Meetings

The Children’s Commissioner has expressed her satisfaction with the statutory status of the new anti-bullying guidance, which contains requirements for schools to develop robust policies and to record and monitor. She has also indicated that her office will continue to monitor. On that basis, the Committee agreed that there is little further that the Committee could achieve at this time. Members agreed to thank the petitioner for raising this issue and close the petition.

·         Kirsty Williams AM, Minister for Education

·         Claire Bennett, Deputy Director Curriculum, Welsh Government 

·         Megan Colley, Head of Supporting Achievement & Safeguarding, Welsh Government

The Committee heard evidence from the Minister for Education and agreed to accept her offer of an update on the implementation of the new anti-bullying guidance, Rights, Respect, Equality, following a monitoring exercise in the spring.

The Committee also agreed to seek further views from the Children’s Commissioner for Wales and the petitioner following the publication of the guidance.

The Committee considered further correspondence and, in light of the strength of the evidence received in relation to improving the responses of schools to instances of bullying, agreed to ask the Minister for Education to attend an evidence session on this matter at a future meeting.

The Committee considered further correspondence from the Welsh Government and the petitioner and agreed to:

·         await the publication of revised anti-bullying guidance and toolkit later in the year and to share with the petitioner for comment;

·         seek the views of the Children’s Commissioner for Wales, charities and school representatives on the sufficiency of current policy and regulation in relation to school bullying; and

·         explore further how the Committee can engage with the Welsh Youth Parliament on this issue.

The Committee considered further correspondence and agreed to:

·         write back to the Minister for Education to request a response to the specific proposal made by the petitioner for a Wales-wide anti-bullying framework, containing strengthened legal requirements for schools, and relating to recording incidents of bullying in particular; and

·         write to the Welsh Youth Parliament to make them aware of the current petition and to seek their views on the topic of bullying in schools.

The Committee considered the petition for the first time and agreed to write to the Minister for Education to:

·         provide the further comments received from the petitioner;

·         ask her to provide an assessment of the sufficiency of current legal duties in relation to preventing and tackling bullying in school; and

·         ask for a timeline for when a report on the outcome of the public consultation on anti-bullying guidance will be available.