Overview

School boards must establish and implement a bullying prevention and intervention plan to promote positive student behaviour and help prevent inappropriate conduct in schools. This is a requirement under the Education Act.

As a school board, you must base your plan on input from:

  • students, parents and guardians
  • teachers and staff
  • volunteers who work in your schools
  • school councils and the public

You must:

  • regularly review the plan and seek input from your stakeholders to update it
  • work with schools to share the plan publicly

This webpage provides:

  • a model plan to help you develop and improve your bullying prevention and intervention strategies
  • guidelines on how to develop your plan

Create a bullying prevention and intervention plan

Refer to PPM 144: Bullying Prevention and Intervention for the requirements you need to follow when developing your plan.

Your plan must include:

Who to collaborate with

You must develop your plan with strong leadership and collaboration across all levels through a whole school approach, including:

  • students
  • classrooms
  • schools
  • parents
  • school boards
  • the broader community

Gathering information

Use data to inform your plan and select evidence-informed programs and practices.

As you work to develop, enhance and refine your plan, you should:

  • review school climate surveys and other relevant information to determine areas of concern
  • find evidence-informed programs promoting a positive school climate and prevent bullying
  • reflect on what other evidence-informed strategies and practices may help to address concerns
  • ask who your key partners are and who else you should include

Consider all aspects of school life, such as:

  • policies and procedures
  • curriculum
  • school climate
  • teaching and assessment practices
  • co-curricular and leadership opportunities

Link to your Student Achievement Plan

You should also review and use the information gathered in your Student Achievement Plan to identify the most appropriate strategies to include in your bullying prevention and intervention plan.

The Student Achievement Plan framework aligns with our provincial priorities and sets out goals and performance indicators for school boards to:

  • monitor student achievement
  • develop action plans
  • measure progress on improving student outcomes

Requirements for school boards

As a school board, you must:

  • post your Student Achievement Plan Public Report on your website
  • meet with parents in the first 2 months and last 2 months of each school year to discuss provincial priorities and progress

Consider local needs

When developing your plan, consider local needs and circumstances, such as:

  • geographical and cultural considerations
  • demographics
  • availability of supports and resources related to mental health and public health issues

Take a multi-year approach

Fostering a safe, caring and inclusive school climate and addressing bullying are complex tasks that need ongoing efforts.

Update your plan with new data and information as it becomes available or as you make progress.

Education, awareness and outreach strategies

Different levels of knowledge and support for school board activities may exist. Your bullying prevention and intervention plan must include strategies to increase education, awareness and outreach.

These strategies engage students, staff, parents and the broader community to support your efforts to address inappropriate student behaviour, including bullying, as part of the whole school approach.

Understand and define bullying

Include the definition and description of bullying, including cyberbullying, from the Education Act and PPM 144 in your communications:

  • Bullying is aggressive, typically repeated behaviour carried out by an individual or group.
  • Cyberbullying is bullying through electronic means, such as social media, email, text or direct messaging, digital gaming and communication applications.
  • Bullying prevention and intervention occurs within a broader system of actions to strengthen human rights and equity within education.

You should identify:

  • bullying
  • different types of bullying, including cyberbullying
  • how to differentiate bullying from conflict, aggression and teasing
  • how biases, prejudice and hate can lead to bullying
  • different manifestations and underlying factors of bullying, such as body image, racism, sexism, homophobia and disability

You should understand:

  • the myths and realities of bullying behaviour
  • power and peer dynamics
  • the whole school approach and the essential importance of a positive school climate for student achievement and well-being
  • the factors that contribute to a safe, inclusive, caring and accepting school climate

Engage students and parents

Identify ways to:

  • make students aware of how they can help prevent and address bullying
  • engage parents in conversations about bullying prevention and how to promote a positive school climate

When you reach out to parents and the broader school community, you should:

  • reflect on relationships and interactions, focusing on promoting healthy relationships using a variety of strategies
  • learn about community partners and resources available in the community, as availability will vary

Communicate with the school community

You must communicate your progressive discipline approach to the school community so that they know:

  • how you address inappropriate behaviour
  • the procedures you have in place to support students and their parents who have been harmed or have engaged in serious behaviour incidents

You must communicate your:

  • school board or school Code of Conduct
  • equity and inclusive education policies
  • guidelines for religious accommodations
  • procedures to address incidents of discrimination
  • progressive discipline approach
  • bullying prevention and intervention plan and strategies

Find all policies related to safe and accepting schools, community safety, bullying and discipline.

Assessment, monitoring and evaluation

Use the results of school climate surveys and the Student Achievement Plan indicators to develop your bullying prevention and intervention plan, including selection strategies, practices and programs.

An ongoing monitoring, evaluation and learning strategy is critical.

Identify main issues

Identify the main issues of concern in a particular school raised by students, school staff and parents.

Identify individuals involved

Identify which students are involved in bullying, including those who bully, those who are bullied and witnesses. Consider a risk-assessment approach.

Conduct a needs-assessment

Review current processes for reporting, responding to, supporting and following up on issues. Use local data to develop action plans for:

  • improving student participation in class
  • increasing attendance rates for students in Grades 1 to 8
  • reducing suspensions for students in Grade 5 to 12
  • enhancing student well-being
  • raising awareness of mental health supports among students in Grade 6, 9 and 10

Identify learning and training opportunities

Find learning opportunities for your administrators, educators and school staff.

Develop a monitoring, evaluation and learning strategy

Create a strategy based on school climate surveys and other relevant information, such as suspension and expulsion data, violent incident reports, and reviews of programs and strategies. Steps in an evaluation strategy include:

  • establishing a baseline and identifying areas of concern
  • creating an action plan to address areas of concern
  • monitoring progress, measuring success and evaluating
  • learning from the evaluations and making necessary changes

Review and update your plan

Continuously review and update your plan with new information and share it with the school community.

Policies and procedures

Your bullying prevention and intervention plan should be based on a strong legislative and policy framework and a whole school approach to help bring about systemic change.

Your policies and procedures must outline:

  • what schools are required to do to support students, including developing specific plans to protect students who have been harmed
  • a process for parents to follow if they are unsatisfied with the supports their children receive

Communicate and review

You should:

  • actively communicate policies, procedures and guidelines to the school community
  • review policies, procedures and guidelines with the school community to build and sustain a positive school climate
  • review or develop new guidelines and procedures to address discrimination and harassment for students, staff, parents and community members
  • outline roles and responsibilities of the school community, including students, staff, parents and community members
  • ensure goals address areas of challenge identified in school climate surveys and other relevant data

Prevention measures

Focusing on prevention and fostering a positive learning and teaching environment are critical and should be an ongoing effort.

Describe roles and responsibilities

Explain to the school community the roles and responsibilities of safe and accepting school teams. (The name of this school committee may vary, for example, safe and caring schools committee or healthy schools committee.)

Identify prevention and intervention programs

Find evidence-informed bullying prevention and intervention programs or activities that address the needs identified by the board or a school. You should address these at the:

  • individual student level
  • classroom level
  • school level
  • board level
  • parent/community level

Identify community-building programs

Find relationship-building and community-building programs in the school, classroom and in the larger community.

Identify and support:

  • activities that promote a positive school climate
  • training strategies for school staff
  • awareness-raising strategies for students, such as social-emotional learning, empathy, and self-regulation skills
  • awareness-raising strategies to engage community partners and parents in early and ongoing dialogue
  • ways to connect curriculum resources to day-to-day learning
  • caring adults and student leaders within the school and school community

Provide regular check-ins

Offer regular check-ins with students at risk of engaging in bullying and those who have witnessed or been affected by bullying.

Develop classroom-management strategies

Provide opportunities for teachers to develop effective classroom-management strategies, incorporating progressive discipline.

Maintain respectful classrooms

Establish and maintain respectful and caring classrooms by modeling equitable and inclusive behaviour and language.

Align supervision plans

Adjust supervision plans to address where and when bullying happens, as identified through school climate surveys.

Intervention and support strategies

Interventions and supports should be evidence-informed, timely and take a whole school approach.

Teachable moments

Use teachable moments within a progressive discipline approach to address inappropriate behaviour. Before determining the most appropriate response, consider mitigating factors such as:

  • the student's age
  • the circumstances of the behaviour
  • the student's history

Consider a range of options to address the behaviour and help the student learn from their choices.

Identify and respond to bullying

Your plan must have processes and strategies to:

  • identify and respond to bullying when it happens
  • follow up after bullying incidents with students, parents, teachers and other school staff, where appropriate
  • support students who:
    • engage in bullying
    • have been bullied
    • may have witnessed or been affected by bullying

These strategies could include school-based resources and referrals to community agencies, such mental health services or public health.

Share your feedback and templates

Please submit your suggestions or comments to safeandhealthyschoolsbranch@ontario.ca.

Share your school or board tools and templates

Samples of school and board tools and templates are posted on the Institute for Education Leadership website to facilitate sharing and learning across the province.

If you would like to have your school board or school-level bullying prevention and intervention plan or other related tools and templates shared on this site, please email them to safeschools@ontario.ca.

Resources

Creating safe and accepting schools: resources for schools and school boards

Policy/Program Memorandum No.119: Developing and Implementing Equity and Inclusive Education Policies in Ontario Schools

Policy/Program Memorandum No.144: Bullying Prevention and Intervention

Policy/Program Memorandum No.145: Progressive Discipline and Promoting Positive Student Behaviour