The Online School Bully Beater
Make your school a bully-free zone
Ready-made surveys
The Bully Beater
Online elections
Citizenship
Opinion Markets
Questions answered
Screenshots
The Bully Beater
Online elections
Citizenship
Opinion Markets
Questions answered
Screenshots
A product of
BigPulse Opinion Markets
The first school to use the Bully Beater idea is St Mary's Roman
Catholic High School in Herefordshire.
Assistant Head Mike Fitzgerald said, "No school is immune to bullying and schools have been searching for answers for a long time. We have been impressed by the Bully Beater poll idea. It has given us an immediate and very clear picture of where the bullying is occurring, who is affected and the extent of it. The Bully Beater won't end bullying but it's another weapon in our armoury."
As reported on BBC Radio 5 Live on 23 July 2006, the first school to use Bully Beater, St Mary's Roman Catholic High School in Herefordshire, experienced an immediate surge in reports of bullying. About 10 per cent of students used the system to report their concerns in the first few weeks of its launch in the school. Assistant Head Mike Fitzgerald, said, "As soon as I log onto School Poll Manager it brings up a really simple list that ranks in order the people who have been voted for (as bullies)". He goes on to explain that when he clicks the name of any student in this list he sees the names of everyone who alleged that person has been a bully. He can then take appropriate action.
See media release . .
The Bully Beater is another way to use School Poll. Fast easy
setup – you could launch your Bully Beater today. It will become
an essential part of your school anti-bullying policy.
Assistant Head Mike Fitzgerald said, "No school is immune to bullying and schools have been searching for answers for a long time. We have been impressed by the Bully Beater poll idea. It has given us an immediate and very clear picture of where the bullying is occurring, who is affected and the extent of it. The Bully Beater won't end bullying but it's another weapon in our armoury."
As reported on BBC Radio 5 Live on 23 July 2006, the first school to use Bully Beater, St Mary's Roman Catholic High School in Herefordshire, experienced an immediate surge in reports of bullying. About 10 per cent of students used the system to report their concerns in the first few weeks of its launch in the school. Assistant Head Mike Fitzgerald, said, "As soon as I log onto School Poll Manager it brings up a really simple list that ranks in order the people who have been voted for (as bullies)". He goes on to explain that when he clicks the name of any student in this list he sees the names of everyone who alleged that person has been a bully. He can then take appropriate action.
See media release . .
- A permanent online student anti-bully pledge
- An efficient bully reporting system that deters bullies
- A continuous ranking of bullying issues and opinions.
Getting students to report bulling is central to solving the problem. See BBC report Tackling a culture of bullying.
Bully Beater not only gets students reporting but goes a step further by automating the monitoring and processing of student reports. Students report incidents through Bully Beater because it's easy to use, is a technology they relate to, they feel safe and know they are heard. As reported on BBC Radio 5 Live on 23 July 2006, the first school to use Bully Beater, St Mary's Roman Catholic High School in Herefordshire, experienced an immediate surge in reports of bullying.
Schools using Bully Beater are making a powerful statement to the entire community that bullying will not be tolerated. Students can feel safer and parents can feel more at ease.
How Bully Beater works
It's a permanent, online, secure voting forum. It can include any type of survey or voting forum imaginable. However School Poll includes template polls which can be used to quickly open online forums with names like, The No Bullying Pledge, Bullying Issues and Opinions, Who's the School Bully? and Who's being Bullied? All polls provide ongoing, secure private forums for students to make their concerns known to the school authorities.1. The online anti-bullying pledge
Each student is invited to vote to confirm his or her pledge not to be a bully and to promptly report all bullying. Students and teachers can see the names of all who vote and the date of each student's last vote. People can vote again any time to reaffirm their pledge, the date stamp is updated automatically.
2. Who's the School Bully? and Who's being Bullied?
This poll produces an immediate and clear picture of bullying across the school, its extent and who is involved.
All student names appear in the forum listed alphabetically from the outset, which means no one is shamed.
The poll is visible only to students and nominated teachers. Any student can vote anywhere and at any time in privacy, knowing that only nominated teachers can see who gets voted for and who votes. However nominated teachers can see the names of people with votes, ranked by votes.
Teachers can also see which students voted and for whom by clicking the name of any student with votes. Students are told very clearly that their name is attached to their votes and that this is immediately visible to the school head. This method discourages malicious voting. However you can use anonymous voting if you wish.
3. Bully Issues and Opinions
This poll produces a continuous, live ranking of opinions or concerns about bullying in the school community.
The poll works like an online leaderboard of one-line opinions competing continuously for votes from people in the school community. The opinions are ranked live by votes, which means the big issues are visible at a glance. Users can vote again any time without corrupting the vote because only the last vote from each person is counted.
The votes and rankings can be transparent or suppressed from view and made visible to the school authorities only. Only authorized people are admitted to the forum. This could include all students, staff and parents.
The forum is interactive which means it harvests new opinions as well as votes. People can add to the voting agenda at any time by submitting a new opinion. These new opinions can be accepted for publication by a poll administrator with a single click and appear in the forum immediately where they then compete for votes. This forum can use anonymous voting. Alternately the school authorities can choose to see which opinions are voted for by each person.
Will your Bully Beater polls reduce bullying?
Bully Beater is a new invention. In time social researchers will quantify the extent to which the use of Bully Beater deters bullies simply because they know they are more likely be reported. However, in the absence of this research it appears obvious that this deterrent will have a marked impact even before any direct intervene by the school authorities.Helping schools report bullying
The technology can also be used to help school authorities report bullying incidents to education authorities and contribute to research.For a more detailed description of how the technology works see the School Poll home page.
