London Borough of Merton Joins National Campaign to Tackle Racism and Bullying in Schools

London council adopts internet-based approach to help eliminate racism and protect its 24,000 pupils.

(PRWEB) September 9, 2006 -- The London Borough of Merton has adopted an innovative, internet-based approach to tackling racism and bullying in its schools, allowing schools and the Borough to monitor incidents in real-time and provide effective, timely support for the Merton’s 24,000 pupils.

Merton has joined a growing number of local authorities across London and the UK using Vantage Technologies’ Sentinel Anti-Bullying software to identify and tackle racism and bullying in their schools.

As a key component in Merton’s Children and Young Person Plan, all 55 primary, secondary and special schools across the borough will be invited to take part in the initiative, which will run initially for the 2006–7 academic year.

By recording and monitoring incidents within schools, teaching staff and Borough officials will have a more thorough understanding of issues relating to racism and bullying, enabling them to develop strategies and to allocate resources more effectively to combat these issues in school.

Sentinel an internet-based solution which provides secure access to a confidential, computer database where authorised members of the teaching staff can report any instances of bullying. School management is then alerted in real time, so that support and remedial action can be applied quickly and effectively.

Merton looked at a range of solutions to address this need, including CD-ROM and paper-based approaches, all of which proved too labour-intensive in terms of training, installation and maintenance.

Sentinel will enable Merton and its schools to adopt a universal, Borough-wide approach to monitoring and eliminating racist and bullying incidents. As a secure, internet-based system, Sentinel uses existing computers and infrastructure and is an increasingly popular communication medium for staff and pupils.

Personal information about individuals involved in racism and bullying is restricted to authorised members of school staff. School management and designated Borough officials will have access to anonymous data collected within each school, in order to develop anti-racist and anti-bullying policies and to compile statistical reports to identify hotspots, trends in behaviour and the success of anti-bullying initiatives.

Michael Sutherland, Research and Information Manager at Merton Council said, “Sentinel is an extremely useful tool for individual schools and for the Borough as a whole – it will give us a valuable baseline of where work needs to be done and where we are having the most success in combating racism and bullying.”

“Better reporting means better understanding of the issues, enabling more effective intervention and better planning, helping to promote equality and eliminate bullying and racist incidents from our schools.”

Vantage Technologies Limited
Vantage Technologies Limited is an IT services and solutions company, founded in 1988, specialising in the delivery of innovative software solutions for the improvement of working practice. Vantage is active in a variety of market sectors including local authorities, healthcare, police and professional institutions. Its product portfolio of web-based solutions includes risk management, professional development and e-learning. For further information visit: www.vantage-technologies.co.uk

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