Objective: Increasingly, researchers are required to obtain active parental consent prior to surveying children and adolescents in schools. This study assessed the potential bias present in a sample of actively consented students, and in the estimates of associations between variables obtained from this sample.Methods: 3,496 students from 36 non-government metropolitan schools completed an online baseline survey in 2010 as part of the Cyber Friendly Schools Project in Perth, WA. Students with active (35%) and passive (65%) parental consent were compared on a range of variables including demographic, bullying and social-emotional outcomes. The moderating effects of consent status on associations between the bullying and other outcomes were tested. Results:The students with active parental consent were underrepresented among those students involved in problem behaviours such as bullying others, they were also more likely to have lower prosocial scores and academic scores and live with one parent who was older than other parents.. Consent status was found to be a significant moderator of the associations between bullying victimisation and certain social-emotional variables. Conclusions and Implications:Active only parental consent leads to biased samples and estimates of associations between outcomes of interest. Strategies to boost response rates to levels sufficient to warrant the conduct of the research are labour-intensive and costly, and the obtained samples are still likely to be biased. For low risk research, such as the completion of health surveys, rigorous active-?passive consent procedures which result in higher participation rates, lower costs and reduced burden on teachers and schools, are preferred.

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Peer bullying increases in times of school transition, influenced by changing peer and friendship groups, new schooling environments and greater stress. Covert forms of bullying, including cyberbullying, become more common in secondary school and cause considerable distress and longterm harm. The period of transition to secondary school is therefore a critical window for intervening to manage and prevent bullying. A three-year cluster randomised control trial was conducted to develop, implement and evaluate the Friendly Schools Project intervention which aimed to reduce bullying and aggression among more than 3,000 students who had recently transitioned to secondary school.Intervention schools were provided with individualised training and resources to support students' transition and reduce bullying using a multi-level comprehensive intervention addressing classroom curriculum, school policies and procedures, the social and physical environment, pastoral care approaches and school-home-community links.Although the observed effect sizes were small, the intervention had a consistently significant positive effect across a range of outcomes, including bullying perpetration, 496 | CROSS et al.

Covert bullying behaviours are at least as distressing for young people as overt forms of bullying, but often remain unnoticed or unacknowledged by adults. This invisibility is increased in schools by inattention to covert bullying in policy and practice, and limited staff understanding and skill to address covert behaviours. These factors can lead to a school culture that appears to tolerate and thus inadvertently encourages covert bullying. This study explores these dynamics in Australian primary and secondary schools, including the attitudes of over 400 staff towards covert bullying, their understanding of covert bullying behaviours, and their perceived capacity to address these behaviours both individually and at a whole-school level. While most respondents felt a responsibility to intervene in bullying situations, nearly 70% strongly agreed with statements that staff need more training to address covert bullying. Only 10% of respondents described their current whole-school strategies as very effective in reducing covert bullying, and fewer than 40% reported their school had a bullying policy that explicitly referred to covert bullying. These results suggest an urgent need for sustainable professional development to enhance school staff understanding, skills and self-efficacy to address covert bullying through school policy and practice, and the need to identify and consolidate effective strategies to better address these behaviours.