Students tackle bullying | Northern Rivers News | Local News in Northern Rivers

28th June 2007

BEATING THE BULLIES: St Josephs, Alstonville, Year 5 students Alyce Tozer (left) and Claire Hatchman with a DVD the school has

STUDENTS at St Joseph's School, Alstonville, have some words of advice for school kids who have a problem with being bullied, and they have been keen to share them.

The senior primary students at the school made a film about bullying in May and released it to 35 Catholic schools in the Lismore Diocese.

And assistant principal Tim Bleakley said the school had received positive feedback about the eight-minute film.

He said the biggest message the Alstonville children had to share was 'to walk away from a situation' and tell a teacher, but 'don't keep it to yourself'.

Mr Bleakley said the school didn't particularly have a bullying problem, but it was an issue that kept on being brought up. It was this publicity which was the motivation to make the DVD over a period of about four weeks.

"Unfortunately, bullying is an issue that every school has to deal with at some stage," Mr Bleakley said.

"The more we can bring it out in the open to talk about, the better schools will be at providing a safe, happy environment for all children."

The Alstonville students interviewed for the DVD were asked four questions: What is bullying? How does it make you feel? Why do people bully? And what can we do about it?

Mr Bleakley said the descriptions of behaviours the students saw as 'bullying', like leaving someone out of a game, could lead to other students looking at their own behaviours.

The DVD was produced by parent Alex Pavez from Dataka Productions.

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