Schools in Singapore to get more funding to tackle bullying

This is why new Character and Citizenship Education (CCE) lessons will incorporate role-playing and authentic scenarios about bullying for both primary and secondary school students, he added.

Through these lessons, students will practise perspective-taking, conflict management and resolution, and learn how to become upstanders who intervene against bullying.

During a Primary 3 CCE lesson that The Straits Times observed, pupils role-played a scenario of someone being left out of group activities.

Form teachers then got the pupils to reflect on how they would feel if they were the ones who were left out, and what they could do to help their peers in this situation.

Primary 3 pupil Chen Yuheng, eight, said such lessons involving role-playing make it easier to understand what being left out or being bullied looks and feels like, especially if a pupil has never encountered it before.

“If I just read about it, then it is just about someone doing the thing. When we act it out, then we can see the thing itself happening, so we understand it better,” he said.

His classmate, Toh Le Qi, eight, agreed, adding that role-playing also gives her more confidence to do the right thing instead of being a bystander.

Mr Lee said the idea of role-playing scenarios came from a parent who had attended one of the dialogue sessions for the bullying review.

“One of the parents said, when incidents happen in school, why not use those actual examples as educational material for our children,” Mr Lee recounted. “It becomes relevant to them, and salient, because it has happened in the school.”

Other upstream measures that will be implemented include age-appropriate training for peer support leaders to help shape school culture and address issues of hurtful behaviour and bullying.

The goal is to empower students to take responsibility and recognise their agency in creating a respectful and caring school environment, said the minister.

“It will then allow a stronger partnership between the teachers and the students, to be able to see more upstanding behaviour, to see our teachers alerted early about problems before they spill over,” added Mr Lee.

An MOE spokesperson said the majority of those consulted during the review agreed that addressing a complex issue like bullying requires coordinated efforts.

This means that besides schools, parents and the community also have roles to play in addressing bullying and promoting kindness.

Mr Lee said partnerships across the school, homes and wider society are key not just to manage and minimise student misconduct, but also to turn such incidents into teachable moments.

“Discipline is needed, but ultimately, it is an educative and restorative process that we want to incorporate firmly into the whole cycle of dealing with hurtful behaviour and bullying,” he added.

Ms Jacintha Sujatha, 42, a mother of two children in secondary and primary school, said that while consistent disciplinary measures across schools are a step in the right direction, they may not be effective deterrents for repeat offenders.

That being said, Ms Jacintha, who works in banking, said immersive strategies like role-playing during CCE lessons could shape upstanding behaviour in more students.

“This works because when you put kids in these situations hypothetically, they think from different perspectives. Some might reflect on whether not speaking up could mean looking out for their own interests, and whether that is helpful behaviour,” she said.

Emphasising the need for bullies to understand the impact and seriousness of their misconduct, Ms Jacintha said hiring “third party” staff to conduct investigations in schools could encourage students not to take the issue lightly.

“When teachers whom they have built relationships with conduct investigations and speak to parents, students may not be affected. But when it looks like the matter has been escalated to an external authority to handle, it could have a greater and long-term impact on ensuring they do not re-offend,” she said.