise student wellbeing, explicitly teaching kindness, respect and inclusion, and counsel bullies rather than simply punish them.
Winmalee High School’s adherence to the framework is the reason the mother decided to keep her child in the school.
“If we pulled them out, then we just thought we’d have the same thing happen again because it happens in all schools. They’re all going to get bullied, and then we’d be back to square one, and I’d have no support,” she said.
A study of more than 20 countries found Australian students were among the most exposed to bullying , with nearly one in five saying others had made fun of them, and one in 10 saying they had been deliberately excluded.
The framework is underpinned by research conducted by NSW behavioural expert Professor Donna Cross, who found “zero tolerance” policies involving suspension and expulsion were ineffective and potentially harmful.
The mother, whose child is today much happier at the school, agreed. She said students must consider the cumulative effect of bullying, and be asked to imagine being targeted “15, 20 times” a day.
Schools will also be required to introduce a triage system that categorises bullying incidents into low, medium or high risk based on factors such as physical harm, emotional impact and recurrence. Each triggers a specific response, from counselling to external referrals.
School captain Robbie Pigram said the school’s focus on creating a safe community empowered him to stand up when he saw children acting poorly.
“There’s been a couple of times throughout my time in high school where I just happened to find myself near something that is clearly not right,” Pigram said. “I can’t leave it be. I need to step in and help. I tell them to pull their head in.”
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