Vaughan Couillault: Secondary Principals Association President addresses lack of national data on bullying in schools

One in four school principals claims to see harmful behaviour every day between students - and the Children’s Commissioner aims to address that.

The Chief Children’s Commissioner is calling for regular, publicly reported data about bullying in schools as teachers' unions voice concerns over 'blind spots' in the current system.

Secondary Principals Association President Vaughan Couillault says there's definitions of what constitutes bullying from experts - but it's hard to track and measure.

"When it comes to behaviour management and defining what bullying is, there's lots of grey spaces. Every little conflict is born of different stuff."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So one in four school principles claim to see harmful
behavior every day, and the Children's Commissioner now wants to
see this change. This is to do with bullying. The
Commissioner wants schools to regularly report and publicly share data
on bullying at school. In other words, keep a logbook
and then publish it. Secondary School's Principal Association President Vaughan

(00:23):
Quio is with me, Hi, Vaughn or how are you
yeah good? Thank you? Good idea bad idea? Or is
this just a pen pusher with a dumb idea? It
sounds sort of sounds like that.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Well, the good part of it is nobody wants to
see anyone bullied or hurt at school, right, So we've
got an obligation to make sure we get that right.
What challenging about it is it's not quite as easily
quantified as you might think, sort of like when you
were when you were talking about the Mayor's pool a
minute ago. It's not quite as easy as just judging
a money coming off the off that pontoon there. You

(00:56):
could apply some fairly simple rules in how high the splashes,
for example, but when it comes to when it comes
to behavior management, and defining what bullying is, there's lots
of gray space. Every little conflict is born of different stuff.
And of course when you look at say the bully
Free New Zealand website, there's clear definitions of what bullying is.

(01:16):
But it's it's deliberate, there's a power and balance, it
happens more than once. It's a it's a repetitive behavior
that's designed to cause harm. And we often confuse bullying
with just people not liking each other and having a
conflict that's relatively short lived or one off acts of
people being mean or rude. And so if we were

(01:37):
going to have a national data base, that's that's reporting
on that data in a public way or a way
of reporting that through our existing system, you have to
you'd have to have consistency across everybody, every teacher, every
data entry point.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
Too hard basket, Yeah, okay, all right, well we won't
do it then, I mean, why do we? So why
do we bother with these thanks job? Before we have
these reports? Then we have the Children's Commissioner coming out
and calling for regular reporting, and then we have the
pptiaga maut and join them. I mean, why don't we
just go back to teaching.

Speaker 2 (02:11):
Yeah, well there's that is an argument, right, but part
of the teaching is guest, there's literacy and numeracy, but
we're actually we're actually there is social engineers and trying
to teach people correct behavior as well. So it's a
bit cliche, but it does take everyone to raise a child,
and I think the the Children's Commissioner raising the issue
and causing a conversation to happen will sharpen people's focus

(02:32):
up around that, So that side of it is not
so bad. But you're not going to necessarily get anywhere
publicly reporting that my school has the worst bullying in
the country, because all it will happen is everyone will
flood away from my school and you've got a massive
Crown asset that's sitting empty on my campus.

Speaker 1 (02:48):
Do you think people might actually some of the schools
might actually under report because they don't want to look
at the bullies school.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
There's a significant disincentive to it, right, So you want
to make sure that you're first doing no harm. Very hypocratic, right,
and so you want to make sure that whatever solution
you put in place, actually the point is to stop
the bullying from happening, not expose this, that or the
other thing.

Speaker 1 (03:13):
Vaughan, what about there's lots of people messaging and saying
bullying is actually I mean, obviously someone's getting beaten to
within a into their life. No one wants to see that.
But a little bit of bullying is a good thing.
It orders kids, you know, A little.

Speaker 2 (03:26):
Bit of a little bit of a little bit of
banter is a good thing. There's quite a difference between
banter that you and I might have as friends when
we meet on Friday and hassle each other over our
working weeks and bullying. So remember, bullying is about an
imbalance of power and repetitive and so where there's an
imbalance of parents, not even I'm feeling subordinate to you,

(03:46):
and it doesn't I don't have a sense of social
justice or fineness around that. And so if we're talking
about bullying, a little bit of bullying is not okay.
Banter between mates is probably the thing that they're referring
to them if they think it might be.

Speaker 1 (03:57):
Okay, okay, all right, thank you very much. So that
really appreciate your time has always worn Creer with us
just gone fourteen minutes after four here on News Talks
ibb vauns from these secondary principles. Association, by the way, says,
don't worry about your log book for bullying, because what
is bullying anyway? Nine nine two is the number to text.

Speaker 2 (04:17):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (04:17):
I do think not bullying, but a little bit of
teasing and ribbing is just part of life, especially when
you're growing up, when you're that age. For more from
Hither Duplessy Alan Drive, listen live to news Talks ITB
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