Addressing Bullying in Queensland Schools
Vodcast 6
Issues with parents and evaluating antibullying work
Support Materials
Dr Ken Rigby
Consultant
Department of Education and Training
Developed for
Contents
Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 3
Summary ............................................................................................................................ 4
Questions for discussion .................................................................................................. 4
Background Readings ....................................................................................................... 5
1. Advice for parents .................................................................................................. 5
2. Evaluating interventions ........................................................................................ 7
References – Vodcast 6..................................................................................................... 9
General References ......................................................................................................... 10
Copyright Acknowledgements ....................................................................................... 12
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Introduction
This booklet is a supplementary resource to accompany Vodcast 6 – Issues with
parents and evaluating anti-bullying work produced by the Department of
Education and Training. The presenter is Dr Ken Rigby, consultant to the
Department on issues relating to bullying in Queensland schools.
It contains a brief description of the vodcast, together with articles by Dr Rigby or
other acknowledged authors, references and questions that may be used to
facilitate discussion amongst staff.
In viewing the vodcast, it would be useful to:
 examine background readings which provide an explanation of how to
implement the techniques and strategies presented for preventing or
dealing with cases of bullying in schools
 consider and discuss the questions that have been provided
 complete suggested activities with staff/students.
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Vodcast Six: Issues with parents and evaluating anti-bullying work
Summary
This vodcast addresses two issues:
1) working with parents to reduce bullying
2) evaluating the work of a school in addressing bullying.
Two aspects of working with parents are discussed. The first is what can be done
proactively through developing and maintaining positive and collaborative relations
with parents on matters of bullying. The second is reacting appropriately and
helpfully to parents when their children are involved in significant bully/victim
problems.
It is argued that evaluating practices in countering bullying is necessary if progress
is to be made. This should be done systematically by collecting data on changes in
the prevalence of bullying over time. In addition, it is necessary to carefully monitor
the outcomes from interventions in specific cases of bullying. Conclusions need to
be drawn regarding the effectiveness of particular methods of intervention.
Questions for discussion
1. What level of collaboration exists at your school between parents and staff in
preventing and addressing problems of bullying? Suggest ways this could be
improved.
2. What do you think your school could do realistically to evaluate efforts to reduce
bullying?
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Background Reading 1
Advice for parents
1. If you suspect that your child is being bullied at school, encourage him/her to
talk to you about it. Recognise that it may be hard for the child to do so. Be
patient.
2. Never dismiss the matter by saying that it’s the child’s problem and they must
simply stand up to the bully or bullies. Often this course of action is impractical,
especially if a group is involved.
3. Don’t be over-protective, for example, by saying: "Never mind. I will look after
you. You don’t have to go to school. Stay home with us.”
4. Listen carefully and sympathetically. Try to get the relevant facts - without
interrogating your child.
5. It is more than likely that your child has not provoked the bullying, however this
may not always be the situation and should be sensitively explored.
6. Explore alternative course of action with the child; for example, acting more
assertively, making friends who can help, and speaking with a teacher or
counsellor about it.
7. Decide whether it is best for you to discuss the problem with the school. This will
normally depend upon (i) the severity of the victimisation, including its duration
(ii) whether it is thought that the child can learn to deal with the problem (iii) the
wishes of the child regarding whether the issue should be raised with the
school. On occasions, if the bullying is particularly severe, you may reasonably
ask the school for their advice and assistance despite the reluctance of the child
to seek such help from the school.
8. If it is decided that the issue should be raised with the school, make an
appointment to see the relevant staff member and be prepared to describe as
accurately as possible what has been happening to the child.
9. It is unwise to seek out the person who is suspected of bullying your child or that
child’s parents. This commonly does not help.
10. After explaining your concern at the school, seek their assurance that the
situation will be investigated and dealt with in accordance appropriately in
accordance with the School’s Anti-Bullying Policy.
11. Bear in mind that the school may need a little time to carry out their
investigations and should not be pressured into dealing with the matter just as
you say. At the same time, the school has a responsibility to take appropriate
action if a child is being bullied, and to keep the parents informed of their
actions.
12. If you discover that your child is bullying others at school, take the matter very
seriously and exercise whatever influence you can to prevent the behaviour
from continuing.
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13. If the school informs you that your child has been bullying others and requests
an interview, be prepared to work out a plan with the school to bring about a
change in your child’s bullying behaviour.
Adapted from Rigby, K 2003, Stop the bullying, ACER, Melbourne.
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Background Reading 2
Evaluating interventions
Choice of interventions should be influenced largely, if not entirely, by results
obtained from relevant research. This requirement may put considerable demands
on the school and especially on practitioners of intervention methods. As far as
possible, the relevant research should be sought and evaluated. Where little or
none is available, schools should evaluate the effectiveness of their own
applications.
The first question to be asked is what exactly has been evaluated. Is it for instance,
an anti-bullying program with a variety of elements? If so, one may be able to say
whether the program as a whole has had the intended effect without knowing which
elements have contributed significantly. Was it due to an improvement in
surveillance, classroom activities, work of peer supporters and student bystanders,
mode of intervention in cases of bullying, the training of parents? One cannot tell.
The level of bullying may have gone down without us knowing why. We are
generally in the dark from the study of the effectiveness of many anti-bullying
programs about what the crucial components were and whether the intervention
made a significant impact.
This is not to say that the evaluation of programs with multiple elements is not
worthwhile. A school may reasonably want to know whether the total package has
worked. If so, the only reasonable way of finding out is to make use of valid
research design of the kind that enables one to compare changes over a period
when the program was implemented with changes that are likely to have occurred
without the program being implemented. For instance, a pre-test, post-test control
group design may be used or an approximation to such a design is needed.
However, finding a suitable ‘control school’ or better still ‘control schools’ for
comparison purposes can be very difficult and beyond the resources of most
schools. An acceptable alternative is to make comparisons between changes that
occur in year groups over a period when an intervention program is actually
implemented with changes (if any) that occurred in the previous year with the same
age group over the same time period. This so called ‘age-cohort design’ is much
easier for a school to apply and has many advantages.
Inevitably, a decision to evaluate possible changes in levels or degrees raises the
difficult question of how bullying is to be measured. Generally speaking, it is better
and more practicable to make use of existing instruments that have been carefully
developed and widely available. Such instruments typically take the form of
questionnaires that are answered anonymously by students in classrooms. They
seek to provide reliable data on the extent to which students have experienced
being bullied by peers and/or bullied others. An example is the Peer Relations
Assessment Questionnaire (PRAQ) available from the Australian Council for
Educational Research (ACER).
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Evaluation directed towards discovering whether given cases of bullying have been
successfully managed is generally easier for schools to do. To obtain useful data,
observations are required of the behaviour of both bullies and victims who have
been involved in a particular case before and after the intervention. As a minimum,
the practitioner would want to know whether the bullying has stopped, reduced,
stayed the same, or actually increased in frequency and severity. Reliable reports
are needed. The reporters must not be biased in any way. Ideally schools need
multiple sources of information, for example, from those students involved in the
bullying, peers, parents and teachers. Any interviews conducted with those involved
in the bullying should be undertaken by a staff member or researcher not
responsible for the application of the intervention. Both the bully or bullies and
victim may feel under pressure from the interviewer to provide the responses the
practitioner wants to get. Experimenter bias has been observed in many
psychological studies and may invalidate findings. Wherever possible postintervention interviews should be done by a neutral observer.
In reporting results one should specify the nature of the case to which the
intervention method was applied. Only in this way can generalisations emerge
about the conditions in which particular kinds of intervention can be most effective.
In addition, it should be made as clear as possible how the intervention was applied
– variations of the application can be crucial.
The strength of the findings also needs to be evaluated. One would expect some
cases to be solved without an intervention, simply through the elapsing of time.
Hence statistical considerations must apply. One must not be content in saying that
four cases were dealt with and things got better every time. This can easily occur
by chance. Just how overwhelming the positive changes must be before a valid
claim in support of an intervention is made is a matter for persons with appropriate
statistical knowledge to decide. It is often sensible for a school to employ the
services of experienced evaluators, in some cases from University Departments
where individuals are particularly interested in this area of applied social research.
This improves the credibility of claims.
Adapted from Rigby, K 2010, Bullying in schools: Six Methods of Intervention,
ACER, Camberwell.
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References - Vodcast 6
Rigby, K 2008, Children and bullying: how parents and educators can reduce
bullying at school, Wiley-Blackwell, Boston.
Rigby, K 2010, Bullying in schools: Six Methods of Intervention, ACER,
Camberwell.
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General References
(This includes references given in the text and also other sources of information that
are considered helpful)
Bauman, S, Rigby, K & Hoppa, K 2008, US teachers' and school counsellors'
strategies for handling school bullying incidents in Educational Psychology, 28, p.
837-56.
Blake, E and Rigby, K 2004, Bullying and Bystander behaviour at school, in
Principal Matters, p. 2-3.
Farrington, DP 1993, Understanding and preventing bullying. In Tonny, M and
Morris, N (Eds) in Crime and Justice, 17, 5, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Lewers, R & Murphy, E 2000, The Hidden Hurt, Wizard Books, Ballarat.
Molcho, M, Craig, W, Due, P, Pickett, W, Harel-Fisch, Y, Overpeck, M and the
HBSC Bullying Writing Group 2009 in press, Cross-national time trends in bullying
behaviour 1994-2006: findings from Europe and North America in International
Journal of Health.
Olweus, D 1993, Bullying at school: What we know and what we can do, Blackwell,
Cambridge, MA.
The Method of Shared Concern: a staff training resource for dealing with bullying in
schools, 2007, Readymade Productions, Adelaide.
Renn, S, Van Velsen, J, Matheison, P, Dennis, K, Langley, J 2009, The bullying
intervention toolkit: A practical Account of non-punitive intervention strategies,
Inyahead Press, Queenscliff, Victoria.
Pikas, A 2002, New developments of the Shared Concern Method in School
Psychology International, 23, 3, p 307-336.
Rigby, K 2010, Bullying interventions: six basic approaches ACER Press,
Melbourne.
Rigby, K 2008, Children and bullying: how parents and educators can reduce
bullying at school, Wiley-Blackwell, Boston.
Rigby, K 2002, Stop the bullying, ACER, Camberwell, Victoria.
Rigby, K 2007, Bullying in schools and what to do about it, ACER, Melbourne.
Rigby, K & Thomas, EB 2003, How schools counter bullying: policies and
procedures in selected Australian schools, in The Professional Reading Guide, Point
Lonsdale, Australia.
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Rigby, K & Slee, PT 2008, Interventions to reduce bullying in International Journal of
Adolescent Medicine and Health, 20, p. 165-83.
Rigby, K & Barnes, A 2002, To tell or not to tell: the victimised student’s dilemma in
Youth Studies, Australia, 21, 3, p. 33-36.
Rigby, K & Johnson, B 2006-07, Playground Heroes in Greater Good Magazine, Vol
3/2.
Rigby, K & Johnson, B 2006, Expressed readiness of Australian school children to
act as bystanders in support of children who are being bullied in Educational
Psychology, 26, p. 425-441.
Robinson, G and Maines, B 2008, Bullying: A Complete Guide to the Support Group
Method, Sage, London.
Smith, PK, Pepler, D & Rigby, K 2004, Bullying in schools: how successful can
interventions be? Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Suckling, A and Temple, C 2001, Bullying: a whole school approach, ACER,
Melbourne.
Tattum, DP 1992, What is bullying? in Tattum, D (Ed), Understanding and managing
bullying, Heinemann, London.
Thorsborne, M & Vinegrad, D 2006, Restorative practice and the management of
bullying: rethinking behaviour management, Inyahead Press, Queenscliff,
Victoria.
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Copyright Acknowledgements
Acknowledgements are given to the Australian Council for Educational Research
(ACER) for permission to include in this resource, articles and extracts or
modifications of extracts originally published by ACER.
These comprise the following:
1. Figure 1 illustrating Degree of Severity of Bullying on p 12, published in
Rigby, K 2002, Stop the bullying, ACER, Camberwell, Victoria.
2. The article by Rigby and Bauman (2007) on pp 15-16, What teachers think
should be done about cases of bullying in Professional Educator.
3. Extracts and modifications of extracts taken from Rigby, K (2010), Bullying
Interventions in schools: Six basic approaches.
 Mediation, pp 41-42
 Support Groups, p 45
 The Method of Shared Concern, pp 46-48
 An exercise on choice of intervention method, p 50
 Advice to Parents, pp 53-54
 Evaluating Interventions, pp 60-61.
Acknowledgements are also due to:
 Rigby and Johnson (2006/7) entitled Playground Heroes from Greater Good
Magazine, Vol III, Issue 2, Fall/Winter, pp14-17. For more information please
visit www.greatergoodmag.org
 Principal Matters which published the article, Bullying and bystander
behaviour at school by Blake and Rigby (2004), reproduced on pp 2-3.
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