Creative curriculum
reward schools embed anti-bullying practices across the curriculum and the whole school community is involved. Links to health and wellbeing are clearly identified and targeted approaches are developed.
Inputs to the curriculum are:
Pupil-led: Children and young people play a huge role in developing engaging teaching and learning relating to anti-bullying. Pupil voice groups give inputs to assemblies, develop their own lessons and even provide inputs to staff training. Anti-Bullying Week is an annual catalyst for young people getting involved, creating posters, displays and special events.
We have a group of anti-bullying ambassadors who support their peers and arrange a number of awareness campaigns throughout the year, especially anti-bullying week. Pupils run activities to highlight ways of tackling bullying and present to their peers at assemblies and in Personal and Social Education classes.
Informed by experts: Schools draw on a range of resources to use in teaching and learning. Some of these are listed in Appendix 1. External agencies provide expert inputs, for example, Community Police Officers giving online safety advice and mental health charities providing tailored workshops. respectme’s own resources for Anti-Bullying Week are well used and Odd Socks Day is a firm favourite in many schools’ calendars.
Children’s mental health is key in creating a positive nurturing ethos, and in turn helps prevent bullying, which is why we regularly run workshops and work with partners like SAMH or conduct Emotional Literacy in class.
Family-focused: Schools recognise that it’s important to involve families in anti-bullying learning. This helps parents, carers and other family members to understand and get involved the school’s anti-bullying policy and practices.
Families are able to think about their role in preventing bullying and spotting the signs of bullying taking place. Online bullying is a concern for parents and schools can provide useful information and support. Family sessions are run, particularly during Anti-Bullying Week and Community Learning and Development (CLD) staff provide additional family learning.
We work with parents/carers/families to address concerns about online bullying and hold Family Learning events with a focus on online safety, including online bullying.
Creative: Schools use creative approaches to anti-bullying teaching and learning.
Pupils have created posters, films, poems and songs relating to anti-bullying.
Tailored programmes support particular groups, for example a mentoring programme for boys at the start of high school and a confidence building programme for girls in primary school.
The girls found their superpower as well as strategies for how to speak out with confidence. It was a really powerful time of growing and self-reflection.
By empowering the class to believe that they all possess a unique superpower, the programme helps them to build their confidence and flourish in their next step in becoming a P7 student or their next step when moving on to higher education.
Case study: Hamilton Grammar School
Anti-bullying and related topics such as empathy, resilience and discrimination feature in the Personal and Social Education (PSE) curriculum. Senior pupils take part in a ‘Mentors in Violence Prevention’ programme and deliver peer education to younger pupils.
Pupils enjoy PSE lessons, Anti-Bullying Week events and find working with older pupils extremely helpful.
A group of the Mentors in Violence Prevention students delivered a session to all teaching staff. The discussions focused on the use of harmful language and challenged the idea of ‘banter’ in the classroom.
Hearing directly from students helped staff carefully consider how they react to bullying in the school and allowed pupils to share the leadership skills they had developed during the programme.
A mental health programme delivered by Action for Children was targeted at pupils identified, from a questionnaire, as having low mood, confidence or being at risk of anxious thoughts.
This has given young people the chance to access support options that they may not have otherwise requested or even considered themselves.
