Researching Teaching and Learning 1

Assessment 2

Engagement with an Educational Issue

Word Count: Equivalent to 2000 words approx.

Article: School perspectives on bullying and preventative strategies: An exploratory

study.

By Michael Carmona – 15090573

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Ken Rigby’s paper, “School perspectives on bullying and preventative strategies: an
exploratory study’, is a research paper on how teachers at schools prevent, respond, and
evaluate, the effectiveness of some strategies used to combat and prevent school placed
bullying. Bullying is a significant problem in Australian schools, and while it has been
studied extensively, few reports have been made on what schools are actually doing. This is
what the writer is trying to accomplish with his paper, to help build an understanding of
what works in beating the bullying issue in our schools. This essay will discuss the issue of
bullying and highlight why it is a significant issue for the teachers in the Australian
education system. It will then critique the article’s methods, purpose and findings, and then
try to apply its key preventative recommendation to the classroom, by using a pre-existing
lesson plan for a Year 9 history class, and improve it with appropriate amendments. Other
recommendations, for example ‘How cases of bullying are handled’ will not be used, as it is
difficult to implement these into a lesson plan (teachers would not try to plan for a bullying
incident to occur in one’s classroom)

Rigby describes bullying as “a systemic abuse of power” by an individual or group, that is

“targeted” and “repeated” over time against an individual or group, who are “unable to
defend” themselves (Rigby, 2017, p.25). The need for schools to prevent bullying is
considered to be a universal goal of society. According to the United Nations charter for the
rights of children, all children are entitled to have a safe, healthy environment to develop
in, and the rights to an education that allows them to reach their full potential
(Unicef.org.au, 2018). Bullying is an activity that flies directly in opposition to these goals.
While Rigby does point out in his article that in Australia, acts of physical violence don’t
appear to be of a concern in our schools (Rigby, 2017), bullying can come in the form of
social exclusion and psychological aggression, and this form of bullying has been seen to
cause more damage mentally and socially to the individuals than physical bullying can
(Dillon, Dwyer & Hastings, 2004). If schools are unable to prevent/ reduce the occurrence
and intensity of bullying incidence in the classrooms, students are not going to reach their
full potential academically, nor will they have the chance to develop, both mentally and
socially into healthy adults, in this kind of environment. Not only can bullying affect the
development and educational progress of the victim, potentially causing them to have
increased rates of delinquency at school, criminal activity later in life and potential to

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perform acts of violence in the school, they can also be detrimental to the ‘bully’ and the
overall school environment (Sanders & Phye, 2004). Some of the detrimental effects of
bullying to those who participate or instigate this activity can include; leading to future
criminal behaviours, a poor mental health state and diminished school performance
(Sanders & Phye, 2004). The school can be plagued with all students feeling unsafe, having
a lower sense of school community, formation of gangs or clicks (fragmented school
communities), lower levels of staff/teacher morale and poorer educational outcomes, all
due to the existence of uncontrolled bullying (Sanders & Phye, 2004). Bullying is a
significant issue in Australian schools and is one that needs to be managed by teachers. It is
essential that schools implement successful prevention strategies towards bullying and
have the most effective responses to incidences of bullying, for both the victims and
instigators of the violent acts, in order to maintain an educational environment that in
conducive to positive personal and education development for all school students.

Ken Rigby’s article aims to find ways to “enhance” the effectiveness of “anti-bullying
practices in Australian schools” (Rigby, 2017, p. 24). The article does this by performing a
qualitative study, that aims to build the understanding of what is working, and what is not
working at reducing bullying in Australian schools (Kervin, Vialle, Howard, Harrington &
Okely, 2016) via teacher’s responses to survey’s from a government funded, larger study
about bullying. The data is restricted to responses from teachers in public schools only
(total of 25 schools, mix of primary, secondary and combined) from 6 states or territories
around Australia. The research did not include any scope for information such as socio-
economic status, cultural diversity, size of school etc. The results are presented in a way
that does not highlight any causal relationships, but simply demonstrate which activities are
performed most often by schools to combat bullying, and how teachers alone feel the
effectives of these methods are at reducing the impact of bullying on the students. There is
no data from the student’s perspectives towards the effectiveness of these chosen
strategies in this report. The data would be defined as descriptive statistics, as it is
assembled in a way that forms a group picture what is being done and what appears to be
working to solve issue of bullying (Shank, Brown, Pringle, 2014). In this way, Rigby is
performing a Hermeneutic analysis of the data, allowing the discovery of how effective
different methods and approaches to bullying in schools appear to be working, according to
teachers (Shank, Brown, Pringle, 2014). It helps the readers to determine how valuable and
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effective each of the anti-bullying activities appear to be in these schools. Some of the
interesting findings of this report include; 16 of the 25 schools believed less than 10% of
their students were bullied every few weeks or more, and that the most common form of
bullying was social exclusion. All school participating in this report have written anti-
bullying policies in place, discussed with other stakeholders IN the school, but that seven
schools had not discussed the policy with parents or made them available on the school’s
website (Rigby, 2017, p. 27). In the discussion, Rigby states that this would hinder the
policies overall effectiveness (Rigby, 2017, p. 35). The most effective strategy according to
the teachers to address bullying in the report was “effective classroom management” (p.
36). With this being seen as the most effective preventative method to combat bullying, we
will now try and implement this into a classroom learning activity for a history lesson.

The lesson activity I have chosen comes from the Australian Curriculum Lesson’s website
(see apeendix). It is a Year 9 study regarding “Technological Changes and the Industrial
Revolution” (Parker, 2018). It aims to teach students about some of the technological
changes that led to the industrial revolution, fulfilling the curriculum’s content code
ACDSEH07. The sequence of the lesson is as follows; students are to get into pairs, and
share their understanding of medieval times, all students then create a class mind map
which students will copy into their books (10 – 15 mins), complete a source analysis of an
image from before the start of the Industrial revolution (15 mins), discuss the creation of
the steam engine and complete a Positive / Minuses / Interesting table to discuss the
implications of this invention (10 mins) and finally students play the “Who wants to be a
cotton millionaire?” game created by the BBC (Bbc.co.uk, 2018). In essence in this game,
students become cotton entrepreneurs in the industrial era, and need to make decisions
where the needs of people are “costly” and bad for business (e.g. it is better to employ
child labourers as they are cheaper and less likely to unionise, despite not being as skilled as
adult men). Additional activities include watching an episode of “Tony Robinson’s ‘Worst
jobs in history – Industrial Revolution’” episode on YouTube (Chaudhry & Robinson, 2005).
By the end of the learning activity all students should have gained a better understanding of
how some of the technological advanced caused the start of the Industrial revolution and
how this era altered the way humans lived, thought and acted, even to this day. While the
lesson appears to be engaging with students and there are no examples of opportunities for
overt bullying to be engaged in, there are some small opportunities for students to engage
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in some bullying techniques and some messaging to come through that can help create an
environment prone to bullying activity.

To assist with the discussion, the Glenmore Park High School’s anti-bullying policy will be
used. In it its states that all students have “the right to experience positive relationships...,
and learn in a happy and safe environment” (Glenmorepk-h.school.nsw.edu.au, 2018). With
this in mind, we need to remember that bullying can come in many forms other than
physical violence. And the most common type of bullying that occurs in schools according
to teachers is students ignoring a targeted individual and making sure they felt left out by
other students (Rigby and Johnson, 2016). As per the lesson plan, by simply asking students
to pair up, could leave students who are already bullied, with no one wanting to work with
them. This subtle bullying in the classroom can have a lasting effect on the victim and can
even be made to seem accidental. Also, simply asking students to pair with the person next
to them may not help, as victims of bullying may already be sitting on their own. Unless
there is assigned seating in the classroom, the teacher should quickly create the pairs of
groups. Special attention to selections should be made if the teachers already has
knowledge of the students and any social clicks that may already exist and participate in
bullying activities. The other major issue with the learning activity is the game activity.
Whilst playing the game, it becomes apparent that any decision with the care or
consideration of the workers over technology/financial factors appears to be meet with a
negative outcome or result. Essentially the game is showing students that owners who
appeared to have workers interest in mind suffered and went bankrupt (lost the game)
compared to owners who willingly exploited their workers (used child labour and valued
technology over human needs, etc.) and were more successful and won. Whilst there is
truth to this information about this era, this may send the wrong message to students
subliminally, about power imbalances and what can happen when this is abused (even if
the benefits are only seen in the game, they can be imagined to still exist elsewhere). A
better use of this time would be to watch a specific part of “Tony Robinson’s – Worst Jobs”
episode on the Georgian era, but the last 10 minutes which relates to child labourers
working in the cotton industry during Industrialisation (Chaudhry & Robinson, 2004). This
video clearly demonstrates technology changes that lead to the industrial revolution, whilst
also showing the human cost and result of power imbalances and when they are abused in
society, in a non-threating way.
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As has been demonstrated in this paper, bullying is an important issue for educators and
should be considered when planning and implementing a lesson in the classroom. Teachers
need to be aware of the full scope of bullying, what it can constitute and the damage it can
do not only to the individuals, but also to the perpetrators of bullying and the school as a
whole. Teachers should also constantly evaluate the methods used to combat bullying in
schools and ensure participation from all stakeholders is had, especially with the parents of
students. Teachers also need to be mindful of their chosen teaching activities, how they are
conducted and any underlining messages that could be conveyed which could promote
negative behaviour in students.

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References

Bbc.co.uk. (2018). BBC - History - British History in depth: Who Wants to Be a

Cotton Millionaire?. [online] Available at:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/victorians/launch_gms_cotton_millionaire.shtm
l [Accessed 27 May 2018].

Chaudhry, K., & Robinson, T. (2005). The Worst Jobs In History: Industrial Jobs -
Ep 3 of 5 (The Worst Jobs In History). Informit, Melbourne (Vic.).

Chaudhry, K., & Robinson, T. (2004). The Worst Jobs In History: Georgians - Ep 4
of 5 (The Worst Jobs In History). Informit, Melbourne (Vic.).

Dillon, A., Dwyer, J., & Hastings, R. (2004). 'May break my bones, but...' : Taking
psychological bullying seriously. Teacher Learning Network, 11(1), 20-21.

Glenmorepk-h.schools.nsw.edu.au. (2018). Glenmore Park High School | Anti-

Bullying Policy. [online] Available at: http://www.glenmorepk-
h.schools.nsw.edu.au/caring-for-students/anti-bullying-policy [Accessed 26 May
2018].

Kervin, L., Vialle, W., Howard, S. J., Herrington, J., & Okely, T. (2016). Research for
Educators 2nd Edition: Cengage Learning Australia.

Parker, M. (2018). Technological Changes and the Industrial Revolution Lesson

Plan - Year 9 Depth Study - Australian Curriculum Lessons. [online] Australian
Curriculum Lessons. Available at:
https://www.australiancurriculumlessons.com.au/2013/08/16/technological-
changes-and-the-industrial-revolution-lesson-year-9-depth-study/ [Accessed 24
May 2018].

Rigby, K. (2017). School perspectives on bullying and preventative strategies: An

exploratory study. Australian Journal of Education, 61(1), 24-39.

Rigby, K., & Johnson, K. (2016). The prevalence and effectiveness of anti-bullying
strategies employed in
Australian schools. University of South Australia. Retrieved from
http://www.unisa.edu.au/
Education-Arts-and-Social-Sciences/school-of-education/News-and-
Events/News/the-prevalenceand-
effectiveness/

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Sanders, C., & Phye, Gary D. (2004). Bullying implications for the classroom
(Educational Psychology). San Diego: Elsevier/Academic Press, 66-67

Shank, G., Brown, L., & Pringle, J. (2014). Understanding Education Research: A
guide to Critical Reading. London, Routledge, p. 11, 95

Unicef.org.au. (2018). [online] Available at:

https://www.unicef.org.au/Upload/UNICEF/Media/Our%20work/childfriendlycrc.pd
f [Accessed 26 May 2018].

Appendix

Website link;
https://www.australiancurriculumlessons.com.au/2013/08/16/technological-
changes-and-the-industrial-revolution-lesson-year-9-depth-study/

Technological Changes and the Industrial Revolution Lesson Plan – Year 9 Depth
Study
0
By marcusparker23 on Aug 16, 2013 History Lessons, Year 9 History Lesson Plans
Summary of Lesson Plan:
In this lesson, students learn about inventions and technological changes that led to the
industrial revolution. After conducting a Think/Pair/Share, they complete a source analysis of an
image, discuss jobs of the past and investigate how a piece of technology has made a
positive/negative impact on our society today.
Australian Curriculum Links:

● The technological innovations that led to the Industrial Revolution, and other conditions
that influenced the industrialisation of Britain (the agricultural revolution, access to raw
materials, wealthy middle class, cheap labour, transport system, and expanding empire)
and of Australia(ACDSEH017)

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Lesson Plan Sequence:

1. Complete a think/pair/ share to gain an understanding of student’s knowledge regarding

life in medieval times. Collate class mindmap and have students copy into their books
(10-15 minutes)
2. Complete a source analysis on an image from before the start of Industrial Revolution.
Find an image relevant to your class and what you wish to focus on in the unit of work.
Suggestions include images of steam engines, agricultural villages and factories going
up. (15 minutes)
3. Discuss the creation of the steam engine. Complete a PMI table to discuss the
implications that this piece of equipment had on the event. Outline the environment
needed and how this changed from water mills, traditional farming practice. (10
minutes)
4. Have students go to
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/victorians/launch_gms_cotton_millionaire.shtml
and spend rest of lesson going through the scenario’s. If access to computers is an issue,
go through the website as a class and have the group make decision on what steps to
take.

Extension activity – watch episode of Tony Robinsons worst jobs in history – industrial
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJQbsKPW30w and develop a profile for one of the jobs
showcased in the episode

Homework/Assessment:

● Short informative report (could be a blog, wiki, website, poster, power point) on a job
during the Industrial Revolution, focusing on working conditions and how improvements
in technology changed this job, for better or worse.

Resources:

● Computers
● Printout of images for source analysis
● Tony Robinsons Worst Jobs- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJQbsKPW30w
● BBC cotton millionaire game –
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/victorians/launch_gms_cotton_millionaire.shtml

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