The 4 Ds: Practical Strategies for Becoming an Upstander
Written by Hannah Wilson
Founder and Director of the Belonging Effect (formerly Diverse Educators).
Recognising bullying is one thing. Knowing how to respond is another.
We need to equip children and adults with practical strategies that enable them to intervene safely, confidently and appropriately.
The 4 Ds of bystander intervention offer a useful framework for turning intention into action:
- Direct: Challenge the Behaviour
Where it is safe to do so, address the harmful behaviour directly.
This might mean challenging discriminatory language, naming an inappropriate comment or making it clear that someone’s behaviour is unacceptable.
For example: “That comment is not appropriate. We don’t speak to one another like that.”
Direct intervention requires confidence and judgement. We should never expect someone to confront a person if doing so could put them at risk.
- Distract: Interrupt the Situation
Sometimes the safest and most effective response is to interrupt the behaviour without directly confronting the person responsible.
This might involve changing the conversation, inviting someone to join another activity or creating an opportunity for the person experiencing bullying to leave the situation.
For example: “Come and sit with us” or “Can you help me with something?”
Small actions can disrupt harmful behaviours and communicate solidarity.
- Delegate: Seek Support from Others
Being an upstander does not mean managing every situation independently.
Sometimes the most appropriate action is to involve someone with the authority, experience or responsibility to intervene.
For children, this might mean approaching a trusted adult, teacher or safeguarding lead. For adults, it might involve reporting concerns to a line manager, senior leader or designated safeguarding professional.
Delegating is not avoiding responsibility. It is recognising when collective action is needed to protect someone from harm.
- Delay: Check In and Follow Up
Not every situation allows for immediate intervention.
Sometimes the safest response is to wait until the immediate incident has passed before offering support.
Checking in with someone who has experienced bullying, listening without judgement, acknowledging their experience and helping them access appropriate support can make a significant difference.
For example: “I saw what happened earlier. Are you okay? Would you like some support?”
Delayed intervention should not mean delayed safeguarding action. Where there is an immediate risk of harm, concerns must be escalated promptly.
Small Actions, Significant Impact
The 4 Ds remind us that being an upstander does not require a dramatic gesture or public confrontation. It requires us to notice, recognise and respond.
Different situations demand different responses, and we must always consider safety, relationships, power dynamics and the needs of the person experiencing harm.
We should also remember that responsibility for preventing bullying must never rest solely with those who witness it. Schools and organisations have a duty to establish the cultures, systems and safeguards that make intervention possible.
The question is not simply whether we have the courage to speak up. It is whether we have cultivated a culture where people feel safe enough to act, confident that their concerns will be heard and reassured that appropriate action will follow.
References:
Breaking the Silence Resources, University of Cambridge
https://www.breakingthesilence.cam.ac.uk/prevention-support/be-active-bystander
Right to Be
Anti-Bullying Week 2026 - Break the Silence: From Bystander to Upstander
Written by Hannah Wilson
Founder and Director of the Belonging Effect (formerly Diverse Educators).
Silence can be powerful. It can create space for reflection, listening and understanding. But silence can also be damaging. It can enable harmful behaviours, reinforce inequalities and leave people feeling isolated, invisible and unsafe.
This year’s Anti-Bullying Week theme, Break the Silence, invites us to reflect on the role we all play in recognising, challenging and preventing bullying. It asks us to consider not only the actions of those who bully, or the experiences of those who are bullied, but also the responsibility of those who witness bullying.
Because bullying does not happen in isolation. It happens within relationships, communities and cultures. And the responses of those around us can either reinforce harmful behaviours or help to disrupt them.
How do we move from being passive bystanders to active upstanders?
The Difference Between a Bystander and an Upstander
A bystander is someone who witnesses bullying, discrimination or harmful behaviour but does not intervene. Their silence may be motivated by fear, uncertainty, discomfort or a belief that someone else will take responsibility. Sometimes people simply do not recognise what they are witnessing as bullying.
An upstander, however, recognises when something is wrong and chooses to respond. Being an upstander does not necessarily mean confronting someone publicly or putting ourselves at risk. It can mean offering support, reporting concerns, challenging inappropriate language, checking in with someone who has been excluded or refusing to participate in behaviours that cause harm.
It means recognising that doing nothing is also a choice. Importantly, we must be careful not to judge those who remain silent without understanding why. Speaking up requires confidence, courage and, crucially, psychological safety.
For some children and adults, challenging bullying may expose them to further harm, exclusion or retaliation. Therefore, our responsibility as educators and leaders is not simply to tell people to speak up. It is to create cultures where they feel safe, supported and empowered to do so.
The Culture of Silence
Bullying can take many forms. It can be physical, verbal, relational or online. It can be overt and immediately recognisable, or subtle, persistent and difficult to identify. Sometimes it manifests through exclusion, rumours, humiliation, microaggressions or the repeated undermining of someone’s identity and sense of worth. And sometimes it is disguised as humour.
It was only a joke… They are just having a laugh… Don’t take it so personally… That’s just what children do… It was just banter…
These responses can minimise the experiences of those being harmed and normalise behaviours that should be challenged.
When harmful language or behaviour goes unchallenged, what message does that send?
- To the person experiencing bullying, silence may communicate that their experiences do not matter.
- To the person responsible, silence may suggest that their behaviour is acceptable.
- To those witnessing it, silence can establish an expectation that this is simply how things are.
Over time, these repeated moments shape the culture of a classroom, a staffroom, a school or an organisation. Culture is not only shaped by the behaviours we encourage. It is also shaped by the behaviours we tolerate.
Belonging, Psychological Safety and the Courage to Speak Up
At The Belonging Effect, we talk frequently about the importance of cultivating cultures where everyone feels seen, heard, valued and that they matter. But belonging must be more than a statement of intention:
- A child cannot experience genuine belonging if they are regularly excluded by their peers.
- A member of staff cannot feel psychologically safe if they witness discriminatory language but fear the consequences of challenging it.
- A parent/carer cannot feel valued if their concerns about bullying are dismissed or minimised.
Belonging requires us to pay attention not only to the experiences of individuals but also to the relationships, behaviours and systems that shape our communities.
Psychological safety plays an important role in this – when people trust that they can raise concerns, ask questions, challenge behaviours and seek help without being humiliated or punished, they are more likely to speak up. However, psychological safety does not mean avoiding discomfort or difficult conversations.
Sometimes speaking up requires us to experience discomfort in order to prevent harm to others. We need to cultivate the confidence to challenge with compassion, the curiosity to understand different perspectives and the courage to act when our values are tested.
From Awareness to Action: Five Ways to Cultivate Upstanders
If we want children and adults to become upstanders, we need to move beyond awareness campaigns and develop the knowledge, language, confidence and relationships that enable action.
- Recognise and name harmful behaviours
We cannot challenge what we do not recognise. Schools need to develop a shared understanding of bullying, including identity-based bullying, discriminatory language, relational aggression and online harassment. We should explore the difference between conflict, unkindness and bullying without minimising the harm caused by any of these behaviours. We also need to recognise how prejudice, stereotypes and power imbalances can shape experiences of bullying.
Reflective question: Are we confident that everyone in our school community understands what bullying looks, sounds and feels like?
- Give people the language to challenge
Speaking up can be difficult, particularly when we do not know what to say. We can explicitly teach and model language that enables children and adults to challenge harmful behaviours safely and respectfully.
For example:
- “That’s not okay.”
- “Why do you think that is funny?”
- “I don’t think they are comfortable with that.”
- “Would you like me to come with you to speak to someone?”
- “I noticed what happened. Are you okay?”
These small interventions can interrupt harmful behaviour, communicate solidarity and create opportunities for further conversations.
Reflective question: Are we giving our children and colleagues the language and confidence to challenge inappropriate behaviours?
- Create safe opportunities to report and seek support
We cannot expect people to break the silence if they do not trust what will happen when they do. Reporting systems need to be accessible, confidential where appropriate, responsive and consistently applied. Children and adults need to know who they can approach, how concerns will be addressed and what support will be available.
We must also recognise that some people may feel less confident reporting bullying because of previous experiences, power dynamics or a lack of trust in institutional responses.
Reflective question: How do we know that our reporting systems are experienced as safe and effective by everyone, particularly those who may already feel marginalised?
- Model upstander behaviour through leadership
Children learn as much from what adults do as from what adults say. When educators challenge discriminatory language, address exclusion, acknowledge mistakes and demonstrate accountability, they model the behaviours they want to cultivate.
The same applies to school leaders. We cannot expect pupils to challenge bullying if adults routinely overlook inappropriate behaviours within their own teams. Nor can we claim to value inclusion while avoiding difficult conversations about prejudice, privilege and power.
Reflective question: Are we consistently modelling the courage, compassion and accountability we expect from others?
- Build collective responsibility for belonging
Preventing bullying cannot be the responsibility of one designated safeguarding lead, pastoral team or anti-bullying ambassador. It must be a shared commitment across the whole school community.
We need to involve pupils, staff, parents and governors in shaping expectations, identifying barriers and evaluating the impact of our approaches.
Student voice is particularly important. Rather than assuming we understand children’s experiences, we need to listen to them:
- Who feels safe?
- Who feels excluded?
- Where does bullying happen?
- Who feels confident speaking up?
- And whose experiences might we be overlooking?
Reflective question: How are we moving from individual responsibility to collective accountability for creating a culture of belonging?
Breaking the Silence Is Not Always About Speaking Louder
There is an important distinction between encouraging people to speak up and placing the burden of challenging bullying on those who are already vulnerable. Not everyone has the same power, confidence or freedom to challenge harmful behaviours:
- Sometimes being an upstander means speaking on behalf of someone who has not been heard.
- Sometimes it means creating space for someone else to speak.
- Sometimes it means listening, believing, documenting, reporting or seeking support from someone with the authority to intervene.
- And sometimes it means recognising when our own silence has contributed to a culture we want to change.
We need to move away from the expectation that courage always looks like public confrontation.
Being an upstander is not about being the loudest voice in the room. It is about refusing to allow someone else’s voice to be silenced.
From Intention to Impact
Anti-Bullying Week provides an important opportunity to raise awareness, stimulate conversations and strengthen our collective commitment to preventing bullying. But the real measure of its success is what happens after the assemblies, workshops, displays and campaigns have finished:
- Are children more confident reporting concerns?
- Are staff more willing to challenge harmful behaviours?
- Are families confident that their voices will be heard?
- Are we noticing and responding to patterns of exclusion?
- Are those who have experienced bullying feeling safer, more supported and more connected to their communities?
- And, perhaps most importantly, how do we know?
If we are serious about cultivating belonging, we need to evaluate not only our intentions but also the lived experiences of those within our schools.
Breaking the silence is not a one-week commitment. It requires ongoing reflection, intentional action and collective accountability.
Final Reflections
As we mark Anti-Bullying Week 2026, perhaps we should challenge ourselves to move beyond asking children to be kind. Kindness matters, but preventing bullying also requires courage, accountability and action.
We need to teach children how to recognise injustice, challenge harmful behaviours, support others and seek help. We need to empower adults to model these behaviours consistently. And we need to cultivate school cultures where speaking up is encouraged, supported and valued.
So, we leave you with three questions:
- What are we currently witnessing but not challenging?
- Whose silence might be telling us something about the culture we have created?
- What will we do differently to ensure that everyone feels safe enough to speak up, and supported when they do so?
Because belonging is not simply about being welcomed into a community. It is about knowing that the community will stand alongside you when it matters.
This Anti-Bullying Week, let’s break the silence. Let’s move from being bystanders to becoming upstanders. And let’s shape our intention into impact.
Continue the Conversation
At The Belonging Effect, we work with schools and organisations to cultivate cultures of belonging through inclusive leadership, courageous conversations, psychological safety and collective accountability.
Explore our training, consultancy and resources at www.thebelongingeffect.co.uk.
The Belonging Effect: Shaping Intention into Impact.
Belonging in Practice: What Can We Learn from the DfE Research?
Written by Belonging Effect
Belonging Effect is committed to shaping intention into impact and supporting people with their Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, & Belonging strategy and training needs.
Part 1 of 7 | Shaping Intention into Impact
Belonging is not a bonus. It is the foundation.
As educators return from the October half-term break, there is an opportunity to pause, reflect and reconsider what really matters in our schools.
On 16th October 2026, the Department for Education (DfE) published its School Belonging Case Studies Research, a 90-page report exploring how schools cultivate a strong sense of belonging while maintaining high standards of attendance and attainment.
Commissioned by the DfE and conducted by Ipsos in partnership with TONIC, Professor Kathryn Riley and the Anna Freud Centre, the research draws on qualitative case studies from 16 mainstream schools, eight primary and eight secondary.
For those of us who have spent years advocating for belonging to be recognised as central to educational culture, leadership and practice, this is a welcome and significant contribution to the national conversation.
Perhaps the most important message in the report is not that belonging matters – we already know that. The real question is: How do we move from knowing that belonging matters to ensuring that belonging is experienced by everyone?
At The Belonging Effect, this is the challenge at the heart of our work: Shaping Intention into Impact.
Belonging Is Not an Initiative. It Is a Culture.
One of the most encouraging findings from the research is the recognition that belonging cannot be delivered through a single intervention, programme or initiative:
- It is cultivated through the relationships we build, the environments we create, the behaviours we model and the decisions we make.
- It is experienced in classrooms, corridors, playgrounds, staffrooms and school gates.
- It is reflected in our curriculum, policies, language, leadership and expectations.
- It is revealed in how people experience our school culture, not simply how we describe it.
Schools can have beautifully articulated values, compelling vision statements and ambitious inclusion strategies, but these intentions only become meaningful when they translate into the everyday experiences of pupils, staff and families.
Belonging is not what we say we offer. It is what people experience.
This distinction matters because a school can be welcoming without everyone feeling welcome. It can be inclusive in its intentions while some members of its community continue to experience exclusion.
Cultivating belonging therefore requires more than goodwill. It requires curiosity, courage, consistency and accountability.
Understanding the Five Dimensions of Belonging
The DfE research identifies five interconnected dimensions through which school leaders, staff and pupils understand belonging:
- Safety and Security
Belonging begins with feeling physically and psychologically safe. Pupils need to know that they can ask questions, make mistakes, express themselves and seek support without fear of humiliation or judgement.
- Inclusion
Every pupil needs opportunities to participate, contribute and experience success. Inclusion is not simply about being present. It is about being meaningfully involved and valued.
- Collective Identity
A shared sense of community, purpose and pride can strengthen belonging. However, collective identity must create space for individuality rather than require conformity.
- Individual Recognition
Every child deserves to be known, understood and valued as an individual. Their identities, strengths, interests, experiences and needs should be recognised rather than overlooked.
- Positive Relationships
Relationships underpin belonging. Connections between pupils, staff, leaders and families create the trust, care and mutual respect that enable school communities to flourish.
These five dimensions offer a useful framework for reflection. They also remind us that belonging is both individual and collective. We need to feel connected to a community while retaining the freedom to be ourselves. We should not have to compromise our identities to experience belonging.
From Belonging to Attendance and Attainment
The research also explores the relationship between belonging, attendance and attainment. School leaders, staff and pupils described a reciprocal relationship in which these experiences can reinforce one another.
When pupils feel connected to their school community, they may be more motivated to attend. Regular attendance creates opportunities to participate in learning, develop relationships and experience success. Positive experiences can, in turn, strengthen belonging.
This is an important connection, particularly within the current educational landscape, where attendance, engagement and attainment remain significant priorities. However, we need to be careful not to reduce belonging to a strategy for improving performance indicators.
Belonging has intrinsic value – children deserve to feel safe, accepted, respected and valued regardless of their attendance record, academic attainment or behaviour. Indeed, some of the pupils who experience the greatest barriers to attendance and attainment may be those who most urgently need schools to understand their experiences of belonging.
We must also remember that this qualitative research offers valuable insights into school practices and participants’ perceptions. It does not establish that belonging interventions directly cause improvements in attendance or attainment.
The relationship is complex, contextual and deserving of continued exploration. Nevertheless, the findings reinforce an important principle: high expectations and a strong sense of belonging are not competing priorities. When high expectations are accompanied by appropriate support, compassion and a genuine belief in every child’s potential, they can communicate care rather than exclusion.
Belonging Is Everyone’s Responsibility
Another important message from the research is that belonging cannot sit solely with the senior leadership team, the SENDCo, the pastoral team or the designated inclusion lead. It must become a shared responsibility.
Every interaction has the potential to strengthen or undermine someone’s sense of belonging:
- The way a teacher welcomes a pupil into a classroom.
- The way a teaching assistant responds to a child experiencing difficulty.
- The way a leader listens to a colleague who raises a concern.
- The way a school responds to discriminatory language or behaviour.
- The way families are invited to contribute to decisions that affect their children.
These moments matter – and while leadership establishes the conditions, culture is ultimately shaped by the collective behaviours of the whole school community.
This includes the adults – we cannot meaningfully cultivate belonging for pupils without considering the belonging of the staff who teach, support and care for them. If we expect educators to create psychologically safe, compassionate and inclusive environments, we must also consider whether they experience these conditions themselves. Staff belonging is not an optional extra. It is an essential part of whole-school belonging.
Six Areas of Practice Worth Exploring
The DfE research identifies six themes of practice that schools use to strengthen belonging:
- Relational practices: Intentionally building and sustaining positive, trusting relationships throughout the school community.
- Pupil voice and agency: Creating meaningful opportunities for pupils to influence decisions and contribute to their school culture.
- Celebrating diversity and challenging discrimination: Ensuring that identities, cultures and experiences are represented, respected and celebrated while actively challenging prejudice and exclusion.
- Cultivating a strong school identity: Developing shared values, traditions and communities that create connection and collective pride.
- Individualised approaches: Recognising individual needs and removing barriers to participation, engagement and success.
- Belonging beyond the school gates: Strengthening connections with families, communities and wider partnerships.
What strikes us is that these practices are not particularly revolutionary – many schools will recognise elements of their existing work within them. The challenge is not necessarily knowing what to do – it is understanding how consistently, equitably and effectively these practices are experienced across our school communities. And, perhaps most importantly, recognising who may still be excluded despite our best intentions.
Introducing Our Seven-Week Series: Belonging in Practice
Over the next seven weeks, The Belonging Effect will explore the findings from the DfE research and consider what they mean for school leaders, educators and wider school communities.
Each Monday, we will examine an area of practice, connect the research to the realities of school life and share practical questions to encourage reflection and action. We will celebrate promising practice, challenge assumptions and explore how belonging can be intentionally cultivated, strengthened and evaluated.
We believe there is no universal blueprint for belonging – every school has its own context, culture, history, community and challenges. What works in one setting may not transfer directly to another, but the underlying commitment should remain consistent: creating school communities in which everyone has the opportunity to feel safe, included, recognised, connected and valued.
Things to Consider This Week
As you return to school after half-term, we invite you to reflect on three questions.
- Who belongs?
When we say that everyone belongs in our school, what evidence do we have that this is genuinely experienced by all pupils, staff and families?
- Whose voices are missing?
Who might experience our school culture differently from how we intend it to be experienced? Whose perspectives have we not yet heard, understood or acted upon?
- What could we change?
What is one intentional action we could take this week to strengthen belonging within our sphere of influence?
Perhaps it is a conversation we have been avoiding, a relationship we need to repair, a voice we need to amplify or a practice we need to reconsider.
Small actions, consistently applied, can contribute to meaningful cultural change.
Final Reflections
The publication of this research provides an important opportunity for schools to revisit their understanding of belonging and reflect on the cultures they are creating, but research alone does not change culture. People do – through their leadership, relationships, language, behaviours, decisions and willingness to listen, learn and act.
Cultivating belonging is not a project to complete or a destination to reach. It is an ongoing commitment to understanding how our school communities are experienced and having the courage to respond to what we discover.
As we begin this series, perhaps the most important question is not simply whether belonging matters. It is whether we are prepared to make the changes necessary to ensure that everyone experiences it, because belonging should never be left to chance. It must be cultivated with intention, sustained through action and evaluated through impact.
Continue the Conversation
At The Belonging Effect, we support schools and organisations to cultivate inclusive cultures where belonging can be experienced, strengthened and measured by all stakeholders.
Our mantra is Shaping Intention into Impact.
Join us next Monday as we explore Belonging Begins with Relationships, considering how trust, psychological safety and connection shape the experiences of pupils and staff.
Reference
Department for Education (2026). School Belonging Case Studies Research. Research conducted by Ipsos in partnership with TONIC, Professor Kathryn Riley and the Anna Freud Centre.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-belonging-case-studies-research
Find out more about our work at www.thebelongingeffect.co.uk.