How emotional learning helps to stop bullying
Emily Rogers
Tuesday, February 28, 2017
Anti-bullying initiative reduces bullying in schools by helping children to explore their emotions through discussion and activities.
PROJECT
KiVa Anti-bullying Programme
PURPOSE
To prevent and reduce bullying in schools
FUNDING
Typically between £600 and £1,000 for initial training and resources, funded by schools, grants or local authorities. There is then an annual cost of around £2.80 per pupil, including licence fees
BACKGROUND
KiVa, meaning "nice" and an acronym for "against bullying" in Finnish, is a school-based anti-bullying programme for seven- to 15-year-olds developed by the University of Turku and running in more than 90 per cent of Finland's comprehensives.
Professor Judy Hutchings, director of Bangor University's Centre for Evidence Based Early Intervention (CEBEI) heard a presentation by KiVa's founder Professor Christina Salmivalli at a conference in 2011. She advocated the scheme at a Welsh Government meeting of school improvement officers, leading to its inclusion on a list of school programmes eligible for government funding.
The CEBEI brought Professor Salmivalli and a colleague to Wales the following spring to train schools, piloting KiVa with year 5 and 6 pupils in 14 Welsh and three Cheshire primaries from September 2012. The CEBEI has since disseminated the programme, through training, to more than 100 primaries across Wales and beyond.
ACTION
Each school identifies two people to receive training who then spread the learning across the school.
After a whole-school introduction, teachers deliver KiVa classes to Key Stage 2 pupils in 10 monthly lessons lasting 90 minutes, usually split into two fortnightly 45-minute sessions. Pupils aged seven to nine undertake unit one and pupils aged 10 to 13 undertake unit two.
Through discussion and activities, pupils explore themes including respect, the importance of celebrating differences and interpreting and recognising their own and others' emotions. They then consider what bullying involves, with a particular focus on the contribution of bystanders. "KiVa looks at the role of the bullies, their helpers, those in the audience who laugh but don't join in, the kids who pretend it's not happening so they don't get picked on, those who support the victim, and the victim himself," Hutchings explains. "The aim is to move more children towards supporting the victim. Bullies behave that way for status, often in the presence of an audience. So it's about changing the roles of everybody else, to stop reinforcing bullying behaviour."
Sessions are accompanied by quizzes and online games that can be played at school and home and feature scenarios where the player is a witness to bullying and must decide what to do and are shown the consequences of their actions. Alleged bullying incidents are referred to the school's KiVa team, who ensure it meets the criteria - intentional, repeated behaviour towards a less powerful pupil. The team interviews the victim about the incident, then the bully or bullies individually. Those involved in bullying are each asked to commit to doing something to help the victim, such as including the child in play, or simply leaving them alone. The commitment is recorded and individual follow-up meetings arranged. The victim's class teacher identifies one or more confident and popular pupils to offer friendship and support.
OUTCOME
A 2007-09 randomised controlled trial involving 234 Finnish schools found significant reductions in bullying and victimisation among seven- to 11-year-olds. It found 86 per cent of incidents dealt with by school KiVa teams resulted in the bullying stopping.
About 470 pupils from 13 schools involved in the 2012/13 Welsh pilot completed an annual online survey. Before the programme 16 per cent said they had been victims of bullying and six per cent confessed to bullying. This compares with nine per cent and two per cent respectively after the programme. Similar reductions are now being reported for around 3,700 pupils in 41 Welsh schools.
Further evidence is expected this year from a Big Lottery-funded randomised controlled trial involving Key Stage 2 pupils in 20 Welsh schools, run by Dartington Social Research Unit with CEBEI and the Children's Early Intervention Trust.
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