Helping children to get along: teachers’ strategies for dealing with bullying in primary schools

This brief report describes a small scale qualitative interview study with primary school teachers in England, investigating their perceptions of bullying and strategies to prevent and manage it. Findings showed that much intervention work was situationally dependent, with teachers making subtle judgements about when and how to intervene. Prevention and intervention work centred on empathy development, and teaching children skills to help them nurture effective social relationships. We suggest that this holistic approach to bullying enables teachers to address multiple agendas aligned towards promoting children’s social and emotional learning.