What can we do..?
This week the CP Investigators have been thinking about bystanders – people who might witness something happening, but may not be part of the situation. In previous sessions the CP Investigators have talked about the impact that people ‘standing by and just watching’ can have on a bullying situation. The children agreed that there should be advice for people who find themselves witness to bullying, but maybe don’t know how to help. Below are some of the messages the children created:
Let the investigators know what you think by leaving them a comment at the bottom of the page.
Posters: Children need adults to…
The CP Investigators have been thinking about what they need from the Adults in Their Lives and they have created messages in poster form. The children have designed these posters as aides to ‘help adults help children’ if they suspect or know the child is being bullied.
The posters capture recurring ideas that children have discussed during their CP investigates workshops, such as ‘adults are often too busy to help’ or ‘adults forget what it’s like for children who are experiencing bullying’ – the children hope that their posters will remind adults that they CAN help.
See some of the children’s poster ideas below. What do you think? What would you like others to think or do if you are experiencing bullying? Leave the investigators a comment below.
Fourth Meeting
Think, Feel & Do.
In this session the CP Investigators were asked to think about 5 adults they would talk to about being bullied; what do those adults need to THINK, FEEL & DO to help and what might adults THINK, FEEL & DO which may be unhelpful to them?
After thinking through some ideas the CP Investigators will produce posters highlighting both the helpful and unhelpful things that adults THINK, FEEL & DO. The posters will be displayed in school and we will have copies of them available here too…
Some of the children’s initial ideas about trust are below:
“It’s hard to know who to trust”
“People need to be kind to children when they try and talk to them”
“I wouldn’t use Childline! What can Childline do? You want to trust them but you don’t know who’s on the other end of the phone.”
“Wouldn’t talk to strangers about bullying”
“Adults need to be nice to us – have a sense of humour – don’t get angry at us”
“We would talk to people that we know and can trust”
“We have to learn to trust new teachers”
“Children should interview people who are going to work with children”
“You can’t judge people by the way that they look”
“It would be nice if everyone was kind to each other but that’s not real”
“We’ll all be teenagers some day. Not all teenagers are bad”
“Adults need to do something about bullying, just listening isn’t enough”
Third Meeting
‘Don’t be scared to talk to the teacher’
Today the CP investigators heard a short story about a child named Sandy; Sandy is having a difficult time with bullying and he isn’t sure what to do. Our CP Investigators listened to Sandy’s story and afterwards they were set the challenge of suggesting how the story could be better for Sandy. Below are some of our CP Investigators insights, don’t forget to leave a comment and let us know what you think.
To read Sandy’s Story for yourself, please click on this link…
CP Investigates (Sandy’s Story)
Hear some of the group discussing their ideas:
In this clip you can listen to Casey talk about her character named Sam and the barriers to learning that they face. Casey suggests ways that Sam and his teachers could help to overcome these barriers through conversation and teamwork.
In the clip below you can hear from Kian as he discusses how his character, Sandy, could overcome a problem he is experiencing with some teenagers by asking for help from his teachers and his friend Ben.
Some further suggestions from the group:
You were all so thoughtful this week, you should be proud of the ideas you came up with and discussions we were able to have as a result.
Second Meeting
‘Children should be heard’
‘Teachers should have more time to speak to you’ Comment from Happy, Healthy, Safe Poster
‘Children should be able to speak’ Comment from Happy, Healthy, Safe Poster
This week we looked at what we need to be healthy, happy and feel safe at school. We talked about what happens on our way to school, how we get there and who with. We also looked at break times and lunchtimes, our time in the playground and in the corridors. We thought about what happens in the classroom, our teachers and learning assistants and what they can do to help us feel happy and safe when in school. We used our new CP Investigator notebooks to jot down some ideas and you can read some of our comments here beside the photographs of our Healthy Happy Safe School poster.
We hope you enjoy our blog!
First Meeting
We all met for our first session as Children’s Parliament Investigators in Hermitage Park Primary to begin investigating bullying. But first we wanted to talk about coming together as a team, how we would work together, discuss our ideas, and share our work with our school, our family and our community.
During this first meeting we looked at the idea of human dignity. We discussed what we knew about human dignity and the feelings we experienced when our dignity was respected and promoted or how we felt when our dignity wasn’t respected and we were made to feel bad or small. In pairs we made a “dignometer” which you can see on this page and we hope that you enjoy seeing how we wanted to represent our feelings using words, images and colour.
Leave a comment below and let the investigators know what you think about dignity…
Having reached the mid-point in our Children’s Parliament Investigates Bullying project we would like to give a big thank you to all of our Children’s Parliament Investigators from Hermitage Park Primary, James Gillespies Primary, St Peter’s RC Primary and Wardie Primary Schools’, for your hard work and brilliant insights into what you feel about bullying behaviours as “bullied” or as “bystander”.
Your voices, ideas and wishes have been captured and we are really looking forward to working with 4 new schools after the summer break, hearing from the children there and comparing their messages with those you have given us.
The 4 new schools are Abbeyhill Primary, Flora Stevenson Primary, Granton Primary and St John’s RC Primary. We hope you will all keep an eye on the blog after the summer and it would be great if you had any advice or comments you would like to share with our new Investigators.
We look forward to seeing you all again very soon. We’ll be in after the summer holidays with your printed posters and to catch up on how your ideas and messages are being carried forward and acted on in each school.
Have a brilliant fun filled summer from all at Children’s Parliament