To ask the Minister of Education to detail any mechanisms in place to review how the Addressing Bullying in Schools Act (Northern Ireland) 2016 is being implemented in practice across schools.

My Department has a number of mechanisms in place which inform assessment of how the Addressing Bullying in Schools Act (Northern Ireland) 2016 (The Act) is being implemented in practice and to monitor the statutory guidance issued under the Act.

Since the Act came into operation in 2021, schools are required to record all incidents of bullying, including their motivations and outcomes. It is the responsibility of the Board of Governors (BoGs) for the development, implementation, monitoring and periodic review of their schools addressing bullying policy. These duties form a key mechanism through which the Department can assess implementation across schools in Northern Ireland.

The Department issued statutory guidance in March 2021 to principals and BoGs, which supports the implementation of the Act and sets out how schools should fulfil their legal obligations. Schools are required to keep their addressing bullying polices and preventative measures under regular review, and to maintain transparent and detailed records of all alleged and confirmed bullying incidents, including how these were addressed. These record-keeping duties allow the Department to monitor compliance with the statutory guidance and provides an oversight of how consistently schools apply the correct procedure and requirements.

Recognising that access to comprehensive data is key to informing postlegislative scrutiny of the Act and effective, evidence-based policy-making, over the last two years months the Department has taken forward a number of measures to improve the bullying-related data to which the Department has access.

These measures include the introduction of bullying-related questions in the Northern Ireland School Omnibus Survey, engaging with the Education and Training Inspectorate (ETI) to review how schools are implementing the Act, and receiving regular Outcome Based Accountability reports from the Education Authority’s (EA) Addressing Bullying in Schools Implementation Team (ABSIT). The ETI is also undertaking further visits to primary schools to review how strategies for addressing bullying are being implemented, and the Department is working with the EA with the aim of digitising the Bullying Concern Assessment Form through the Education Information Solutions (EdIS) Programme with a view to facilitating access to comprehensive anonymised regional data on schools’ bullying related data.

The emerging evidence from the available data sources demonstrates high levels of compliance with the Act and strong evidence of resulting positive impacts. The Act has clearly helped to provide greater consistency in how all schools respond to bullying incidents and allegations, helping to build on schools’ duty of care for their pupils, and strengthening the protection pupils can expect if they experience bullying type behaviour in school by ensuring all pupils are protected to the same, best practice standards.

Together, the mechanisms implemented by the Department enable the monitoring of both the implementation of the Act itself and schools’ adherence to the statutory guidance issued under it.