Flora Stevenson Primary School

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Eighth Meeting
What’s it all about???

This week the class were able to complete their designs and share their very important messages with the class. We talked about why our messages are very important and what we hoped could happen to make our ideas a reality.

The CP Investigators then met in their small group to discuss their thoughts and ideas on the project so far, in readiness for meeting their Headteacher next week…

Question for this week:

After spending time creating their designs and deciding upon important messages. The CP Investigator groups have been thinking more about empathy and why it is important to express our opinions and share our experiences with others. Have a conversation with your group about sharing and listening, let us know your ideas in the comments below.

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Seventh Meeting
Inspiration and communication

This week the Children’s Parliament Investigators worked with their whole class to reflect on their design solutions and everybody selected a message to make into their own graphic communication. Using collaged paper, pens and tape the investigators created striking images that communicate their feelings around the themes discussed within the Children’s Parliament Investigates Bullying project.

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Sixth Meeting
We are Designers

In this meeting, our Children’s Parliament investigators, along with the rest of P6C, were introduced to some of the ideas behind graphic design. By exploring the visual elements and practicing their eye-for-design, the children began to create a better solution to their Design Brief.

Children’s Parliament Investigates Bullying Design Brief:
Create a poster that will inspire and help others to make your school a happy, safe and friendly place to be. Your poster should include an inspirational message and you will use the visual elements to make your poster feel positive and eye-catching.

If you would like to try this activity in class then click the following links to download some resources to help you:

Eye for Design
Find a poster online that has been designed to help prevent bullying, you might want to choose one of the posters created by the CP Investigators. Once you have your poster, use the questions on this sheet to practice your eye-for-design and create your own poster success criteria: Eye for Design Questions Sheet

Design Brief
Download here: Design Brief

Share your finished posters with us on Twitter by using #CPinvestigates

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Fifth 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?

“The adults I would talk to – Relationships and trust are important in choosing the adults I would talk to.” 
“I don’t always trust people.” 
“Talk to people you know.” 
“Get serious! Adults need to notice. Don’t ignore us.” 
“Adults should care – be kind and try to help me.” 
“Adults should care, be nice, be friendly and comfort us.” 
“To make some people care ; To help; Do something about it; Be friendly; Be kind; Be nice.” 
“Adults need to feel empathy.” 
“You need to talk to someone. Sometimes when we tell someone we are being bullied we’re told not to tell tales.” 
“I would talk to someone that I know. Not strangers.”

Question for this week

This week the CP investigators discussed how adults should respond when children ask for help and support with bullying.

• Some of the CP Investigators thought that children shouldn’t have to prove that they are not “telling tales” before adults act on their behalf.
• Other CP Investigators thought that adults shouldn’t “just believe” children, but investigate the situation so that everyone was fairly treated.

How do you think adults should respond for children who report a bullying incident? Discuss with your group/class and let us know your ideas by leaving a comment at the bottom of the page.

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Fourth Meeting
Sandy’s Story

In this fourth meeting of Children’s Parliament Investigates… the investigators explored the concept of empathy through hearing about a young boy named Sandy.

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.

Our CP Investigators 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)

 

Questions for this week

Some suggested questions to discuss in class this week:

• Do you think empathy is important?
• Have you ever felt empathy for someone else?

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Third Meeting
Dignometers

During this 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 produced 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.

THE INTUITIVE IDEA OF HUMAN DIGNITY
• Every human being is important and special. We call this human dignity.
• Respect for human dignity means that we should be friendly and kind to others and it is wrong to hurt other people or make them feel bad about themselves.
• No matter how others treat you, they never have the right to take away your human dignity.
• When you learn what human dignity means to you, you are less likely to accept when other people hurt, discriminate or put someone down.
What do you think a life lived with dignity means?

Questions for this week

CP Investigators from St. John’s RC Primary have suggested these questions to discuss in class this week:

• Who is the first person you would talk to if your Human Dignity wasn’t being respected?
• Who do you rely on?

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Second Meeting
Happy-Healthy-Safe School

 

In our second team meeting we discussed and explored together what we think is needed to make a Healthy – Happy – Safe school. We thought about our journey to school, our time in the classroom and our time in the playground.

We used words and pictures to express our views and ideas which we will share with you here;

“Eat healthy food –healthy lunch boxes”

“Eat lots of fruit”

“ Work hard”

“Lot’s of exercise”

“Be nice to each other”

“Have friends”

“Play well and have fun”

“Never give up – work hard”

“Try to get a good mind set”

“Try to be happy”

“Don’t be mean (to each other)”

“ Be Kind”

“Keep your hands and your feet to yourself”

“Sometimes people fight each other in the playground”

“ If we ask a PSA for help in the playground they sometimes tell us to just ignore the people who are annoying us and to deal with them ourselves”

In our team we discussed how we have all had different experiences in school and if we were worried or concerned about something we had someone who we could speak to. What was important to us was our past experiences of and relationship with the adult we chose to speak to. We need adults to be kind, to have the time to listen and to make bullying stop when it happens.

We also discussed how feeling safe and feeling happy are closely connected and how when we argue with each other we feel frustrated, angry and sad.

Questions for this week

Discuss the questions below and let us know what your group thinks in the comments section at the bottom of this page:

• What do you want adults to do to support children who are concerned about bullying?
• What do you think is needed to make school a healthy-happy-safe space for everyone?

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First Meeting
Self Portraits and forming our team

Graeme and Ross from Children’s Parliament (CP) visited today to begin work with our 6 new Children’s Parliament Investigators (names from each school) on our CP Investigates Bullying Project.

Our first team meeting was about getting to know each other, being curious and asking questions about the project and discussing how we will work with each other as a team.

Ross took photographs of us and we used them to produce self-portraits which we used to think about and share with each other the “Things that we like to do – The places that we like to be – The people that we love and spend time with – The things that we have learned about the world and about ourselves”

We thought about and discussed some of the most important things that we need to make a world that is healthy – happy and safe for us and for all children.

We hope that other members of our school community, Head teacher, teachers, PSA’s and our classmates will join us here on our blog and we welcome all of your comments and suggestions on the work that we are doing and how together we can create a safe space to learn and be the best that we can be.