School is a place, where children spend a considerable part of their time, therefore it has a great influence on their behaviour, academic, social and emotional development. It also has the ability to discover bullying and strive to reduce it.
Bullying began to be systematically researched at the end of the 1970s. More recent definitions of bullying, in addition to physical, also include emotional, economic, verbal and sexual forms of violent acts. In recent years, due to the development of information technology, cyberbullying has also occurred. Bullying has negative emotional consequences on everyone involved – the victims, bullies and bystanders. When talking about violence, we also talk about feelings, as violence is driven and overflowed with emotions, or it occurs because of lack of certain emotions. It is precisely for this reason that the approaches to dealing with and limiting violence focus on learning strategies for optimal handling with emotions, and by good example and various activities increase emotional intelligence of children.
Despite different approaches by schools to the issue of bullying, over the last decade, comprehensive, systemic models for the prevention of bullying in schools have proved to be the most effective. These include all three participators of the school community – pupils, school staff and parents – and cover all types of interactions at school, including domestic violence against the child. Schools have to deal with the problem systematically, in several phases and on several levels. Moreover, they have to devote enough time to the addressed issue. The main objective must be the creation of a safe school environment, in which zero tolerance to violence is established and where each individual has the possibility to develop his potential. As an example of good practice we can take primary school Simon Jenko Kranj, which has been facing and dealing with the problem of bullying profoundly and effectively for several years now.
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