For anti-bullying week (Monday 16^th November) the NSPCC is offering help and advice to young people who need support.

The recent survey by charity BeatBullying shows that children starting secondary school are the most concerned about being bullied. The research identified that 56 per cent of primary children feared they might be bullied for being too clever, or not clever enough. Forty-eight per cent surveyed were afraid that they would be bullied for not being good at activities like sports or for not having the latest phones or games. Fear of being bullied can eventually lead to unhappiness, loneliness and a drop in grades.

Though schools already have an anti-bullying policy in place under the School Standards and Framework Act 1998, it is important to revisit these policies to ensure that they are updated to protect students from new threats such as cyberbullying.

Since 2006, the Education Inspections Act has made it the legal responsibility of every headteacher to ensure their school's behavioural policy addresses the prevention of bullying in all forms. This is a huge responsibility and cannot be taken lightly. Have you taken time recently to consider how your school is confronting bullying?

Throughout Anti-Bullying Week 2012, Bully Watch, the anti-bullying experts, will be providing us with five tips (one per day) that you can follow or use as a basis to help form your own school anti-bullying plan.

We all know that keeping pupils safe is one of the most important things schools do. In terms of e-safety, Ofsted recently recognised the efforts schools and parents have gone to to improve e-safety practice, and gave credit to their hard work in protecting young people online. Therefore, when the new Ofsted Framework came into being in September 2012, some schools may not have noticed the changes to e-safety. In fact, I have spoken to many colleagues who were not aware there had been any changes at all.

This article is designed to explain some of the main changes to e-safety and point you in the direction of useful resources, should Ofsted come knocking on your door. However, I do acknowledge that many schools will want to ensure that their e-safety practice is up to date, regardless of Ofsted!