The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) partnered with the Youth Endowment Fund (YEF) to commission a series of research projects to identify effective approaches for supporting students at high risk of absenteeism and/​or exclusion and reduce their risk of involvement in violence. This study was funded through that programme.

Bullying remains a significant challenge in secondary schools and is linked to reduced attendance, lower wellbeing, and longer-term impacts on pupils’ mental health. Evidence suggests that whole-school approaches can reduce bullying when schools embed them across systems and practices, while targeted interventions can provide additional support for pupils most at risk. However, there is limited evidence on how to combine these approaches effectively within a single, scalable model. The EEF and the YEF co-funded this pilot to help address this gap.

The pilot findings show some early promise. The evaluation found that the programme led to improved staff and pupil awareness and understanding of bullying, as well as staff confidence in addressing it. Pupils demonstrated improved short-term recognition of bullying and bullying behaviours following the workshop, and schools made clear progress in strengthening their anti-bullying policies and practices. However, take-up of the targeted support for pupils most at risk was low, which limited opportunities to evaluate this element.

Attendance in participating schools appeared more stable than the typical year-on-year decline, but this finding should be interpreted cautiously due to the small sample size, study design limitations, and the absence of a comparison group. Using data collected from the Pupil Bullying and Wellbeing questionnaire as part of the programme, the evaluation tested whether there were any changes over time to bullying perpetration or victimisation, pupil emotional or behavioural or wider school experience outcomes. No changes were identified; however, it should be noted that the pilot was not designed or powered to detect changes in pupil outcomes so these findings should be interpreted with caution.

Reported levels of bullying indicated that that certain groups of pupils (notably, those identifying as Black or Mixed ethnicity, pupils eligible for FSM and pupils with SEND) experienced consistently higher rates of bullying victimisation. These findings highlight the different experiences of bullying across pupil groups although preliminary findings do not suggest that the programme affected these pupils differently.

Higher incidents rates, overall, may have been caused by improved understanding and clarifying processes leading to increased reporting, rather than reflecting a real increase in bullying. Whole-school changes to policies and practice may also take time to embed and translate into improved pupil outcomes. Limited changes in pupil outcomes may reflect low dosage, particularly within the targeted components.

Overall, the universal and whole-school elements functioned as intended and appear to have driven meaningful improvements in practice. In contrast, the targeted components require further refinement before robust evaluation. The EEF considers the universal elements feasible and acceptable for an efficacy trial.