Scrutiny keen to see robust use of data to combat bullying
Scrutiny
28 March 2023
Yesterday, 27 March, the Children, Education and Home Affairs Scrutiny Panel questioned the Minister for Children and Education, Deputy Inna Gardiner, in a Quarterly Public Hearing. Key findings from the hearing included:
improvements are necessary to ensure a robust approach to managing bullying in schools;
further detail is required to establish what developments are underway to provide screening and support for children with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder;
confirmation of the Minister’s priorities for action from the paper ‘Further Educational Skills Actionable Agenda’.
When asked about the CYPES (Children, Young People, Education and Skills) Counter Bullying Policy, the Minister noted that students themselves recently highlighted bullying through their discussion via the Jersey Youth Parliament’s ‘Little Parliament’. The Panel heard that although schools routinely record every incident of bullying which is brought to the attention of school staff, there is currently no mechanism for reporting on such incidences. Officers suggested that this could be reviewed and checked on a quarterly basis.
The Panel asked the Minister for a progress update on a planned neurodevelopment service which was outlined in a previous hearing on 8 December 2022, where the Minister noted that the service was intended to include screening for Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD). The Panel intends to seek further clarification on the proposed service, after hearing that FASD is currently being looked at by the Public Health Department.
Following on from the publication of the Further Educational Skills Actionable Agenda, the Panel questioned which actions were the Minister’s top priorities. These included implementation of the Jersey Skills Fund; provision of funding to enable apprenticeships; and making it possible for students to use their social security ‘JY’ number as a unique identifier for tracking students throughout education to provide the necessary funding for their studies.
Deputy Catherine Curtis, Chair of the Children, Education and Home Affairs Scrutiny Panel commented: “It is disappointing to hear that CYPES does not already have an established method for reporting on instances of bullying within our schools. While the Panel was encouraged by the words of officers acknowledging the need to evolve CYPES’ response to bullying, we will monitor what action is taken and look forward to seeing evidence of improvements to ensure this does not fall through the cracks.”
