Part 3: From Silence to Solidarity

Series: “Not Safe Out There – Breaking the Cycle of Violence in Our Schools”

“When we teach children to protect themselves, we teach communities to protect each other.”

The Silence Is Loud

In every school, there are children who don’t speak.
Not because they have nothing to say –
but because they’ve learned that speaking up doesn’t change anything.

They’ve seen adults ignore bruises.
They’ve watched teachers turn away.
They’ve heard the silence after reporting abuse.

They’ve seen the bullies win, and come back triumphant

This silence is not passive.
It’s protective.
It’s survival.

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 Part 2: It Takes a Village

“Safeguarding doesn’t start with a policy because the Violence Doesn’t Usually Start at School

When a child lashes out, it’s rarely about the classroom.
It’s about what happened before they arrived:

• The fight they witnessed at home
• The silence after a parent walked out
• The hunger they didn’t mention
• The trauma they carry in their bones

We cannot talk about school violence without talking about home.
And we cannot talk about home without talking about the absence – of parents, of structure, of emotional safety.

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1: The Violence We Carry

I was a teacher at one of these two schools mentioned.

“Don’t leave the school yet, Miss. It’s not safe out there.”

That warning came from a student, breathless and wide-eyed, as he burst into my classroom one afternoon, within 10 minutes after the last bell had rung for the day.
Outside, motorbikes roared. Men with clubs and chains circled the school gates. A teacher’s car was smashed as he was driving out of the gates.

He was traumatised.

They were hunting a student – retaliation for a beating he’d orchestrated with some of his bouncer friends days earlier against a student of a nearby institution

That was 25 years ago.

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