Treating bullying as everyone’s problem reduces incidence in primary schools
The largest trial of its kind in the UK, ‘Stand Together’ has shown how a low-cost, structured, anti-bullying programme improves social dynamics in primary schools and reduces victimisation.
The year-long trial of the KiVa school-based bullying prevention programme was implemented in over 100 primary schools in England and Wales and involved over 11,000 students. It significantly reduced incidents of bullying and was equally effective across socio-economically diverse schools and from small rural schools to large, urban ones.
Key findings:
- The KiVa intervention reduced bullying victimisation among students with KiVa schools reporting a 13% reduction in the odds of victimisation, compared with students from schools continuing with usual practice. KiVa was equally effective across socio-economically diverse schools, and from small, large and rural or urban ones.
- Students in the KiVa group were found to have significantly higher empathy and reduced peer problems.
- The trial included an embedded economic evaluation of the wider costs of bullying to schools and families and showed the annual ongoing costs of KiVa to be £1.65p per pupil more than usual practice.
Professor Judy Hutchings, from the Centre for Evidence Based Early Intervention at Bangor University, said:
“Bullying in childhood is one of the biggest risk factors for later mental health problems in childhood, adolescence and beyond. Unfortunately, it is widespread in UK schools; and while all schools are required to have a bullying policy, interventions are rarely evidence-based. The KiVa ‘whole school’ approach has had really significant effects on bullying in other countries because it focuses on everyone’s behaviour, and removes the social rewards usually gained by the perpetrators.”
The research, the largest randomised controlled trial of KiVa outside Finland, was funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) and involved 118 schools across England and Wales. Half of the schools adopted Kiva and half continued standard practice. Data were obtained from 11,111 pupils who filled in surveys about bullying, and from teacher-reported pupil behaviour on 11,571 pupils before and after the trial. The trial ran for a full academic year. However, KiVa is designed to be embedded into ongoing school practice and many schools have continued to use it.
More information about the KiVa school based anti-bullying programme can be found on these pages. For information about training for the programme, read our training pages.
Lucy Bowes, Professor of Psychopathology at the University of Oxford, said:
“Any improvement is worthwhile and even small percentage changes can have a substantial impact for those individual children and will cumulatively improve the situation in the school over time. The Finnish data show year-on-year improvements over seven years for schools that continue with the programme. Addressing bullying in schools is a major public health concern, and evaluating anti-bullying programmes used in our schools is vital.”
The project was led by Bangor University working with the Universities of Exeter, Oxford, Warwick, and Birmingham and the Centre for Trials Research, Cardiff University. The Children’s Early Intervention Trust charity has the UK KiVa dissemination license and organised intervention costs, training schools and implementation.
Reference
Bowes. L., Babu, M., Badger, J. R., Broome, M, R., Cannings-John, R., Clarkson, S., Coulman E., Edwards, R. T., Ford, T., .Hastings R. P., Hayes, R., Lugg-Widger, F., Owen-Jones, E., Patterson, P., Segrott, J., Sydenham, M., Townson, J., Watkins, R.C., .Whiteley, H., Williams, M.E., the Stand Together Team and Hutchings, J., (2024) The effects and costs of an anti-bullying programme (KiVa) in UK primary schools: a multicentre cluster randomised controlled trial. Psychological Medicine. Published online on 8th November 2024 DOI: 10.1017/S0033291724002666