Records of school bulling from 2022 to date

​Request ​748846038 

I am requesting the following recorded information related to bullying in schools in Jersey. 

I would like to request data for the period of 1st January 2022 to the most recent date for which data is available in 2025. 

Please provide the following statistics, broken down by calendar year (2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025 to date), and by school (both Government and otherwise, if such information is available): 

1. The total number of reported bullying incidents. 

2. The number of reported violent bullying incidents. Please define "violent" incidents as those involving physical contact, physical threats, or the use of a weapon. 

3. The number of reported non-violent bullying incidents. Please define "non-violent" incidents as those involving verbal, social, or online/cyberbullying. 

4. For both violent and non-violent incidents, a breakdown by the types of bullying recorded (e.g., physical, verbal, social exclusion, cyberbullying, etc.). 

5. The number of student exclusions from school as a result of a bullying incident. 

6. The number of reported bullying incidents that were referred to the police. 

Please note that I am requesting recorded data that already exists within the government's records. If any of the requested information is not held, please state that in your response. If the request is too broad, I would appreciate it if you could contact me to narrow it down. 

Response 

1 - 4 Government of Jersey schools record behaviour data within the School Information Management System (SIMS), and the data is available for the Children Young People, Education and Skills (CYPES) Informatics team yo query and report upon. However, due to differences in behaviour management, there is significant variation in the nature and number of behavioural incidents recorded across schools. Schools have their own behaviour management policies and therefore have the facility to create behaviour classifications in SIMS that suit their needs. Bullying, as a category, is not recorded within behavioural incidents consistently across Government of Jersey schools. Therefore, the data does not exist in a recorded format that can be extracted as requested. Article 3 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 is applied. 

5. Exclusions data is reported by academic year for Government of Jersey schools, the table below represents the total number of exclusion instances where the exclusion reason was ‘Bullying’. 

​Where numbers are fewer than 5, disclosure control is applied to avoid identification of individuals. Article 25 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 is applicable. 

Due to the small numbers involved, it is not possible to provide a breakdown by school as this could lead to the identification of individuals. Therefore Article 25 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 is applicable. 

6. There was a total of 5 reported bullying incidents referred to the police by the school across all Government of Jersey schools over the total period 1 January 2022 to 2025 (the date of the request). 

Due to the small numbers involved, it is not possible to provide a breakdown by school or by year as this could lead to the identification of individuals. Therefore Article 25 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 is applicable. 

Articles Applied 

Article 3 - Meaning of “information held by a public authority” 

For the purposes of this Law, information is held by a public authority if – 

(a)     it is held by the authority, otherwise than on behalf of another person; or 

(b)     it is held by another person on behalf of the authority.  

Article 25 - Personal information 

(1)    Information is absolutely exempt information if it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is the data subject as defined in the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2005. 

(2)     Information is absolutely exempt information if – 

(a)     it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is not the data subject as defined in the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018; and 

(b)     its supply to a member of the public would contravene any of the data protection principles, as defined in that Law. 

(3)   In determining for the purposes of this Article whether the lawfulness principle in Article 8(1)(a) of the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018 would be contravened by the disclosure of information, paragraph 5(1) of Schedule 2 to that Law (legitimate interests) is to be read as if sub-paragraph (b) (which disapplies the provision where the controller is a public authority) were omitted.