Pupils’ perceptions of safety at school

Abstract

The research reported in this article was carried out in four secondary schools, two with a peer support system (PS) and two without (NPS) and involved a total of 931 pupils, (49.5 per cent males, and 50.5 per cent females). Participants were aged between 11 and 15 years of age, mean age 12.8 years. The aim was to compare the perceptions of safety on the part of pupils in secondary schools with and without a system of peer support in place. The findings provided little evidence that the presence of a peer support system enhanced feelings of safety in the school population. On the positive side, PS pupils were slightly more aware of the value of having other people around as a means of enhancing feelings of safety. They were also less afraid of older pupils indicating that peer supporters may have influenced the attitudes of some older pupils towards younger peers and may have made them friendlier. However; for the PS pupils, toilets and corridors/stairs were less safe for them than for NPS pupils, largely because of the unpleasant actions of the peer group towards them. With specific regard to bullying, there was no difference between PS and NPS. Around one‐fifth of both PS and NPS pupils reported that the reason for feeling unsafe was because of bullying. The most common suggestions for making school a better place referred to action against bullying.

Keywords:

• peer support
• bullying
• school violence
• safety
• active participation of young people
• emotional health and wellbeing

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the pupils and teachers in the four schools for enabling this study to take place. We would also like to thank the two anonymous reviewers who provided helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper.