National Pilot Tackles Bullying and Hate Crime in Schools Using Vantage’s Sentinel Solution

August 8, 2005 – As part of a National Pilot Scheme, led by Knowlsey MBC, Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council is to work with Vantage Technologies using Vantage’s Sentinel for Bullying software to help its efforts to combat bullying and hate crime in schools.

The pilot scheme – the first of its kind in the UK – is designed to enable participating Local Education Authorities (LEAs) to take a co-ordinated approach to tracking and managing instances of bullying, harassment and hate crimes. The LEAs involved in the national pilot will all employ Vantage’s Sentinel for Bullying - a web-enabled data capture tool that allows staff to report incidents into a central database, securely, over the Internet.

Sentinel for Bullying will help to address and manage instances of harassment and abuse within schools by effectively tracking and identifying bullying hotspots and repeat offenders. The program also flags up patterns in behaviour, an early warning mechanism that will enable LEAs to proactively address instances of bullying and draw up effective policies to tackle the cause.

A core advantage of the scheme is that by giving staff across the LEA, and participating schools, access to the same central database, not only is there an improved exchange of information, but also a more standardised and consistent method of reporting incidents. Its predefined format provides an effective template for best practice and means all incidents are reported accurately and in a standardised manner.

Rotherham LEA will run the pilot for one academic year, from September 2005 to July 2006. All 16 secondary schools and four of the largest primary schools within the LEA will be participating in the pilot, which will monitor and manage incidents of bullying and racial hate. Helen Longland, Acting Strategic Leader for Inclusion within Rotherham LEA said: "We are committed to ensuring that our schools continue to be safe places for every young person. As part of those efforts we are pleased to be involved in this national pilot which will provide us with more information about the causes of bullying and support our work to drive it out of our schools."

Rotherham LEA hopes to build on this pilot, if successful, by offering the scheme to all of its 121 schools. Helen Longland added: "We would like to be able to roll out this initiative across all our schools and possibly the wider community, to support the future development of Children and Young Peoples Services, if the pilot year proves to be a success.

With its easy-to-use Web browser interface, Sentinel for Bullying can be used to manage a full spectrum of issues including bullying, threatening behaviour, racial and homophobic hate crime and harassment. It gives the staff involved, secure and appropriate access to the same level of information, allowing accurate analysis and the production of trends relating to particular events or risk factors.

Sentinel’s modular nature means that it can record, analyse and help to process all types of incidents and related issues. The system also includes a full range of reporting facilities using predefined and ad-hoc report formats. A further benefit is the ability to audit transactions and usage – a vital consideration for compliance and accountability. Sentinel’s web interface also reduces IT deployment and management overheads and minimises training needs.


Vantage Technologies Limited
Vantage Technologies Limited is an IT services and solutions company, founded in 1988, specialising in the delivery of innovative software solutions for the improvement of working practice.

Vantage is active in a variety of market sectors including corporate, public sector, healthcare, police and institutions. Our product portfolio includes e-learning, nurse bank management, risk management and a range of web-based solutions.

For further information visit www.vantage-technologies.co.uk