Approaches to teaching during Anti-Bullying Week

Anti Bullying WeekWhether you have blond, brown or ginger hair or whether you are small or tall or maybe you’re into pop music or you’re a ‘Goth’. You may play football or prefer to play a guitar.

These aspects make us what we are, our characters, our personalities as individuals, each and every one of us are unique in some way. We may have things in common to others, but when you really compare each human being to the next there are far more differences than similarities.

17th - 21st November it is national ‘Anti-Bullying Week’ and so to assist teachers delivering lessons, here are a few ideas and resources that can be employed in order to engage students in this important subject area.

Bullying Classroom Discussions

We are all different, but what does that actually mean?
As a class discussion explore what the students believe is the meaning of that phrase and why differences such as those listed below may trigger bullying:

•Race, gender
•Hair colour, hair style
•Clothes we wear
•The things that interest us (Music, sport, drama, reading etc.)
•Where we live and who we live with.

Would we change?
Teachers could ask the students what they would do if they began to dislike their present hair style, the clothes that they were wearing or the music they were listening to, drawing from them the idea that these are things that they can choose to change, they are under their control. How do they think these changes would affect the behaviour of those around them?

What can't we change?
Teachers could then steer the discussion onto aspects that we can’t change about ourselves such as our skin colour, for example, the country where we were born, our sexuality, or disabiliities. These can often be triggers for bullies, but they are things that can't be changed. Why do bullies target these areas?

Dealing with bullies
How should students react if they are being bullied, they see someone being bullied or if they believe someone is being bullied? Should they walk away? Should they tell an adult? Should they step in and say something? Who should they tell? This could be a small group exercise with each group contributing their ideas to a class discussion.

Students could also be asked how they believe they should treat people and whether they should treat those with different skin colours, sexualities or disabilities etc. differently? Why is this important?

Cyber Bullying Competition


Internet Matters CompetitionInternet Matters is helping to raise awareness of the important issues of online respect and cyberbullying by launching an exciting competition with the Anti-Bullying Alliance. The competition asks schools to create their own song, rap or poem on the subject of being respectful to others online to generate important discussions of this issue amongst students, teachers and parents, both inside and outside the classroom. The winners will be chosen by a panel of judges including singer and Internet Matters ambassador, Sophie Ellis-Bextor. The winning Secondary school group will enjoy a special daytrip to Sky’s TV studios in West London where they’ll make their own film.

The competition is open until 28th November 2014 with a lesson plan and full details about how to enter on the Internet Matters website. Start getting creative!

Anti-bullying Assembly


At Teaching Resources Support (TRS), you can download an Anti-Bullying assembly plan which aims to encourage students to think about the consequences of bullying, helps them understand how to tackle bullying behaviour and provides guidance for those who witness others being bullied. This is available to all TRS members, simply login or join free and download the teacher script and PowerPoint presentation from your dashboard.

Written by Steve Gresty on November 06, 2014 12:24

How can Apprenticeship Week change our WRL and Enterprise teaching?

The week from 3rd – 7th March sees the seventh annual National Apprenticeship Week taking place, which celebrates how apprenticeships can change the lives of young people positively, particularly those that may not be academically orientated and, at the same time, benefit businesses and the economy.

National Apprenticeship week focuses on four themes, which are the main motivators for taking up Apprenticeships and defines a new era for them. For employers, they are:

• Quality – Apprenticeships are of a high standard and quality assured
• Growth – Apprenticeships create sustainable growth
• Pride – Where Apprenticeships engage in national awards and competitions they reward success
• Value – New funding and financial incentives are available for those organisations who take on apprentices

For young people, they are:

• Quality – Apprenticeships lead to excellent careers that have real progression pathways.
• Growth – Apprenticeships offer genuine personal development with over 250 skills and industries to choose from.
• Pride – Where Apprenticeships engage in national awards and competitions apprentices are recognised and rewarded for their success.
• Value – Apprentices get paid whilst attaining nationally recognised qualifications and work experience.

To assist teachers in drawing their students’ attention to National Apprenticeship Week and to apprenticeships in general, Teaching Resources UK have a number of lesson and assembly resources that teachers can use. These include:

• Work-related learning- these are a large collection of key stage 3 and 4 lesson resources highlighting a myriad of different aspects of the working and the workplace including titles such as:

o KS4 Behaviour in the workplace
o KS3 Work and wages
o KS4 How businesses work

• Enterprise - these are another large range of excellent lesson and assembly plans focusing on the concepts of success and failure of entrepreneurial ides. Titles include:

o KS3 What is enterprise?
o KS3 Economic ideas
o KS4 Financial risks in business

All these resources can assist educators in giving students a better idea of different aspects of the world of work and with the added focus of National Apprenticeship Week they will prove helpful and equip students with the information that will allow them to consider what areas of industry or business that they may wish to develop their careers in and what pathways they may wish to follow into those respective careers.

Written by Teaching Resources Support on February 25, 2014 16:53

How can Climate Week boost Citizenship teaching?

In the week between 3rd and 9th March, Britain’s biggest climate change campaign takes place, which hopes to ‘inspire a new wave of action to create a sustainable future’. Every year, 3000 events organised by schools, businesses, charities and councils are attended by up to half a million people hoping push the issue of climate change to the forefront of our minds. The organisers of ‘Climate Week’ want different groups and organisations to start planning events, no matter how small, in order to support the campaign.

This is a great opportunity to bring to the attention of your students issues and topics associated with climate change, conservation issues, conservation volunteering and sustainability. In order to help you deliver these subject areas, Teaching Resources UK offer some fantastic lesson resources and assembly plans appropriate for both key stage 3 and 4 students which are thought-provoking and engaging. They include:

• Climate Change Assembly - this is an excellent assembly plan that aims to clarify what is meant by climate change and to teach students about the disasters that have occurred already and whether they were as a result of a changing climate. The teaching resources include an assembly script and a PowerPoint presentation to aid the assembly.

• Conservation Volunteering Lesson - in this lesson students focus on their local and immediate environment, and how they might be able to improve it through the use of group work and worksheets.

• Conservation Issues Lesson - this lesson focuses on what exactly conservation means. Students investigate the major conservation issues using online, guided research, worksheets and group work.

• Sustainability Lesson – here your pupils will develop a better understanding of global warming and research issue of cause and effect. Students are encouraged to reflect on how changes can be made on a daily basis with regards to providing sustainability within environments.

The assembly and lesson plans are perfect for supporting climate week by introducing and explaining the complex and sometimes controversial issues and topic areas associated with climate change. Your students will then be interested and feel engaged and wish to contribute to the discussion and debate.

Written by Teaching Resources Support on February 17, 2014 12:03


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