Bullying is a commonly perceived issue in schools and is related to various negative outcomes for both bullies and their victims, including reduced psychosocial adjustment and mental health problems (Golmaryami et al., 2015). Defined as the intentional, repetitive act of aggression against an individual that is seen to be weaker and powerless to defend themselves (Golmaryami et al., 2015), bullying can take on many forms including verbal, physical and more recently, cyber-bullying. With approximately 40% of 10 to 16 year olds involved in bullying to some degree, and rates of bullying peaking between the sixth and eighth grades (Domino, 2013), whole-school focused social and emotional learning (SEL) programs such as Friendly Schools help adolescents …show more content…
(2011) found that as students transition from primary to high school, they lack the social-emotional competencies required to fully engage in school and this in turn negatively affects not only their academic performance, but also their behaviour and health. Research highlights the importance of schools in not only advancing students’ cognitive development, but also their social and emotional development. As such, it has been suggested that firm knowledge of social-emotional competencies is related to improved well-being and social skills, with students demonstrating greater empathy towards others, better decision making skills and the ability to take responsibility for their behaviour (Durlak et al., 2011). It is for this reason that many schools have chosen to adopt SEL programs which can be easily integrated into whole-school and classroom curriculums and taught by classroom teachers that provide consistency and an understanding of the individual students’ needs (Smith & Low, …show more content…
In building these five competencies within schools, Friendly Schools aims to produce students that have improved social skills, resilience and self-worth, as well as students who have the ability to resolve conflict and participate in team work (Friendly Schools, 2014). This has been successfully achieved in many schools using SEL programs to target bullying, but research has found that this is only the case in programs that are correctly implemented using sequenced training approaches, active forms of learning, that allow sufficient time for skill development and have explicit learning objectives (Durlak et al., 2011). Further research goes on to state that the effectiveness of these anti-bullying interventions is also reliant on other whole-school approaches which include not only clear policies and procedures, but greater student supervision and staff training in dealing with incidents of bullying (Smith & Low,