This can be achieved by:

• recognising and valuing the role and contribution of staff, students and families in building and sustaining school connectedness
• respecting the diversity of the school community and implementing proactive strategies to build a cohesive and culturally safe school for all students*
• teaching, modelling and promoting values and behaviours that create and maintain supportive and safe learning environments, such as explicitly teaching social and emotional skills**
• fostering and maintaining positive, caring and respectful relationships among students and staff and between school and home
• engaging in professional learning to build staff capacity for preventing and responding to bullying behaviour
• having a shared understanding across the school community of what bullying is, and understanding how to prevent and respond to bullying behaviour
• promoting safe student upstander behaviour.

A strong focus on the explicit teaching of pro-social skills across the curriculum such as effective communication, relationship building, problem-solving and conflict resolution, helps develop skills to counter bullying. It also promotes a positive school culture that does not support aggressive or unfriendly behaviour, such as bullying.

A number of studies have shown that increased social and emotional competence is related to reductions in a variety of problem behaviours including bullying (Smith & Low 2013).

Social Emotional Learning programs can prevent bullying by helping students to develop skills in empathy, emotion management, social problem solving and social competence, all of which ‘can help orient youth toward more pro-social peer interaction and interpersonal problem solving, and provide students with strategies for coping effectively with peer challenges’ (Smith & Low 2013, p. 284).

Examples of international Social Emotional Learning programs include the United States Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL), which promotes the adoption of such programs in United States schools and produces a guide that identifies and rates evidence-based programs.

Visit the personal and social capabilities section of the Australian curriculum website.

_{* Examples of diversity within the student population include Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, students with disabilities and students with language backgrounds other than English. It also includes students from communities with low socio-economic status, students from rural and remote areas, refugees, those at risk of disengaging from school and students who can be disadvantaged by various forms of gender stereotyping. Inclusion of all students can be promoted and demonstrated by including student and parent voices in decision-making processes. Read more in the Bias-based bullying fact sheet (PDF 212.69KB).}

_{** Engaging students in activities that develop and encourage pro-social values such as responsibility, fairness, empathy and justice helps expand their understanding, improves the quality of social interactions with others and reduces bullying behaviour.}

Wellbeing contributes significantly to the learning and life outcomes of children and young people. Wellbeing is associated with better student outcomes from academic achievement to better mental health, and making responsible life choices.