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Best buddies

Sue Carr
30/11/2005

BEST buddies came together on Wednesday to celebrate their success at preventing bullying in schools.

The event, which coincided with National Anti-Bullying Week, was held to recognise the success of the 'buddy scheme' which is run in eight Glossop primary schools.

Youngsters have to apply for the jobs of buddies and - once chosen - are trained in skills such as mediation to sort out problems in the playground.

Buddies are given special caps to make them easily identifiable to other children who are encouraged to talk to them about anything which is worrying them.

Boxer Ali Nuumbembe, mayor Bob McKeown and local police attended the special event for all buddies which took place at Gamesley Primary School.

Allyson Leak, co-ordinator of the buddy scheme at St James' Primary, said: "It was a fantastic morning. Ali talked to the children about friendship and how important it was and it was really inspiring.

"I think the scheme is an absolutely wonderful idea and it raises awareness with all the children that bullying is not acceptable.

"We used to have a 'bullying book' where we had to log all incidents of bullying in the school and they have really gone down since the buddy scheme was introduced."

The initiative is part of the ABC - or Anti-Bullying Campaign - scheme set up in 1996 to encourage schools to develop ideas to deal with and prevent bullying.

'Buddies' have been so successful in Derbyshire that other authorities are thinking about adopting the scheme as well.