Preview above: Insight hears from students who have been bullied and the bullies themselves about how their school is stopping it. Stopping School Bullying, Tuesday March 26 at 8:30pm on SBS and SBS On Demand.
For Rachel Lynch, Principal of Yarra Hills Secondary College in outer Melbourne, the last 18 months have been challenging. Like most schools in Australia, bullying is an issue they deal with every week. But last year tensions in the playground got worse.
“Once we'd seen those increased tensions and the serious nature of bullying that was going on, we knew that we had to find a solution that wasn't just telling them to stop,” she says.
Around 10 per cent of the school’s students are from Chin State in Myanmar.
“Me and my family we came here as refugees from Malaysia,” says Year 10 student Chin Chin.
She says as the bullying increased, the playground began to split. “There was like a clash or a broken bridge between the non-Chin kids and the Chin kids.”
The 16 year old says she was also bullied online. “They were talking to a friend of mine, talking about me saying…how ugly I am thinking I'm so cool and that I'm a gangster.”
Some of the students from Yarra Hills Secondary College with principal, Rachel Lynch (pictured in middle) Source: Insight
Things escalated further when a physical fight broke out and that’s when the school implemented a unique program.
“We looked at what we had in place at the school first…like all schools we have a bullying policy but we realised that we didn't have anything around racism,” principal Lynch says.
They started a program to educate the different groups within the school about each other’s cultures and struggles.
“Like not being able to speak English very well and learning a completely new language,” says Thomas who took part in the program.
Chin Chin learnt that other students also struggled. “What I learnt about the non Chin kids was that they were actually going through a lot as well as us, but just in different ways,” she says.
Lynch says the program has changed the school. “Being able to walk out in the school yard now and see the way that they are talking to each other, talking to each other in the canteen line, sitting next to each other in classes, it's a real different feel at the school now.”
