New film aims to tackle issue of school bullying

AT the start of the 2024-25 school year, Cyclone Rep theatre company in Cork will be releasing The Bullying Prevention Circle free to schools.

This anti-bullying resource won Best Socio-Cultural Film at The Helsinki Education Film Festival International. The film’s aim is to look at how bullying behaviours that can occur in the social context of schools may be prevented with student bystander engagement.

Bystanders are important in helping prevent bullying as it is rarely a one-on-one phenomenon, but more often part of a social process where bystanders can contribute to ongoing bullying behaviour. For example, bystanders laughing at bullying can contribute to ongoing bullying behaviour as it can send a message to the person(s) bullying that their behaviour is approved by the group.

Another would be exclusion. Bystanders may be aware a fellow student is being left out of activities and companionship, but do nothing to help.

Research shows that when bystanders are equipped with knowledge about the harmful effects of bullying, it can increase levels of empathy for those who are bullied. This can create a school environment where there is less tolerance for bullying and a willingness to help those in need.

However, students are often at a loss as to what to do.

To address this, The Bullying Prevention Circle film focuses on non-confrontational strategies bystanders can use to aid their peers. Non-confrontational strategies appeal to students because defending a bullied peer as the incident is occurring can put many students out of their comfort zone as they are often worried about retaliation.

Hence, students prefer ways to help that do not put them at social risk.

The different actions bystanders can use to help their peers are illustrated in The Bullying Prevention Circle diagram.

Attention Changing aims to shift the focus away from the bullying by trying to defuse the situation. A bystander could accomplish this by saying something like, “this is way too much drama for a Monday”, or “the bell’s about to ring. let’s go!” or change the conversation to something fun, “did you see the Marvel film?”

Another strategy is Escaping, where a bystander might help a person being targeted by bullying to escape from the situation by asking them to go to the library to study or go outside for a breath of fresh air.

Another tactic is Shrugging Off mean comments and paying them no attention, depriving those bullying of what they want: a reaction.

Students could also take the action of Go-Betweening. This person gets support for the bullied person. This can be extremely helpful as many people who are bullied don’t ask for support because they feel helpless, think it makes them look weak and/or are afraid the authority figure will make things worse. If the latter is the case, it is very important a young person goes to an authority figure they trust.

Another helpful strategy is to be Reassuring to the bullied person. Inquire if they are alright and let them know the bullying wasn’t their fault as nobody deserves to be bullied.

For students who are being isolated, it is important to let them know that they are not alone and someone is Allying with them. This can be accomplished by doing an activity where there is a common goal or interest. It could be something as simple as saying: “Hey, are you heading to English class? Mind if I join you?”, or study plans could be made or agreeing to participate in a school activity together.

All these strategies are demonstrated in the film, which can be viewed at youtube.com/watch?v=2Z4Yp6H39rk.

The film culminated 10 years of my work. The original story was a play Cyclone Rep toured to Irish schools as part of a HSE supported workshop initiative called The Bullying Prevention Session. This comprised a play, a presentation on bullying’s harmful effects and culminated in a workshop where students put forth their ideas and strategies for preventing bullying in their school.

From 2013-2020, The Bullying Prevention Session toured to over 20,000 students in secondary schools in Ireland. Unfortunately, the workshops came to an end with Covid.

Thereafter, The Bullying Prevention Session became a webinar students and teachers could use online. However, the webinars were purely informational and did not include the play. This was unfortunate as the play was one of the most important elements of the workshop because it struck an emotional chord with students.

According to two separate works of research completed by UCC, it was identified that The Bullying Prevention Session play increased peer empathy towards those targeted by bullying, raised perceptions that bullying was an issue that needed to be taken seriously, encouraged confidence in someone suffering from bullying to speak up (not suffer in silence) and inspired confidence in bystanders to come to the aid of fellow students who were being bullied.

However, thanks to the support of the HSE, The Department of Tourism, Arts, Culture, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media and MTU Cork School of Music and its Youth Theatre, the play was adapted for film.

Hence, it now has the potential to reach a wider audience than ever.

My hope is the bullying prevention strategies will encourage bystanders to help their bullied and/or isolated peers in order that their school will be a happier place for all to learn.

If you would like to view The Bullying Prevention Circle, the commentary version of the film and accompanying resources, go to: https://www.cyclonerep.com/artsinhealth.