Member's statement: Anti-Bullying Week
Member's statement by Mrs Michelle Guy on .
- MLA
- Mrs Michelle Guy
- Party at the time
- Alliance Party
- Date
- 11 November 2025
- Type
- Member's statement
- Business
- Members' Statements
- Heading
- Anti-Bullying Week
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5349069
Read the official Assembly record
Text
This week is Anti-Bullying Week, and its theme is "Power for Good". That is a challenge to us to act, so do not be a bystander in the face of bullying. Be the hero. Be the person who acts. I cannot stress enough the impact that the small act of kindness of reaching out to someone who feels isolated, hurt or damaged by bullying behaviours can have. Parents and teachers need to nurture that in our children, but they should also be an example to them. Those who are in leadership roles in particular have to walk the walk, not just talk the talk. Our schools should be inclusive and welcoming to all children, whose uniqueness should be celebrated. It may be hard to end bullying completely, because it is a complex area. Equally, however, we should not simply accept that it happens. I know from talking to experts that if we focus on embedding best practice in preventative work and on taking swift, decisive action when bullying incidents occur, we can really make a difference to young people's lives. Children and young people will look to see what action is taken if they are facing bullying. They will look to see whether there are signals that people are there to help them or whether they are on their own. Many schools are leading the way on that, but the Minister of Education and the Department can and should do more. They should use the theme "Power for Good" and act. We need an evaluation of the implementation of the Addressing Bullying in Schools Act (Northern Ireland) 2016 since its commencement in 2021. The Department needs to centralise and report, at a system level, the data that is being captured through bullying concern assessment forms in order to analyse trends and then respond with interventions. What good is capturing data if we are not going to do anything with it? We need investment in high-quality research in order to provide an accurate baseline assessment of the nature and extent of bullying in our schools. We need to ensure that schools have a dedicated and trained anti-bullying lead and that they have adequate protected time to dedicate to that important role. We need to ensure that all initial teacher-training education programmes include evidence-based content on addressing bullying in schools and that such content becomes a mandatory part of any future core content framework that is proposed through the TransformED Northern Ireland programme. I ask children and young people who are facing bullying please to speak up. I ask their friends who witness bullying please to speak up. I ask teachers, youth workers, parents and families, when children are reporting bullying, please to take them seriously. My message to the Education Minister is that more can and needs to be done to support our schools to deal with bullying. I am up for working together to do that.
486 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Assessment
Jev’s structured answers met the documented threshold for “not flagged”.
- Overall probability that the activity is being used to promote, exploit or escalate an identity-based controversy: 0.03 (flagging needs at least 0.70; at or below 0.30 is not flagged).
- None of the five culture-war criteria was met (each was below 0.60).
- Assessed as legitimate policy scrutiny (0.94).
- No identity-based framing was identified (0.98).
- The overall probability was at or below the not-flagging threshold.
This is an AI-generated assessment of the text, made against published criteria. It is not a finding of fact about the MLA or their intentions. The Assembly record itself is the fact.
Jev’s structured answers
| Question | Probability | Met? |
|---|---|---|
| Identity framing | 0.03 | No |
| Sectarian or communal antagonism | 0.02 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.02 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.02 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.02 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.94 | Yes |
| Overall judgement | 0.03 | At or below not-flagging threshold |
| Option | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-based framing (chosen) | 0.98 |
| Reports or questions it | 0.00 |
| Criticises or condemns it | 0.02 |
| Adopts it | 0.00 |
| Subject | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-related subject | 0.60 |
| Education structures, integration and community division | 0.24 |
| Gender, sexuality, abortion and related social issues | 0.10 |
| Sexism, misogyny, ageism and other equality groups | 0.03 |
| Sectarianism, hate crime and community relations | 0.01 |
Assessed 21 October 2026 at 13:37 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.
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