St. John’s RC – Community Ambassadors

St. John’s: Parents and Parent Council workshop

For their final workshop with adults the students of St. John’s delivered a workshop for some of their parents and members of the parent council. They did extremely well talking with people closer to home and demonstrating all the great work they have done.

Some children chose to partner with their parents and others didn’t, but they followed the same practiced format of show and tell, using the Dignometers and Community Ambassador Passports as talking aids.

The Dice Game was an opportunity to share differing points of view and for adults to offer their perceptions and reflections on our central themes – Trust, Kindness, Empathy and Human Dignity. It was great to see families engaging in discussion on these issues.

The combination of Sandy’s Story and the freeze frames allowed another opportunity to talk openly about the challenges of bullying and who children can ask for help. Reflections were made about the role of teachers, head teachers, parents and strangers. Again adults were impacted by the fact that children can feel adults are bystanders and not always approachable or willing to practically help. The Ambassadors did an excellent job of articulating themselves and contributing as equals in the conversation.

Then the group watched the Children’s Parliament Investigates Bullying video and the workshop participants made their pledges. A couple of these are found below. You can also see all the pledges made by adults who have accessed our workshops in our Adult Pledge page.

“I will stand up to help the children who are being bullied. I will try my best to bring all I know about bullying to the attention of staff at school.”
– M Brown

“I will listen and act!”

“I, Caroline, an adult and parent promise to listen, act, show empathy, trust, kindness and help you keep your Human Dignity.”
– Caroline

St John’s: SELMAS and City of Edinburgh Councillors

The Community Ambassadors at St John’s held two thought provoking workshops with members of SELMAS and local Edinburgh Councillors. SELMAS are a community of independent education practitioners, who work with educational leaders to provoke mature debate on big issues facing schooling and were really impacted by what the children had to say.

The Ambassadors guided the adults through the themes of the project, using the Dignometers to illustrate their personalised sliding scale experience of human dignity. They also shared with them their Community Ambassador Passports where they had each written their own definitions and core understandings of what human dignity, empathy, trust and kindness meant to them.

Next the group played our Ginormous Dice Game and children and adults discussed and shared thoughts around questions the children had designed. Everyone was really engaged and pupils from St Johns listened attentively to the honest experiences of some of the adults’ own school experiences.

When it came time to read Sandy’s Story and do the dramatic freeze frames the children had designed, the Ambassadors really provoked thought and debate. An excellent conversation ensued between adults and children, offering opinions as equals, as adults were visually confronted with the realities of the challenges children face and the hard truth that adults are often perceived as bystanders. This part of the workshop really made an impression on the adult participants and caused a lot of reflection.

Everyone watched the Children’s Parliament Investigates Bullying film and then the adults wrote pledges in response to the workshop. We asked that the pledges would not be what you ‘could’ do but what you ‘will’ do to help children be happy, healthy and safe. Here are a couple.

“I promise not to be a bystander. I will be an adult children can rely on to help.”
– Gillian

“I will make sure that if I make a decision which will impact on young people’s lives, that I listen to what they want, what they need, and what they think the best thing to do is.”
– Kate Campbell

St John’s: Adult pledges from parents and parent council members

I will stand up to help the children who are being bullied. I will try my best to bring all I know about bullying to the attention of staff at school
– M Brown

I will try to notice when a child needs my help and do my best to help as best I can
– Janice

I will help a child if they are bullied and help all children
– Z

I will listen and act!

I, Caroline, an adult and parent promise to listen, act, show empathy, trust, kindness and help you keep your Human Dignity.
– Caroline

St John’s: Adult Workshops

When facilitating their first adult workshops, our two St. John’s Community Ambassador teams played host to different teams of adults.

St. John’s CAPE Team 1 hosted a group of 6 Pupil Support Assistants who work with teachers/pupils in the school. Later the same day, St. John’s CAPE Team 2 worked with a group of Police School-Liaison Officers.

The Community Ambassadors guided participating adults through a number of activities, including Sandy’s Story and the Ginormous Dice Game, which are designed to showcase the children’s work and their learning attained through the programme. Importantly, the children were able to ask some difficult questions that required thoughtful responses from the adults.

Our Ambassadors finished by asking the adult participants to make a pledge to them. This pledge requires adults to think about what they will do to make children’s lives healthier, happier and safer, at home, at school and in their communities.

A big thank you to all of the adults who took part and played such a positive role in making the workshops meaningful and relevant for our Ambassadors.

Remember, we’ll be back to check up on your pledges…

St John’s: Adult Pledges

Following their discussions with Granton’s Community Ambassadors on 14th November 2017, adults pledged to:

I pledge to listen to what all children have to say Simon – Police Officer

I Verity, Police Officer, pledge to support every child that asks me for help.

I promise to always listen to what children ask or tell me and act upon it if need be. Gina McGroarty PSA

I pledge to listen to every young person who ever comes to me for help and I pledge to do everything in my power to make things better. PC O’Connor

I will listen to children and help them find solutions to problems they experience in and out of school. PC Dickson

I pledge that I will always respect young people and always be here to listen to them when they need my help or advice. PS and to eat less McDonalds!!! Greig.

Keep kids safe with kindness and hopefully they trust me if they need help. Mrs Singh PSA

I will always try to listen to all children that come to me for help. If I can’t help them there and then I will go back to them as soon as I can. Charleen Wait Conroy, PSA

I will make sure that children are safe in the playground – I will keep confidential if any child shared any information – I will try my best to listen to children and solve their problems. F Khan, PSA

I promise to try hard to listen to children’s points and not just say try to ignore people who are annoying you. Helen Kame, PSA.

When a child come to me in the school or playground I will try my best to listen and reassure them to the best of my ability and hopefully make that child better in themselves. Moira Scoular, PSA.

St. John’s: Community Ambassador by Julia

Julia created this super character to symbolise the Community Ambassadors.
We think you are all superheroes! Thank you, Julia, for sharing your idea with us all.

St. John’s: Community Ambassador Passports

At today’s session in St. John’s, our Community Ambassador teams spent time reflecting and thinking about the work we have been doing together in the programme.

Looking at the themes of Human Dignity, Empathy, Trust and Kindness our Ambassadors completed their Community Ambassadors Passports, some examples of which you can see here below.

Ambassadors wrote and drew the most important messages and issues that have come up for them during our time together.

In our Passports, we’re beginning to think about our ideas on how to talk with adults about the issues that are important to us. We are starting to think about what we want adults to THINK, FEEL & DO when we ask for support.

We hope that you like our Passports 😁

If you or anyone you know would like to take part in a workshop with us, please leave a note for Graeme and Beth in the comments below 👍

St John’s: Sandy’s Story revisited

Last week the Community Ambassdors helped to re-write Sandy’s story to change the difficulties he faced, including giving him his own room and a friendly school where everyone was kind. We went through the new story and finding examples of trust, empathy, kindness and human dignity.

Comments and observations

TRUST

“It takes a long time to get trust again if you lie”
“If someone has bullied you or hurt you in the past it is really hard to trust them again”
“When you trust someone you can tell them anything and they will help you”

Watch a short film about Trust: https://youtu.be/X4ntEFpR_80

EMPATHY

“When you put yourself in someone’s shoes”
“Lots of people start bullying because they have had bad experiences- like being bullied themselves or shouted at by their parents”

Watch a short film about empathy: https://youtu.be/U-7lgaBn86M

KINDNESS

“Being friendly, generous, considering others”
“Sharing is important”
“It’s good to help people and make them feel welcome”

Watch a short film about kindness: https://youtu.be/NZPf86NcTJ4

HUMAN DIGNITY

“Children should be seen and heard!”
“Adults need to listen to children so they can protect them”
“Giving children space helps them have human dignity”
“It’s good to be able to help your friends”

Watch a short film about human dignity: https://youtu.be/cY0WbfXWOqM

Our questions for adults: What can you do to make children trust you? How can you make children feel listened to?

Sandy’s story: St John’s

In this session, our Community Ambassadors listened to a story about Sandy. Sandy is a fictional character, a 10 year old boy who experiences challenges at home, in his community and in school.

Our Ambassadors explored the concept of empathy through hearing Sandy’s Story. Empathy is when you are able to see things from somebody else’s perspective. By putting ourselves in others’ shoes and feeling what someone else is feeling, we can better understand how our choices impact on other people.

Ambassadors listened to Sandy’s story and afterwards explored ways that the story could be better for Sandy. To read Sandy’s Story for yourself please click the link:

CP Investigates (Sandy’s Story)

A brilliant discussion today about our experiences of bullying behaviour and how this has been dealt with by adults. The effects of bullying last a long time and today talking about things that have happened in the past still leave us feeling sad, upset and angry.

An insightful and challenging session today. Thank you, Ambassadors, for a true, reflective Children’s Parliament meeting.

CAPE St. John’s: Our Community

Welcome from St John’s Community Ambassadors!

Our 2nd session focused on our community. We talked about the safe and happy spaces and about the places that we can’t or don’t feel safe to spend time.

Through our discussions we found out that we don’t all live in the same community, so we tried to think about what “any” child wants from the spaces and places where they live and grow.

We wrote down and drew some of our ideas and views on a large model of a community space and then in our new teams we worked on our individual maps to think about the happy and safe places, the people we know and trust, and the places where we don’t feel safe, and we thought about why.

Thoughts and ideas;

“Teenagers vandalise our play parks, they set fire to the equipment and to the grass.”

“There’s a big park (for older children) and an infant’s park. The teenagers hang about the infant’s park, so we can’t go there.”

“One local shopkeeper banned Portobello High School pupils from his shop. It’s not fair, it’s stereotyping teenagers, so is not very nice. I think they should change that rule.”

“I feel unsafe in my flat. People keep setting fires around there.”

“I love the woods because I love climbing” (discussion about natural play spaces, as opposed to playparks)

“I only go out with my parent’s permission. They need to know where I am. I wouldn’t go to the park on my own with my friends. My parents have this rule because they care about what happens to me.”

“There’s a 5-year-old boy on our street who keeps stealing our bikes and letting the tyres down. He used to be our friend. I don’t know what’s happened to him to make him do this.”

Our question to adults from this session is; Who will listen to children about how and where we feel unsafe in our community?