Primary Headteachers, teachers and practitioners in funded...

PrimarySocial and emotional aspectsof learning – Cymru

Theme 3 Say no to bullying Years 3 and 4

Headteachers, teachers

and practitioners in

funded Foundation Phase

settings, primary schools,

special schools, and

local authority and

Children’s Services staff

Date of issue: 09-2010

Ref: 1341-2010-WALES

Disclaimer

The Department for Children, Education, Lifelong Learning and Skills wishes to make it clear that the Department and its agents accept no responsibility for the actual content of any materials suggested as information sources in this publication, whether these are in the form of printed publications or on a website.

In these materials icons, logos, software products and websites are used for contextual and practical reasons. Their use should not be interpreted as an endorsement of particular companies or their products.

The websites referred to in these materials existed at the time of publishing. Please check all website references carefully to see if they have changed and substitute other references where appropriate.

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© Crown copyright 2010 Say no to bullying Years 3 and 4

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Yellow set

Introduction

This theme aims to develop and revisit four of the key social and emotional aspects oflearning covered in previous themes, through a focus on bullying – what it is; how it feels;why people bully; how we can prevent and respond to it; and how children can use theirsocial, emotional and behavioural skills to tackle this crucial problem. The four aspects oflearning in which skills, knowledge and understanding are developed are:

• self-awareness

• empathy

• managing feelings

• social skills.

The intended learning outcomes for Years 3 and 4 are described below. Teachers will beaware of the different stages that pupils in the class may be at in their learning, and mayalso want to draw on intended learning outcomes from the Blue and Green sets.

Intended learning outcomes

Description Intended learning outcomes

Pupils will have revisited the key features ofbullying situations and added to their knowledgeof different types of bullying. This theme setfocuses particularly on the person or people whowitness bullying. Pupils will know how witnessescan make things worse or better. They will haveexplored their feelings (and how these may bedifferent from the public ‘front’). The pupils’empathy will have been developed for those whoare bullied. All pupils will have been encouragedto help make the school a ‘telling’ school, and todevelop a range of strategies for supporting oneanother, including using their friendship andcommunication skills. Reasons why it issometimes difficult to ‘tell’ will have beenexplored, and more subtle forms of bullyingbehaviours discussed. Pupils will have hadopportunities for using problem-solving skills togenerate solutions, decide on a course of action,implement it and review. Social skills andindividual responsibility will have been revisited inthe creation of a class charter to prevent bullyingbehaviours.

I can tell you what bullying is.I know what it means to be a witness to bullying.I know that witnesses can make the situation betteror worse by what they do.I know how it might feel to be a witness to and atarget of bullying.I can tell you why witnesses sometimes join in withbullying or don’t tell.I can tell you some ways of helping to makesomeone who is bullied feel better.I know that sometimes bullying is hard to spot and I know what to do if I think it is going on but I amnot sure.I can problem solve a bullying situation with others.

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Say no to bullying Years 3 and 4 © Crown copyright 2010

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Links to the curriculum

There are opportunities to develop social and emotional aspects of learning (SEAL)throughout the school curriculum in Wales.

Personal and social education framework for 7 to 19-year-olds in Wales

These are the particular links with the Key Stage 2 learning outcomes of the Personal andsocial education framework for 7 to 19-year-olds in Wales.

Note: Whilst SEAL has the potential to contribute to personal and social education (PSE) atKey Stage 2, it must be stressed that for PSE to be broad and balanced other componentsfrom both Skills and Range also need to be addressed within the schools’ planned PSEprogramme.

Skills

Developing thinking

Learners should be given opportunities to:

• identify links between cause and effect

• distinguish between ‘facts’, beliefs and opinions

• form personal opinions and make informed decisions

• use appropriate techniques for personal reflection.

Developing communication


• listen carefully, question and respond to others

• express their views and ideas confidently through a range of appropriate methods

• contribute to class discussions and take part in debates.

Working with others


• work cooperatively to solve problems

• make and maintain friendships and other relationships

• resist unwanted peer pressure and behaviour

• empathise with others’ experiences and feelings

• manage different emotions and develop strategies to resolve conflict and deal withbullying

• ask for personal support and advice.

Improving own learning

• experience various learning styles and recognise the ways in which they learn best

• apply learning to similar situations within school

• develop practical skills necessary for everyday life.

Range

Active citizenship


• develop respect for themselves and others

• value families and friends as a source of mutual support

• value diversity and recognise the importance of equality of opportunity

and to understand:

• their rights, e.g. the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and responsibilities

• the benefits of families and friends and the issues that can arise

• situations which produce conflict and the nature of bullying

• how injustice and inequality affect people’s lives.

Health and emotional well-being


• take increasing responsibility for keeping the mind and body safe and healthy

• feel positive about themselves and be sensitive towards the feelings of others

and to understand:

• the range of their own and others’ feelings and emotions

• what to do or to whom to go when feeling unsafe.

Moral and spiritual development


• explore their personal values

• to be honest and fair and have respect for rules, the law and authority

and to understand:

• that people differ in what they believe is right and wrong

• that personal actions have consequences.

Preparing for lifelong learning


• enjoy and value learning and achievements

• take increasing responsibility for their learning.

Skills framework for 3 to 19-year-olds in Wales

These activities provide many opportunities for pupils to develop the thinking andcommunication skills outlined in the Skills framework for 3 to 19-year-olds in Wales. Theseare the particular links within this set.

Developing thinking across the curriculum

Plan

Asking questions

Activating prior skills, knowledge and understanding

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Gathering information

Determining the process/method and strategy

Develop

Generating and developing ideas

Valuing errors and unexpected outcomes

Entrepreneurial thinking

Thinking about cause and effect and making inferences

Thinking logically and seeking patterns

Forming opinions and making decisions

Reflect

Reviewing outcomes and success criteria

Reviewing the process/method

Evaluate own learning and thinking

Linking and lateral thinking

Developing communication across the curriculum

Oracy

Developing information and ideas

Presenting information and ideas

Reading

Locating, selecting and using information using reading strategies

Responding to what has been read

Writing

Organising ideas and information

Wider communication skills

Communicating ideas and emotions

Communicating information

Planning

To help with planning, the type of learning and teaching involved in each learningopportunity in these materials is indicated by icons in the left-hand margin.

Ideas from schools are noted in the right-hand margin of this book. The ideasinclude ways in which teachers planned for diversity in their class or group, forexample, to support the learning of pupils with language acquisition or additionallearning needs.

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Whole class

Individual

Pairs

Small group

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Key vocabulary (to be introduced within the theme and across the curriculum)

witness speaking out audience

leader peer pressure ‘telling school’

Key points from the assembly/group time

1. Laura has been the target of bullying behaviours by Natasha and her friendsfor a long time. She feels really unhappy and does not want to go to school.

2. At last she tells her teacher, and writes down how she feels, so that herteacher can tell Natasha and her friends.

3. The teacher meets with Natasha and her friends and reads them what Laurahas written. They feel very uncomfortable and say they didn’t realise. She asksthem what they will do to make things better for Laura and they each taketurns to think of something.

4. Laura is happy in school now – Natasha and her friends have stopped usingbullying behaviours and Natasha even asks her if she would like to playsometimes.

5. In the playground we see another child who is the target of bullying behavioursfrom two different children.

Suggested whole-school focus for noticing and celebrating

achievement

Using the school’s usual means of celebration (praise, notes to the pupil andparents/guardians, certificates, peer nominations, etc.), children could be putforward for a variety of awards during the week, to be given out at the celebrationassembly. These should be given for such behaviours as being kind to someonewho was feeling left out, being a good friend/listener, refusing to join in withunkind behaviour, sharing a personal experience and so on.

It is important to signpost confidential sources of information, advice and supportto pupils. See suggestions in the Purple set (page 7).

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Yellow set: Year 3

Pre-assembly work: what is bullying?

Ask the pupils what they know about bullying. Have a thought shower (recap onrules for thought showering) and remind them of work they may have done onthis before. Scribe their ideas.

They are likely to give answers about what they think bullying is, examples ofwhen it has happened and how it makes people feel. These could be written inthree separate columns, labelled: ‘About bullying’, ‘Examples of bullying’ and‘How it makes people feel’. It is likely that you will get suggestions which are notexamples of bullying. Write these down too. If they are not offered, give thefollowing two examples yourself.

• Sumran and his gang of friends leave Josef out from all the playground gamesof football, even though Josef really wants to play. Sumran never says hedoesn’t want him to play, just that there are too many in the team, he’s toolate, he plays in the wrong position and so on.

• Liz has an argument with her friend Shipa and they end up pulling each other’shair and clothes in the playground, until Shipa’s new shalwar kameez is tornand she tells the teacher.

Draw out from the pupil’s suggestions the key features of bullying.

1. It does not just happen once; it goes on over time and happens again andagain – it is repeated. Point out relevant words which the pupils have used,such as ‘every day’, ‘again and again’, ‘all the time’, etc.

2. It is deliberate – hurting someone on purpose – it is not accidentally hurtingsomeone. Use the Accidental or on purpose? resource sheet (see page 29Blue Set) to help them understand this distinction.

3. It is unfair – the person doing the bullying is stronger or more powerful (orthere are more of them), and, even if they are enjoying it, the person they arebullying is not.

Go through the two examples you offered above and ‘think out loud’, using thethree criteria above. Ask the pupils to decide whether another example is or is notbullying, by ‘thinking out loud’ in the same way that you did.

Ask them to get into groups and think about which situations are or are notbullying. Remind them of the rules for working in groups. Compare the groups’responses after a set time.

Give the pupils, in their groups, a large piece of flip chart paper or similar and askthem to write the words ‘Bullying is … ’ in the centre. Each group should thengenerate as many examples of bullying behaviours as they can think of, recordthem, and think of a definition of bullying.

Take the pupils’ definition of bullying to the assembly.

Intended learning outcome

I can tell you what bullying is.

We developed thisidea and askedpupils to createdrawings,information postersand catchy phrasesto ‘capture’ theessence of thecharacteristics ofbullying. We useddigital photos,publishing softwareand their definitionsto create a leafletabout bullying forparents/guardians.Some pupils alsotranslated the textinto a number ofcommunitylanguages and theleaflets went hometo allparents/guardians.

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Post-assembly work

Activity for personal and social education

Objectives

• To understand the role of witnesses in bullying

• To understand what we can do if we witness bullying

Observation skills

All the pupils should sit in a circle. One pupil should then volunteer to go outside.The remaining pupils should then choose a leader. This person’s job is to start offa particular movement or change of position which all the others have to copy,but without letting the volunteer know who the leader is. After a practice to makesure they all understand the game (you may need to practise a range ofmovements and positions with the class before sending out the volunteer), thevolunteer should rejoin the circle. Their task is to watch carefully to see if they canspot who the leader is. They have three or four chances. If they guess incorrectly,the person they choose is ‘out’ and does not join in any more, thereby narrowingthe field. If the volunteer doesn’t identify the leader they should be congratulatedon continuing to try and for staying calm.

Rounds

In this game I learned …

When I see one pupil being cruel to another I feel …

When I see one pupil being cruel to someone else I wish I could …



I know what it means to be a witness to bullying.

I know that witnesses can make the situation better or worse by what they do.

I know how it might feel to be a witness to and a target of bullying.

I can tell you why witnesses sometimes join in with bullying or don’t tell.

I can tell you some ways of helping to make someone who is bullied feelbetter.

I know that sometimes bullying is hard to spot and I know what to do if Ithink it is going on but I am not sure.

I can problem solve a bullying situation with others.

Activity

Recap on the assembly story (see pages 5–10 of the theme Overview), thendiscuss the following with the pupils.

• What is a witness? (Someone who sees something happen.)

• Who were the witnesses in the assembly story? (The ones that copiedNatasha and joined in, the ones who stood around and watched.)

• Which pupils made things worse? (If the they don’t identify the witnesses,express your view that the witnesses did make things worse.)

• How can doing nothing make things worse?

Ask them to role-play the Laura scenario from the assembly story by choosingone pupil to be Laura, one to be Natasha, one to be Alex, some to be thechildren joining in and some to be the witnesses. (Alex can choose what he isdoing at the time when Laura is being bullied.)

Use freeze-frame and thought-tracking techniques. The pupils should take turnsto say what they are thinking but, when it is Laura and Natasha’s turns, youshould ask what they think about what the witnesses are doing.

You might need to add the thought that Laura and Alex believe:

• nobody cares about them

• they are not an important part of the group

• it’s OK for this to happen to children.

You might need to suggest that the children doing the bullying think:

• it’s OK to do it/nobody thinks it’s wrong

• the witnesses think they are clever.

Witnesses who do nothing are making the pupil who is bullied feel worse. Theyare making the people doing the bullying feel better, or at least OK about whatthey are doing.

Discuss the following with the pupils:

• Why do witnesses do nothing? (If they do not give any reasons for this, youmight give your own thoughts, perhaps drawing on the information sheetsincluded in the Purple set on pages 16 and 17.)

• How do we encourage witnesses to tell?

Often pupils do not take action or tell a teacher because they fear being labelleda ‘tell-tale’. In order to become a ‘telling’ school, ensure that they equate bullyingto other situations in which they would automatically intervene or tell an adult(where someone is getting hurt, for example, by falling over, rather than asituation in which a pupil is committing a misdemeanour and someone is tellingto ‘drop them in it’ or get them into trouble).

Ask the pupils to write a list or draw the situations in which they wouldautomatically tell a teacher or get help.

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How can we change the role that witnesses have as well as encouraging them totell? What can we do in school? Ask them, in groups, to thought shower ideas forchanging the role of witnesses. Examples could include:

• choosing not to watch and walking away (taking away the audience)

• being kind to the person being bullied at another time

• telling the person being bullied that you don’t like the bullying and asking themif you can do anything (tell someone or go with them to tell someone)

• telling the children doing the bullying that you don’t like it and to stop doing it(but only if this feels safe to do)

• ‘scooping up’ the pupil by taking them by the arm and saying something like‘Come on, we need you for our game’ (again, only if it feels safe to do so).

Pupils can use these ideas in role plays if there is time to do so. Alternatively, theycould create a class book or posters about ‘What to do if you see bullyinghappening … ’.

Do The safe school challenge from the theme Overview (page 11).

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Our pupils usedtheir role plays andposters to create apresentation for aparents’ evening on‘What you can do ifyou see bullying’.

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Other follow-up suggestions

Activity 1

The picture The Fight by LS Lowry is provided in the Whole-school resource file.This shows two men fighting overlooked by a number of bystanders. Ask thepupils to come up with as many things as possible that the witnesses might do.Choose one of the suggestions (e.g. join in the fight) and ask:

• What might they be thinking? How might they be feeling?

• How might this action affect the different characters?

• What might happen next?

• If this happened, what might the scene look like two minutes later?

• What might happen when they went home? What would their family think?

Ask the pupils, in groups, to take another of the possible ways that people mightreact and ask the same five questions for this response. Ask the groups toappoint two spokespeople to report on their discussion to the rest of the class.Invite comment, encouraging them to say whether they agree or disagree with theviews expressed. Draw their attention to the sort of language used to discusspossibilities linked to possible consequences. They can reflect on their use ofconditional forms and ways to signal that outcomes are unknown, predicted or inthe future.

This could then be used as a stimulus for creative work on the topic of witnessingbullying.

Some suggestions are:

• develop a dance and include a central fight sequence and movement to suggest the attitudes and actions of the bystanders

• produce pictures to depict the faces of onlookers using a variety of different art medium

• develop a drama/film sequence through the eyes of the witnesses to the fight.

Activity 2

An activity based upon the stimulus poem ‘Samantha-Jayne’ by Gervase Phinnfrom the Year 3 resource sheets on page 12.

Another sort of witnessing is the sort we all do every day – seeing someone sador left out or not having anyone to play with. Often we see, but we walk past andget on with our own lives. This poem can be used to explore this sort ofwitnessing.

Read the poem, exploring the use of language to create impact (or atmosphere), andask pupils for their thoughts about the poem and about Samantha-Jayne’s possiblefeelings. Then ask them to get into groups and to put themselves in the positionof the other pupils in the playground/class/school, using the problem-solvingstrategy to find ways of ensuring that Samantha-Jayne is included. Emphasise theimportance of a single act of kindness, and of having one friend.

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The witness action that makes the most impact is being kind or befriending achild who is left out (excluded). If appropriate, share the following piece of writingby a boy who was deeply unhappy and wrote this message in his diary:

(Reproduced from the Japan Quarterly in No bullying starts today by Barbara Maines, Jane Sleigh and George Robinson (Lucky Duck Publishing) ISBN 187394201X.)

Activity 3

Investigate the story of The Good Samaritan. Recreate the story in a modern context through drama, exploring the feelings of those who witnessed what happened and their reasons for choosing whether or not to do anything to help.

Activity 4

This activity aims to help pupils to use problem-solving strategies to try to stopbullying behaviour.

Look at (or draw) a map of the school grounds and the surrounding area. Identifydifferent areas and what they are used for. Discuss the places in and aroundschool where bullying happens as far as the they know. Devise a questionnaire forother year groups to ask where they have experienced bullying happening. Usequestionnaires to collect information from older and younger pupils.

Collate the resulting information and discuss how to present it, for example,colour-coding for number of instances, bar charts, using a computer with asimple graphing program to enter and display data. Mark the results on a map ofthe school and surrounding area.

Discuss what the pupils have found out. Why are some areas more prone toattracting bullying behaviour than others? Were any of the places surprising?Discuss how this information could be used by the school to prevent bullying.Pass the information to the appropriate people for action.

Questions for reflection and enquiry

• How can we know what is the right thing to do?

• Should we always be free to do what we want to do?

• Are some people wicked and some people good?

• Can we make people change?

Day after day I go to school and only bad things happen. Nothing goodever happens to me. If the kids in my class could be in my shoes theywould understand how I feel. If only they knew how I feel every day. Evenin my dreams there are nothing but bad things.

The only one I can talk to is the hamster, but the hamster can’t speakback. I can’t stop the tears now. There was one, only one, thing I wanted… a friend I could talk to, really talk to from the heart. Just one friend likethat, only one, was all I wanted.

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Ongoing activities

Ask the pupils to watch TV programmes and/or popular cartoons and to look outfor bullying situations. What was the incident? What witnesses were there? Whatdid they do? Did this make things better or worse?

Keep the safe school charter, or other ideas from The safe school challenge fromthe Theme overview (see page 11), displayed in the classroom and refer to howwell we are doing to make our school a safe place.

Provide opportunities for pupils to communicate about how they feel if people arebeing cruel to them. This might be as a class group in circle time. Use journalsand encourage them to feel free to express their feelings, fears and worries.

Be aware of any pupil who seems unhappy or reluctant to go out to play. Provideopportunities for them to be alone with you – for example, doing a job.

Provide a safe place for them to go when they have no one to play with or don’tfeel well.

Introduce playground buddies into the playground.

Allocate a seat in the playground for pupils who want to sit and chat or have noone to play with.

Nominate a midday supervisor or a rota of older pupils to arrange playgroundgames.

Review

Ask pupils the following questions. Give them time to talk to a partner beforeasking for responses.

• Is it ever right to think ‘it’s none of my business’ when you see someone beingunkind to someone else?

• What should you do if you witness a bullying situation and you don’t like theperson being bullied?

Ask whether they think that any of their ideas have changed since they begantheir work on bullying. Ask: ‘In what way?’ and ‘Why do you think your ideas havechanged?’.

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Yellow set resource sheet: Year 3

Samantha-Jayne

Nobody speaks to Samantha-Jayne,The silent child with the fancy name,Who comes to school with hair a mess,And milk stains down her dirty dress,Who wears a coat that’s far too small,And stands alone by the playground wall.

Nobody plays with Samantha-Jayne,Who lives with her mum down Leadmill Lane,In a run-down flat that’s dark and smelly,Who spends her nights glued to the telly, And sleeps in a bed that’s damp and cold, In a dark little room that’s full of mould.

Nobody cares about Samantha-Jayne,Who walks to school in wind and rain,With her unwashed face and hair a mess,And her coat too small and her dirty dress,With the tight little mouth and the frightened stare.No one, no one is there to care.

Samantha-Jayne, Samantha-Jayne,Oh, what do you dream of, Samantha-Jayne,As you walk to school all aloneOr stand in the playground on your own?

Do you dream of friends with whom to play,To help you through the lonely day?Do you dream of arms to hold you tightTo help you through the lonely night?

Gervase Phinn

‘Samantha-Jayne’ by Gervase Phinn, from It Takes One To Know One(2001 Penguin) ISBN 0141309016

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Yellow set: Year 4

Pre-assembly work: what is bullying?

Ask the pupils what they know about bullying. Have a thought shower (recap onrules for thought showering) and remind them of work they may have done onthis before).

Scribe their ideas under three headings: the key features of bullying; examples ofwhen it has happened or types of bullying behaviours; and how it makes peoplefeel. It may be that you will get suggestions that are not examples of bullying.Scribe these regardless and, if a similar example is not offered, give the followingexample yourself:

• Gemma and Dafydd are both in Year 6. They have never got on and do notspeak to each other. They are both in the school football team and spendevery match insulting each other and ‘accidentally’ hurting each other, irritatingthe other players and teams.

Remind the pupils of the key features of bullying.

1. It is ongoing.

2. It is deliberate. It is not accidentally hurting someone or upsetting them bysomething you say.

3. It is not an ‘even’ or ‘fair’ situation. There is an imbalance of power – theperson/people doing the bullying is/are stronger or there are more of them, orthey have ‘influence’ or some sort of power.

Go through one of the examples you have been offered, or have added, and‘think out loud’ using the three criteria above. Ask the pupils to decide whetheranother example is or is not bullying, by ‘thinking out loud’ in the same way thatyou did.

Ask them to get into groups and think about which situations are or are notbullying. Ask each group to write a ‘dictionary definition’ of bullying. Compare thegroups’ responses after a set time.

Give them, in their groups, a large piece of flip chart paper or similar and askthem to write the words ‘Bullying is …’ in the centre. Each group should thengenerate as many examples of bullying behaviours as they can think of andrecord them.

They should take their definitions and examples of bullying to the assembly.

Intended learning outcome


Some of our pupilshad difficulty withthe abstractconcepts involvedhere, so we usedthe Is it bullying?Year 1 picture fromthe resource sheetsto support theirthinking.

I used conceptmapping to introducethis concept. I wroteBullying on thewhiteboard. Then Iasked talk pairs totalk for a minutebefore writing ordrawing somethingabout bullying on asticky note andsticking it on theboard. Finally, I askedone group toorganise all the stickynotes and explaintheir reasoning asthey went along. Weleft the concept mapup in the classroomthroughout the weekand, each morning, Iasked if anyonewanted to add to themap and then askedanother group todecide about thelayout and explain itto the rest of theclass. During theweek, as theylearned more aboutbullying, the conceptmap changed andexpanded.

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Post-assembly work

Activity for personal and social education

Rounds

I really feel part of a group when I am ... (at home, at the mosque, with myfriends at playtime, etc.)

A time I felt left out was when …

Observation Skills

This game involves the pupils sitting in pairs. One of each pair should adopt apose and the other then has 30 seconds to look carefully and remember thepose. The observers should then turn their back (or leave the room for 30seconds) and the person adopting the pose should change one aspect veryslightly (for example, if they had their legs crossed, they could cross them theopposite way). The observer’s job is to spot what has changed. The partnersthen swap roles.


I know what it means to be a witness to bullying.

I know that witnesses can make the situation better or worse by what they do.

I know how it might feel to be a witness to and a target of bullying.

I can tell you why witnesses sometimes join in with bullying or don’t tell.

I can tell you some ways of helping to make someone who is bullied feelbetter.

I know that sometimes bullying is hard to spot and I know what to do if Ithink it is going on but I am not sure.

I can problem solve a bullying situation with others.

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Activity 1

Read the stimulus text Pauline’s story from the resource sheets (see page 21),using the pictures provided as a support.

• Ask the pupils if they consider this incident to be an example of bullying andwhy (recapping on the three core conditions of bullying: that it is intentional;that it is ongoing; that there is a power difference).

• Ask them to think about who is involved in the bullying. Ensure that all areclear about the three parties: the people doing the bullying; the people whoare bullied; the witnesses or bystanders. Relate this to the assembly story.

• Remind them that bullying rarely takes place in complete secrecy and thattheir year group is thinking about the role of those who witness bullyingbehaviour.

• Ask them what role the rest of the class play for the children bullying Pauline.Children often use bullying behaviour in front of an audience (witnesses)because they think it will impress others. This can be linked in the later activityto the fact that one thing that witnesses can do is to refuse to fulfil this role.

The pupils, in groups or as a class, can discuss whether they agree with thefollowing statements relating to the story, and why. If in a circle, you could askthem to stand up and change places if they agree, then stand up and changeplaces if they disagree.

Alternatively they could line up along an imaginary (or chalked) line on the floor,positioning themselves according to how strongly they agree or disagree witheach statement. If there is time, ask them to talk to someone who haspositioned themselves differently, listening to why they hold that view, andarguing their own position.

‘We were only having a bit of fun. Some people just can’t take a joke. That’sPauline’s trouble.’ (children who are bullying)

‘Pauline should learn to laugh at herself more.’ (witness)

‘It’s not really that bad, is it – I mean there’s much worse bullying wherepeople get really hurt.’ (witness)

Pupils may need reminding that it is hard for outsiders to judge the severity ofbullying – it is the constant anticipation or dread that can make even ‘a lookacross the classroom’ a serious bullying behaviour.

‘It’s part and parcel of life – we just have to accept it as a normal part ofgrowing up.’ (witness)

‘I don’t like it but nothing I do is going to make a difference.’ (witness)

‘I make sure I don’t bully – other than that it’s not really my business, is it?’(witness)

‘Pauline would probably have been able to come back to school if she hadhad at least one friend, or if one person had tried to be kind to her.’

‘I knew I would have to join in.’ (author)

‘Bullying affects everyone – not just the person being bullied.’

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Ask the pupils what the statement, ‘if you’re not part of the solution, you’re partof the problem’, means.

Re-read the story, changing the words after the line ‘I knew I would have to joinin’ to ‘Then one person shouted out “Stop it! Why are you being so unkind?”There was a moment’s silence and then …’.

Discuss what might have happened and how each party would have felt. Theycould use individual whiteboards to write or draw their alternative endings to thestory. Pose the following questions.

• Why is it hard to speak out against something when everyone seems to be joining in? (Remind pupils of the earlier question about the role which the audience plays for children who are bullying.)

• When would it be possible or feel safe to speak out directly to the children doing the bullying? Talk about the role of the witness in ‘becoming part of thesolution’. Stress that not everyone is in a situation where they can speak out but that there are other things that can be done to stop the bullying. Get pupil’s ideas on what witnesses could do. Puplis may need some pointers to begin with. The key strategies are:

– ‘go and get help from an adult’ and ‘tell an adult’

– talk to people you trust about how it makes you feel

– use the problem-solving process with friends to work out what you could do

– befriend the person or be kind to them. This last option should be stressed as it makes a key difference to bullied children.

A further idea is for the pupils, in groups, to devise a quiz to use with other classes. One idea for such a quiz would involve the pupils making up a numberof scenarios which may or may not be bullying (including some that involvesubtle bullying and that would require further observation and detective work).They could then ask the question: ‘What would you do if you witnessed thisscene?’ They could offer multiple-choice answers.

The stimulus text (Pauline’s story from the resource sheets, page 21) is writtenfrom the point of view of a witness. Ask the pupils to write diary entries for theday of the incident, both from the perspective of the ringleader of the childrendoing the bullying and also from Pauline’s perspective. Ask the followingquestions.

• What characteristics did the witness, ringleader and Pauline show?

• What dilemmas and issues did these characters face and how did they dealwith them?

• What feelings might each have recorded?

Some of our less-confident pupilsreally enjoyedtaking the quiz intoother classes, andto their homes – itseemed to givethem theconfidence to talkin a group in a waythat they hadn’tbeen able to dobefore.

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Other follow-up suggestions

Activity 1

The pupils could create role plays showing the classroom scene outlined in thestimulus text (Pauline’s story from the resource sheets, page 21), showing it fromthree different perspectives: the one described by the witness; from the point ofview of Pauline, the child who is bullied; and from the point of view of the childrendoing the bullying.

Thought-tracking and hot-seating techniques can be used to uncover themotivations and feelings of the children whose perspective is the focus. Thepupils can watch each other’s performances and discuss how their peers usedfacial expressions and body language to signify the attitudes of differentcharacters.

They could also be asked to make up (or write about) their own scenes, forexample:

• Pauline’s conversation with her parents when she returned home from schoolthat day

or

• You are one of the ‘witnesses’ and you bump into Pauline a few years later.You want to apologise for what happened. How might the conversation go?

Activity 2

Arrange figures in a double portrait to represent two people in the story aboutPauline or the assembly bullying story (for example; child doing the bullying andbullied child; witness and bullied child; witness and child doing the bullying),showing their feelings and relationship through the composition.

The pupils can use this activity as the basis of a poster to encourage witnessesto tell and seek help when they see bullying behaviour.

Prepare them for making their posters by asking them ‘Why don’t people “tell”about bullying they see?’ Ask how many reasons they can come up with. If theydon’t come up with the idea of peer pressure, introduce it as a reason – perhapsby explaining that sometimes we do things we don’t want to do because of whatwe think our friends will think about us, or because our friends tell us to do thingsthat we don’t really want to do. Ask the question: ‘Can we use peer pressure tomake our school a safer place where bullying doesn’t happen?’

You might also need to say that another reason why people don’t always tell isthat some bullying is very subtle, so it is not always easy to know if a situation isbullying or not. Sometimes a ‘look’ across the classroom can be bullying.Sometimes leaving someone out can be bullying. Ask: ‘What can you do if youare not sure if bullying is happening?’ and ‘What questions can help you todecide?’. (For example: ‘Does it keep happening?’, ‘Is the person on thereceiving end feeling bad about it?’, ‘Who seems to have the power in thesituation?’) Encourage them to think about what bullying might look like or soundlike. Ask where it is likely to be happening; how we can be on the look-out forpeople who are unhappy at school; and how we can help.

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The idea of feelingsand behaviour beingdifferent was reallyhard for one boy inmy class (who isautistic) to grasp.We focused insteadon a practical planfor him to follow(three questions hecould ask, plustelling a teacher).

The pupils could use the ideas generated by their answers to the questionsabove to design striking and effective posters, for example showing what bullyingmight look like in the subtle forms it can take, including leaving children out, andwhat it might sound like (for example, a poster of ‘put-downs’ in speech bubbles).

Activity 3

Year 5 pupils will be using an interactive story resource as part of their work onbullying. This Whole-school resource file they will use allows them to click on acharacter in the story and read about the character’s thoughts and feelings. Youcould organise a small group of Year 5 pupils, familiar with the interactive textprovided on the Whole-school resource file, to work with groups of your pupils todiscuss the role of the witnesses in the text. Although the witnesses’ thoughtsand feelings cannot be accessed in the same way as those of the children doingthe bullying and the children who are bullied, your pupils can be taught by theYear 5 pupils to use the relevant part of the interactive text, and can ask the olderpupils how they think the witnesses might have been feeling underneath theiroutward behaviours.

The public behaviour of witnesses is often at odds with private thoughts andfeelings. Many witnesses may be feeling uncomfortable with what is going on. Ifyou feel uncomfortable you will not be alone.

Activity 4

The pupils may like to add to the classroom charter ideas about combatingbullying. You could base this on ‘rights’ and ‘responsibilities’.

Ask groups to come up with rights that will make the classroom a safe place, free from bullying behaviours.

For each right that they come up with, have them decide on the responsibility thataccompanies it; for example if the right is for everyone to be respected equally,then the responsibility is to respect others. Select key rights and responsibilitiesusing a simple decision-making strategy, suitable for the pupil’s age. You couldlink this to your school anti-bullying charter, by having a small group of pupils fromthe class act as signatories for the whole-school charter.

Do The safe school challenge from the theme Overview (page 11).

Questions for reflection and enquiry

• Can you change things by doing nothing?

• Can you change another person’s behaviour?

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Ongoing activities

Ask the pupils to watch out for examples of people witnessing bullying situationson TV programmes. What did the witnesses do? Did anyone challenge the peopledoing the bullying? What happened? What else could they have done? Were thewitnesses ‘part of the problem’ or ‘part of the solution’?

Keep the safe school charter or other ideas from The safe school challenge fromthe theme Overview (page 11) displayed in the classroom, and refer to how wellwe are doing to make our school a safe place.

Provide opportunities for pupils to communicate about how they feel if people arebeing cruel to them. This might be as a class group in circle time. Use journalsand encourage pupils to feel free to express their feelings, fears and worries.

Be aware of any pupil who seems unhappy or reluctant to go out to play. Provideopportunities for them to be alone with you, for example, doing a job.

Provide a safe place for them to go to when they have no one to play with ordon’t feel well.

Introduce playground buddies into the playground.

Allocate a seat in the playground for pupils who want to sit and chat or have noone to play with.

Nominate a midday supervisor or a rota of older pupils to arrange playgroundgames.

Review

Ask the pupils the following questions, giving them time to talk in pairs beforeasking for a response.

• What does it feel like to be a witness?

• If you do nothing are you making the situation better, worse or leaving it thesame?

• Why do you think that most bullying takes place in front of witnesses?

• What can witnesses do?

Ask whether they think that any of their ideas have changed since they begantheir work on bullying. ‘In what way?’ ‘Why do you think your ideas havechanged?’

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Yellow set resource sheet: Year 4

Pauline’s story

When I was in Year 5, there was a girl called Pauline in my class. Some of the

loudest and most popular girls in the class seemed to have it in for her from the

beginning – I was never quite sure why. I think her uniform always looked a bit of

a mess (but then so did other people’s and they didn’t get picked on). She was

really quite unremarkable – I don’t ever remember her doing anything

particularly annoying. Anyway she never seemed to make any particular friends

and I didn’t have much to do with her because I had other friends in the class and

we didn’t really get involved, although we knew she was picked on a bit. One day

the teacher didn’t turn up for registration and the girls who picked on her grabbed

her PE bag and took out her PE kit. All of a sudden her things were being thrown

around the room from one person to another and everybody was shouting and

laughing. I felt sorry for her because she was crying, but I was glad that no one

threw her stuff to me, because I knew I would have to join in. When the teacher

arrived it stopped, but Pauline didn’t come back the next day. In fact she didn’t

come back at all – none of us ever saw her again and we never spoke about it in

class. I still feel guilty about that day – even though I hadn’t actually joined in –

and for some reason the picture of that scene stays in my mind even though the

incident took place over thirty years ago.

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This version of the Primary: Social andemotional aspects of learning materialsis based on original materials producedby the Department of Education andSkills. These materials have been adaptedand translated for use in Wales by theDepartment for Children, Education, LifelongLearning and Skills with kind permission ofthe Department of Children, Schools andFamilies.

Pupil Engagement TeamDCELLSWelsh Assembly GovernmentCathays ParkCardiffCF10 3NQTel: 029 2082 1556Fax: 029 2080 1044e-mail: [email protected]

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