The Bullying and School Safety Thematic Report provides actionable information regarding bullying, exclusion, and harassment in schools. The report includes school-level data about students who have reported being a victim of various forms of bullying.
For example, the chart below shows how the 33.9% of students who reported being victims of bullying are broken down into categories. In this example, 9.5% of students were categorized as victims of severe bullying, 11.9% of students were victims of moderate bullying, and 12.5% were categorized as victims of bullying that was neither moderate nor severe.
Bullying by Type
The elementary version of the report breaks down bullying by type, indicating the percentage of students who have experienced Physical, Verbal, Social or Cyber bullying.
The secondary version of the report emphasizes the frequency of bullying, while also displaying the results by type. It distinguishes between students who have been bullied Almost Every Day, About 2 or 3 times a Week, About Once a Week, and Never or Hardly Ever. These categories are highlighted in red, orange, yellow and green respectively.
Bullying by type (Secondary)
When and Where Bullying Occurs
Information about when and where bullying occurs is provided in the reports. The response options on each version of the survey have been tailored to reflect difference between elementary and secondary schools.
For example
In the school above, we can see that the largest percentage of reported bullying takes place outside of school. Bullying in the same institution also largely takes place during recess and after school.
Student Responses to Bullying
The elementary and secondary reports similarly display a breakdown of student reactions to bullying and the responses of those who witnessed others being bullied.
For example
In the examples above, 31% of students would tell a parent or guardian if they were bullied, while 33% of students indicated that they would tell a parent or guardian if they noticed someone else was being bullied. Also, 33% of students indicated they would stand up to a bully, while 46% of students noted that they would stand up for a victim of bullying.
Measures to Prevent Bullying
Student awareness of anti-bullying initiatives is highlighted in the reports. The phrasing of
these items differs slightly between the elementary and secondary reports.
For example
70% of students in this example noted Staff that victims can talk to as a measure to prevent bullying at their school, indicating that they are most aware of this initiative.
Reasons Students Feel Excluded and Treated Unfairly
The Bullying and School Safety Thematic Report covers students’ perceived reasons for exclusion based on a number of categorical boundaries, including appearance, disability, and language background. The secondary report also contains a breakdown of the reasons students believe they are treated unfairly by school staff and student responses to sexual harassment in school.
For example
A comparable number of students indicated that they felt both excluded (19%) and treated unfairly by staff (18%) due to their grades. Students also reported Appearance and Other reasons as prominent factors related to exclusion and unfair treatment by staff.
For example
37% of students in this school reported that they did not do anything when sexually harassed.
School Safety
Both the elementary and secondary reports reflect student responses for the ‘Feeling Safe at
School’ measure. The results presented in these figures are based on responses to individual
survey items and show the percentage of students who selected agree or strongly agree for
each item.
For example
Only 50% of students feel safe attending the example school above. The Indicators of an unsafe environment figure offers further insight into specific school safety concerns.
The Bullying and School Safety Thematic Report helps schools determine the types of bullying that are occurring, where and when they occur, how students respond, how safe students feel, and other useful information that can help direct school improvement planning to prevent various forms of bullying, exclusion, and sexual harassment.