Anti-Bullying Sessions with Pupils

Prior to delivering these sessions, speak to children and staff about children’s experiences of bullying and about how to design an intervention to help them tackle bullying. This information can be formally accessed through facilitating focus groups with children and staff. You can also provide individual interviews with children about their experiences of bullying if you want to investigate the issue in more depth. Once you have data from children and staff about bullying you can use a thematic analysis to investigate what the main areas are which have arisen. From analyzing the main themes of what issues have arisen you can start to develop ideas of how you can implement a tailored intervention tailored to children’s specific problems with bullying.

Although working with staff will enhance the impact of the work, the following details of the sessions will help you even if you do not have adequate support from your colleagues. The information below aims to provide for you a formal which you can adjust according to the specific issues your pupils have.

Session 1:

Introduction

Meet with children to define the scope of how the project will proceed. Discuss with children what you have broadly found from speaking to them, your ideas of implementing the intervention and agree what you will be working on. Sit with children in a circle to remove the sense of hierarchy and help them effectively communicate with one another. Give children a diary and ask them to write in their diary at home regularly about how they are getting along with pupils and staff in school, what has happened and how they feel about it. Talk about confidentiality and that children should not share with others what is discussed in the session. Ask children how they respond to conflict and how they feel when they are bullied. Talk about why they respond the way they do, the consequences of their response and what would be the most effective way to respond. Agree what you will work on next week, how long the project will last and how you will evaluate the project, for example, by interviewing pupils and staff. Talk about what output children would like to produce at the end of the project. Suggest examples such as pupils designing and delivering an assembly, children writing about their experiences of bullying which is shared with the school community, meeting with staff to feedback what they have learnt, and/or advice and guidance to resolve bullying. Meet with staff after the session to keep them informed of the project and ask for any support if required.

Session 2:

What Can You Do About Bullying?

Discuss with children in more depth their recent experiences of bullying and how they responded. Reflect on how they might have hurt others by their behavior and consider how they can behave more respectfully and empathically. Use ‘conflict resolution role-play’ for children to demonstrate their experiences of bullying, how they felt and how they responded. This also involves children acting out alternative ways they can feel and respond to the bullying. Consider with children the most effective ways they can respond to the bullying they have role-played and discussed. Ask children to reflect on what they are hoping to achieve from these sessions and agree what you will work on next week.

Session 3:

Responding To Bullying

Discuss recent problems children have had with their peers over the past week and how they have responded to them. Consider how children can interpret and respond to their bullying effectively. Ask how children are getting along with their diaries.

Role-play with children how they can talk respectfully to those who bully them, explain how they feel, what they might do about the problem if it continues, and that they want the maltreatment to stop.p Bring in the school’s anti-bullying policy, and read and review this with children. Ask children what they think their school’s anti-bullying policy, how it might help and how it can be improved.p Find out how children report bullying to staff and discuss them how to report bullying effectively.p Role-play how bullying can be reported effectively to staff.p Talk to children about how they feel about themselves when they are bullied and how they can maintain their self-esteem and feel better about themselves when they are being bullied. Raise the question, why children bully? Start to consider how to include children who might be difficult to get along with. Decide what output you will use to showcase what children have learnt to others in school and outline how you will do this.

Session 4:

Including Others

Talk about how children have been getting along with others over the past week, if there has been any conflict and how they have responded. Ask if they have tried to include other pupils who are left out, what happened, what was difficult and what went well. Consider with the group how they can include others more and how children who are left out might feel. Notecards can be useful for children to write down or draw how ostracized children might feel. Talk about, and agree, what each child will do to include others who are ostracized. Reflect with children on what they are learning and what they would like to further develop. Discuss in more detail what the output will be of the anti-bullying work and what you need to do to prepare for the output.

Session 5:

Releasing Bad Feelings

Review children’s recent experiences of bullying, how they reacted and how to respond respectfully in future. Address in more depth with children how to let go of bad feelings from bullying and feel better. Consider with children what improvements they have made, if there have been any changes to their behavior and, if so, what has changed. Ask children what areas they are finding difficult to work on and where they would like more support. Address in more detail what children can say and do to help those who are bullied. Start to design the output of the anti-bullying work. Organize what staff and/or students will participate in the project output, for example, pupils might want to feedback what they have done to their school council. Help children set targets to improve how they respond to bullying and help others who are victimized to be addressed in the following session.

Session 6:

Preparing Output Of Anti-Bullying Work

Review children’s behavioral targets and to what extent they were achieved. Review experiences children have had since the last session of conflict, how they have responded and can effectively respond. Expand your discussion on how children can help others who are bullied. Set behavioral targets for the following week and remind children to bring their diaries for you to read next week. Consider how children can show what they have learnt and use this to help others, for example, through an assembly. Work on the anti-bullying output and what will be presented. Reflect with children what they have learnt and what they are doing differently to address bullying.

Session 7:

Pupil-Led Anti-Bullying Output

Collect children’s diaries and help them prepare to present their output to staff and/or students. Use this to showcase the following: what children have done; what they have learnt; what they would like to say about bullying; what they would like staff and pupils to do more/less of with bullying; how they want to help others; and how they would like their work to be developed. Evaluate the intervention with children and staff and use this knowledge to improve how pupils and staff perceive and respond to bullying.