Agenda item

The Kidscape presentation is attached.

5.1  Peter Bradley from Kidscape gave a presentation, attached to the minutes. He explained that Kidscape was the first anti bullying charity, and they are now in their 28th year.

5.2  Mr Bradley was asked about cyber-bulling and he said that children often start on safe places like Club Penguin from the age of 6, however from the age of 8 children often want join sites like Facebook, even though young people can only officially join at 13 years old. He said there are about 1 million primary school age children on internet sites.

5.3  He went on to explain that one of the chief concerns they have is the rise of porn searches , which is increasing. Young people appear to be getting desensitised to images, many of which are very concerning.

5.4  He ended his presentation by explaining that Kidscape has just received funding from the Department of Education to work with 9 local authorities, including Southwark. This will focus on bullying intervention in primary school,  and they intend to  train teachers. He said he hoped that Southwark would be interested. The head-teacher representative said she thought schools would, and offered to cascade the information through her role on the head-teachers executive.

5.5  The chair invited questions and a member asked if Kidscape worked with elite adults that bully and he responded that their remit is for under 18 years olds. He was then asked about role models and he agreed that some schools run peer mentoring programmes; for example an 11 year old mentoring a 7 year old. He explained that this can be very effective.

5.6  A member raised the issue of child protection, and asked if Kidscape do you work to ensure children that don't get material that might harm their innocence. Mr Bradley said that Kidscape have a child protection programme. The member went on to ask about the risk that adults might give information to children that was emotionally harming and Mr Bradley said that they have police officers from the Sapphire programme involved in there child protection work, who are very experienced.

5.7  Mr Bradley was asked if Kidscape charged for its services and he explained that they did not, and went on to explain that they work with both targets and bullies, free of charge.

5.8  A member asked if children tend to change or carry on bullying. He responded that sometimes there are changes, a bullied child can also become a bully .He said that certainly Kidscape find that targets can do behavioural work to become more assertive and less passive with Kidscape, which is very effective.

5.9  A member asked if he was satisfied with the safeguards on the internet. Mr Bradley explained that they had recently advocated for stronger controls; and Kidscape had wanted an 'opt in' rather than an 'opt out'. He explained that a lot of parents are giving hardware platforms to teenagers to set controls. He emphasised the importance of parents and adults talking with children about issues and concerns.

5.10  Mr Bradley was asked about children who might be perceived as different, and suggested that children who are ‘looked after’, might be more at risk and he agreed that Kidscape do find this. He commented that he read the scrutiny minutes of the last meeting and saw that the issue of sexual identity was discussed. He noted that ‘gay' is often used pejoratively by children, but not challenged sufficiently. The chair thanked Mr Bradley for his presentation.

5.11  The scrutiny project manager, Julie Timbrell, reported that Cybersmile had been due to attend tonight’s meeting, but had to cancel at the last minute because of professional reasons and had sent their apologies.

5.12  The chair noted the commentary circulated by Colin Elliott on the film - Danny’s Parade, which was one of the videos contained in the DVD that School OUT’s distributed at the last meeting. The chair said he had contacted Sue Sanders from Schools OUT and asked if she wished to comment.  Colin Elliott said he had looked at the other videos, that he also had concerns about these too. He explained that his worries centred on the potential for the DVDs to undermine the message of previous the reviews on the importance of parental responsibility. A member commented that he was also uncomfortable with the content; from a faith perspective. The head-teacher representative observed that any resource like this  would be carefully considered by a school prior to use, and that in a primary school teachers would be contacting parents prior to using the material. She noted that the DVD’s raised equalities viewpoints that schools need to think about, however she considered, from an educators viewpoint, that the videos were not that balanced. The chair indicated that he would circulate any comment from Sue Sanders of Schools OUT in response. A couple of members indicated that they would like a copy of the video to view.

RESOLVED

The committee welcomed the opportunity for Southwark schools to receive support from Kidscape to tackle bullying.

Cybersmile will be invited to attend a future meeting.