What Do You Have Against Year Sevens?
Written By Joshua Hill
Allow me to pose a question to you. When it comes to the Year Sevens at Uni High, is there a bullying issue? The answer to this question comes (not unlike an onion) with a myriad of different layers and has the additional benefit of bringing to light a greater issue with the culture at Uni High, which needs to be addressed.
Whenever a student is in a situation where they are subject to any form of harassment, chances are that the instigators aren’t going to be going around talking about what they're doing, and depending on the situation, neither is the victim. Additionally, unless the bullying is happening online, there isn’t likely to be any empirical data like security camera footage to verify any witness testimony. And when the word of the people involved is all you are going off of, it becomes nigh impossible to figure out if anyone is telling the truth. Given this lack of credible evidence, one may find great difficulty in attempting to pinpoint specific instances in which a Year Seven has been directly targeted by an individual or group of bullies. (This includes both students from the upper year levels and other year sevens.)
That said, the results of a survey I conducted would imply that 56% of students at University High agree that there is most certainly an issue with targeted harassment. You would think that the awareness would be a good thing until you consider that 64% of those students think that either nothing should be done to help the Year Sevens or they should be kept out of high school until Year Eight.
There seems to be a large percentage of students that don't think that anything should be done to help ensure against bullying. If so many people don't care, who is this article for? I hope that I can convince those who are apathetic towards this issue to realise why this is something that matters and to hopefully make those who don’t think that anything is even going on, reconsider their stance and look a little closer at the things going on around them so that they can realise why younger students being bullied is an issue that they should care about.
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The first thing to address would be whether or not year sevens are dealing with bullying issues.
I spoke to some former Year Sevens to find out what their experiences were. Year Ten student Max Carelli claims to have been punched in the face by an older student when he was in Year Seven. He remarked that “Even though it wasn’t a good experience, it was a big wake up call for me.” He later elaborated on this saying that, “Year Sevens can come out of Year Six feeling overly confident, without realising that there are bigger kids. There is a lesson to be learned.” This is a sentiment that seems to be shared among many other students who believe that this type of bullying (which carries great potential to do severe psychological or physical damage to younger students), is just a part of the cycle of being a high school student.
While there may be certain merit to getting new students to realise that they aren’t the biggest fish in the metaphorical pond anymore, the line between helping somebody and damaging their mental state seems to have been crossed a bit too far, as it would be a severe lapse in judgement to claim that everybody who is or ever has been responsible for (for lack of a better term) bullying a younger student, has had the best of intentions. I feel it would be remiss to say that it is ever okay to punch a child in the face, even if you are one. Furthermore, if the slippery slope fallacy could think, it would likely agree with me in saying that no psychological or physical abuse is justified just because it may have resulted in at least some sort of positive outcome.
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The second thing to ask is why anyone should care? Well, allow me to change to a more persuasive tone to explain.
Well for one, if you aren’t a horrible person, you should probably be at least a little concerned about the well-being of others. And in a situation where a specific group of people is more likely to be targets of harassment or bullying, it is important to make sure that things don’t escalate. A primary school is a horrible place where bullying is most probably more ever-present than in most high schools, so when somebody who has been dealing with harassment comes out of primary school and into a new place which they not only have not to experience in but are also despised by many due to that lack of experience, it can lead to greater amounts of emotional and psychological stress which people at that age may struggle to deal with. But this is all pretty basic stuff - being mean is bad, so don’t do it.
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Let's look at it from a more selfish perspective for those of you who take issue with being told to use common human decency. Whenever you harass a younger student because of the issues you have with them (be it energy, personality, height, etc) you are making yourself look like a bumbling fool who doesn’t have the mental capacity or fortitude to properly deal with an annoying child. But besides making yourself look more mature, what can you gain from working towards a potential solution?
Think of it this way, if students and teachers alike can find a way of working together to create a more accepting environment, while also helping teach the newer students about what it takes to be an actual human being in a world where there will almost always be somebody (metaphorically speaking) larger than you are, it would create an environment where all of the students would be more respectful of each other and have to deal with less of a headache. The cyclical nature that seems to come with the current widespread mindset of ‘you need to go through some sort of life-changing “put you in your place” moment to become a decent human being’, just creates unnecessary tension and hassle for both groups.
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Now to return to the original question. When it comes to the Year Sevens at Uni High, is there a bullying issue? There most certainly is, and something needs to be done. And this isn’t a problem that can just be fixed by the students alone. The school will most certainly need to step up its game and for several reasons.
The way that the school is presented to parents is paramount. And yet, in the very first week of Term 2 2021, a parent by the name of Vanessa Sellick walked into the school canteen to see a younger student being held down and repeatedly punched in the gut as multiple older girls just stood around and watched.
So what does the school need to do to help going forward? First, they need an actual policy for dealing with individual instances of bullying. Having this policy is (under the Education and Training Reform Regulations 2017) a legal requirement for the school. It can either be a part of the School’s student engagement policy, or it can be its own separate thing. I asked one of the school's vice-principals to supply me with a copy of this document, but as of writing, I have not received a response.
Secondly, they need to put more effort into making students aware of the consequences of bullying. Currently, the only place that students are getting any information on bullying is in the student code of conduct where all that’s said is that it “Will not be tolerated”.
Hopefully, this article has given you some insight into this bullying issue. I’m fairly certain that some peoples opinions on the matter may not have changed (for better or worse). So if you have any questions, concerns or ideas that are relevant to the matter. Make sure to contact the school because it is their job, and legal obligation to ensure the safety and well being of students at Uni-High.
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