Anti-Bullying Week – from 21 to 25 September – is focusing in 2020, with the theme Together in charge, on the norming phase; one of the phases within group dynamics. This is the phase in which joint agreements are recorded that provide direction for daily actions. At the beginning of the year, many schools establish rules and agreements, with or without jointly discussing with the students how to interact with one another and classroom rules. However, as is also shown in both films, the ‘unspoken’ or ‘unwritten’ rules are often just as important (and perhaps even more important!) as the agreed rules that are often recorded on paper.

“Education strives for a positive living environment where children know where they stand and feel safe. This also creates a pleasant learning environment.”

Peer pressure

You regularly see children joining in bullying under pressure from certain group rules, even though they do not want to or do not themselves have this intention. They do it anyway under pressure from the group. For example, because they want to belong. Rules and agreements such as ‘bullying is not allowed in this class or school’, ‘we are kind to one another’, and ‘we solve problems properly’ do not always prevent unwritten group rules from applying and the associated peer pressure from arising. If we think more about these unspoken rules and everyday school practice, we create more of the practice ground where the ideas and systems that shape our society are transparent and understood.

Getting started with unwritten rules

There are ways to investigate unwritten rules or unspoken policies.

At school level, you can ask the following questions:

  • How are ‘everyday’ decisions made at school?
  • Who takes action or does the work when these fall outside the agreements that have been made?
  • Whose voices, or what kinds of voices, are heard when a problem arises?
  • What is our initial response to students’ behavioural problems?
  • How are parents involved in our school’s decisions?

In the classroom:

  • Which student benefits from the agreements that have been made, and which student, for example, needs more guidance or a different approach in order to comply with and connect to the agreements that have been made?
  • How do students find out how to do well in my class?
  • Why is the classroom arrangement organised in a particular way?
  • Where is there room for students to discuss certain agreements and rules?
  • How does each student find room for their own voice in my class?
  • Can students identify unwritten rules?
  • Have students ever broken an unwritten rule, and how did that make them feel?

“If we make the unspoken rules within our schools visible, we can ask one another questions such as ‘who benefits from this behaviour?’, ‘Who experiences its disadvantages and is even harmed by it?’ and ‘How can we work together to ensure a safe environment for everyone?’”

In doing so, we endorse the reason why making agreements is so important: namely, that students feel and trust that they are seen, and that the school pays attention to and cares about everyone’s well-being and safety.