Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Chris Abercrombie: PPTA President on a national school bullying database

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Chris Abercrombie: PPTA President on a national school bullying database · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Now there's been a call for national reporting systems for
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  Speaker 1: bullying in schools. The Children's the Chief Children's Commissioner wants
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  Speaker 1: to see regular publicly reported data made available for all
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  Speaker 1: to see, but the Ministry of Education believes it should
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  Speaker 1: be left up to the individual schools themselves. That's despite
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  Speaker 1: a quarter of the Principles nationally saying they see physical
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  Speaker 1: harm or property damage every day. So I'm joined now
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  Speaker 1: by the PBTA president. It's Chris Abercrombie. Thank you for
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  Speaker 1: getting up for us. Chris, how are you good?
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  Speaker 2: All good?
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  Speaker 1: Are you in favor of a national reporting system?
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  Speaker 2: I'm not neussarily opposed to. The issue is with two
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  Speaker 2: and a half thousand south governing schools with two and
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  Speaker 2: a half thousand different definitions of bullying, So until we
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  Speaker 2: saw that out, you couldn't have a national database on
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  Speaker 2: the issue.
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  Speaker 1: So if there is to be a national reporting system,
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  Speaker 1: you want all these schools to actually coordinate the way
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  Speaker 1: they do things.
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  Speaker 2: Well, they'd just have to. I mean, I'm sure if
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  Speaker 2: we've got ten different people in a room, we have
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  Speaker 2: ten differents of what bullying is. And so until we
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  Speaker 2: get a shared understanding of what it is, until we
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  Speaker 2: all know then that you couldn't have a national database.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, but if we get it sorted, would a national
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  Speaker 1: database actually.
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  Speaker 2: Help well as the resourcing that came with it. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: there's all good measuring a problem, understanding an issue, but
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  Speaker 2: then it's the next thing to support it. There's no
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  Speaker 2: nationally coordinated or very few nationally coordinated programs to support
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  Speaker 2: schools to deal with bullying. Like you say, the ministry
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  Speaker 2: believes it's best to schools to deal with it, and
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  Speaker 2: we've got two and a half thousand different ways of
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  Speaker 2: doing that.
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  Speaker 1: Well, do you believe, because we've got so many different
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  Speaker 1: ways of reporting on it, that the bullying is actually
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  Speaker 1: being underreported in New Zealand.
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  Speaker 2: I don't know to say anything about that, but I did.
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  Speaker 2: What I do know is that if we do want
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  Speaker 2: to seriously deal with this, and are has reported it,
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  Speaker 2: and Piece has reported it, then we need to really
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  Speaker 2: get some national action on this. We do have what's
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  Speaker 2: called Positive Behavior for Learning program, but not all schools
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  Speaker 2: are part of it, and funding has been dropping for
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  Speaker 2: that for a number of years.
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  Speaker 1: So you're the president of the PPTA, would you you
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  Speaker 1: could possibly knock heads together and say let's come up
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  Speaker 1: with a standardized way of doing this.
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  Speaker 2: Well, I appreciate you think I can do all of that,
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  Speaker 2: but we can. I mean, well you all have a
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  Speaker 2: discussion about that. It was really really vital. I was
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  Speaker 2: believed when I was at school, so I know how
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  Speaker 2: devastating it can be for dealing with these kind of issues.
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  Speaker 2: So any support that we can do to God it
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  Speaker 2: and maybe the Children's Commission's call will click starut that
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  Speaker 2: idea good stuff.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you, Chris abber crumby the PPTA President. For more
• 2:34
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• 2:38
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• 2:41
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