Guiding Principles
All young people involved in activities should follow this Code of Conduct. You must also be familiar with the steps to be taken in the event of any harm or risk of harm to yourself or other young people (which may include physical, sexual or emotional abuse, or neglect, harassment or bullying).
All young people involved in Activities should:
• Treat everyone with respect regardless of gender, ethnicity, disability, sexuality or religious beliefs.
• Act as a good role model of appropriate behaviour.
• Attend activities on time with the correct clothing and equipment.
• Obey all reasonable instructions or requests from leaders or other adults in authority.
• Not get involved with any abusive peer activities (e.g. initiation ceremonies, ridiculing, bullying, cyberbullying; sexting harassment etc.).
• Avoid any inappropriate physical, verbal, electronic or online contact with others.
• Look after the environment.
• Tell a trusted adult if you feel uncomfortable with any situation or individuals
Reporting a problem or concern
If you would like to report something please follow these steps:-
1. Speak to someone you trust as soon as you can.
This could be one of the Polaris Outdoor staff, a teacher, your group leader or any adult with your group.
2. This person should listen to you and may write down some notes to help you both remember the details.
3. This person will then take steps to help resolve the problem and may need to talk to other adults to get you the help that you need. They will keep you informed about what is going on throughout the process.
Bullying and harassment
Bullying and harassment can be very distressing, and lead to humiliation and embarrassment for both the victim and perpetrator. It can have serious long-term consequences.
Think very carefully about the possible consequences of your actions.
• If you feel you are being bullied (in person, by email or online) you need to talk to someone you trust.
• Never bully anyone or send any bullying or threatening messages. Anything you do, write, or send could be reported to an adult.
• Serious bullying should be reported to the police – for example threats of a physical or sexual nature.
• If you can, make a note of the time and date of any incidents of bullying.
• Keep and save any bullying messages, emails, text messages or images received. Note any details about the sender.
• Don’t reply to bullying or threatening messages or emails – this could make matters worse. It also lets the bullying people know that they have found a ‘live’ phone number or email address. They may get bored quite quickly if you ignore them.
• Don’t give out your personal details online – watch what you say about where you live and your school. All these things can help someone who wants to
harm you build up a picture about you.
• Don’t forward abusive texts, emails or images to anyone. You could be breaking the law just by forwarding them. If they are about you, keep them as evidence. If they are about someone else, delete them and don’t reply to the sender.
• Don’t ever give passwords to your mobile or email.
• Remember that sending abusive or threatening messages is against the law.