Happiest Time in Our Life?

Anna rekun, year 8 WELLBEING COORDINATOR

Anna Rekun is the Wellbeing Coordinator for Year 8. She passionately believes in the GEMS Core Value of care, kindness, and giving. In this article, she discusses a malice which inflicts people of all ages, backgrounds, ethnicities, etc – bullying. Anna hopes to see a transformation in the world which enables every child to say with conviction that their time spent in school is indeed the happiest time of their lives.

School days should be a jovial time in a youngster's life, perhaps, the happiest time of their life. So what can make people's lives a misery during this time, then? In my opinion, there is one word which answers this question - bullying. Unfortunately, bullying is quite common in schools; one in five children have reported being bullied. It can affect students of any age, ethnic background and status, and both boys and girls but slightly higher portion of female than of male students report being bullied at school (24% vs. 17%). Students who experience bullying are at increased risk for depression, anxiety, sleep difficulties, lower academic achievement and discontinuing their scholastic journey. Students who are both targets of bullying and engage in bullying behavior are at greater risk for both mental health and behavior problems than students who only bully or are only bullied. Bullied students indicate that bullying has a negative effect on how they feel about themselves, their relationships with friends and family, their school work as well as their physical health as students who experience bullying are twice as likely as non-bullied peers to experience negative health effects such as headaches and stomach aches.

SO why do people bully?

There aren’t clear reasons for bullying. Most often people who aren't comfortable in their own skin can't stand to be around people who are or maybe, they target their victim because certain prejudices have been passed down through their family. Making sense of why kids bully others can help victims, teachers and parents alike better understand what is going on— and provide insights into how to stop it. While this does not in any way excuse the behavior, rarely is the bullying really about the person who is getting bullied. Instead, the behavior is often a reflection of the struggles the person who is bullying is going through.

We can say with pride that The Winchester School strives to be a safe place for all students by creating a bullying-free environment of acceptance, tolerance, compassion and diversity. On the other hand, any cases of misbehavior, such as any form of bullying, are swiftly and very firmly dealt with in the best interest of the students, meaning that not only would the bullied person be set free of their sufferings but also the school leaders and counselors would communicate with the bully to help them deduce and analyze the reasons for bullying. Moreover, the Winchester School allows students to anonymously share their burdens, worries and feeling and provides help by trusted professionals. All this helps in creating a safe space for all students. Hopefully, every school in each part of the world would take up zero tolerance proactive measures against bullying so that this menace can be a part of the past.