Seventh Meeting
Inspiration and communication
This week the Children’s Parliament Investigators reflected on their design solutions and selected a message to make into a 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.
Sixth Meeting
We are Designers
In this meeting, our Children’s Parliament investigators were introduced to some of the ideas behind graphic design. By exploring the visual elements and practicing their eye-for-design, the Investigators 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
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?
“It’s hard to speak up when we see bullying happening.”
“If something’s happening outside school teachers can’t help us.”
“If adults are too busy I’ll get my brother to sort things out.”
“I’ll hit back.”
“We get different messages from different adults.”
“We need kind adults to sort things out.”
“It’s really hard to go against my parents.”
“I would try and talk to the person bullying me. If they didn’t stop I would tell a teacher.”
“My Mum might want to help me but I don’t think she would know what to do.”
“Sometimes adults don’t listen to me. They are too busy.”
“I would talk to someone that I can trust.”
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.
Fourth Meeting
Sandy’s Story
In this meeting of Children’s Parliament Investigates… the investigators explored the concept of empathy through hearing about a 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)
Below are some of the changes the CP Investigators suggested to allow Sandy to have a better life:
“Sandy should have his own room.”
“Sandy and his Mum take his sisters to school.”
“Teenagers would be nice to Sandy.”
“Sandy should only ask nice people for help.”
“Should have more bedrooms so he doesn’t have to share with his siblings.”
“Make sure he gets a good breakfast so that he doesn’t starve. A FULL SCOTTISH.”
“I wouldn’t change anything about Sandy’s story.”
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.
What is 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
- Why is Human Dignity so important?
- Should animals have the same rights as children?
- Would you ever take away someone’s Human Dignity?
Let is know what your group thinks to the Investigator’s questions by leaving a comment in the box at the bottom of the page.
Second Meeting
In our team the conversation focused largely on our use of digital technology and access to social media and how at times we could be bullied, stalked and abused through social media sites. We also recognised that sometimes having a phone for family contact made us feel safer and that having lot’s of friends online also felt safer for us as well.
“We’re told not to talk to strangers or get into a stranger’s car. So it would be hard to ask an adult we don’t know for help”
“ We’re frightened to talk to adults. I would talk to my Mum first”
“Walking to school can be scary if we see drunk people or people using drugs”
“ I use my phone to keep in touch with my family which helps me feel safe”
“Bullying is not right”
“Bullies disrespect you and treat you mean”
“ We use social media a lot. My Mum has talked to me about being safe”
“The police came in to school and talked to us about internet safety and using social media”
“ Some people stalked me through Facebook and said things about my family”
“ People can trace where you are through your mobile phone”
“ Bullying is different to falling out. Bullying is something that keeps happening over and over again. Fall outs are sorted in a few days”
“ Have good thoughts never want to hurt someone”
The self portraits are starting to look really good too!
Questions for this week
Discuss the questions below and let us know what your group thinks in the comments section at the bottom of the page (let us know which question you are responding to)
- Do you know how to stay safe using the internet and social media sites?
- Who can children talk to if they are worried or concerned about being bullied online?
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.
