How can I design anti-bullying materials for the classroom?
Bullying can happen anywhere, any time and to anyone. Being bullied can make children feel lonely, afraid, helpless, stressed, anxious, depressed or even guilty (blaming themselves for the bullying). It can stop them enjoying life, stop them wanting to go to school, or sleeping properly. Discussing this topic in the classroom can help young learners know what to do if they see or experience bullying, and to understand that whatever form it takes, bullying is never OK.
What is bullying?
The UK Anti Bullying Alliance defines it as follows:
'Bullying is the repetitive, intentional hurting of one person or group by another person or group, where the relationship involves an imbalance of power. It can happen face to face or online.'
This definition could be difficult for many learners to understand. Any definition you use in class should be appropriate for your learners' age and language level. It should include the fact that bullying is something that usually happens repeatedly, is deliberate or planned, and involves one person having power over another person (this could involve factors like age, the number of people, skin colour or disability).
It's also important for learners to recognise what bullying isn't. Two people not getting on, someone accidentally pushing another person, having a fight or an argument with a friend is not bullying.
Different forms of bullying
Bullying can take many different forms, which largely fall into one of four categories. Here are some examples.
- Verbal: using spoken or written words to tease someone, threaten them, call them names, say mean things to or about them
- Physical: hitting, punching, kicking, pushing, making rude hand signs, or taking someone's belongings
- Social: excluding someone from a group, ignoring them, making them feel alone, different or embarrassed, playing mean jokes, spreading rumours
- Online: sending nasty messages, writing mean comments, posting an image of someone without their consent, pretending to be someone in order to embarrass them
What should learners do if they see or experience bullying?
Before discussing these questions with your learners, it could be useful to do some background reading on an anti-bullying website. Websites such as https://www.nspcc.org.uk/ , https://www.childline.org.uk/, https://anti-bullyingalliance.org.uk/, and https://pacerkidsagainstbullying.org/ are very useful sources of information, videos and other resources.
Designing anti-bullying learning materials
Bullying is a topic that should be treated with a high level of sensitivity and we should bear this in mind when designing materials and discussing the topic in the classroom. It could be particularly difficult for learners who have experienced bullying or cyberbullying. You could consider speaking to any learners affected by bullying before or after the lesson.
When talking about bullying, it’s best to avoid terms like 'the bully' and 'the victim'. Using these labels implies that the situation is permanent and cannot change.
Lead ins
A lead in should be a short activity that arouses learners' curiosity, allows them to use prior knowledge and motivates them to learn more.
- One lead in could involve showing a picture and asking: How are the different people feeling? What's happening in the picture?
- Another idea could be to write some key phrases on the board (for example ‘calling someone names’, ‘sending mean messages’, ‘being an upstander’) and asking learners to guess what today’s lesson is about.
- Some teachers use the crumpled paper activity to lead into an anti-bullying lesson. Learners take a heart-shaped piece of paper, then they scrunch it up and stamp on it. They then unfold it and try to smooth it out. They will notice that the marks on the paper heart remain. This activity illustrates how unkind actions can have a long-lasting emotional effect on people.
Input
The input of your lesson should expose learners to authentic language on the topic of bullying. It could take the form of video, a listening, or a written text. It should be at the appropriate age and language level for your learners. Encountering the language in context will help them understand, learn and use it in other tasks at later stages of the lesson.
Post-listening/reading comprehension tasks will help your learners understand both the concepts and the language used. Depending on the content of the video, text etc., some possible task types could be grouping (eg different forms of bullying) or true or false questions. Exercises such as gap fill or ordering words to make sentences can help learners learn new words and phrases.
Video
There is a huge range of anti-bullying videos available online. Here are some examples.
- Videos for very young learners explain bullying in a way that young children can understand. Sesame Street's 'Becoming an upstander' could be a simple starting point to explore the different roles that people play in bullying.
- The Anti-bullying Alliance's video 'Reach Out' uses simple language and images to show primary children how and who to reach out to if they experience bullying.
- The 9-12 age group is able to understand more complex ideas, such as definitions of bullying. A video with visual aids can help learners grasp these concepts. The YouTube channel Bullying. No Way! has a very comprehensive video called 'Bullying is never OK', which uses simple drawings to explain what bullying is, and what to do if you experience it.
- Common Sense Media's 'What's Cyberbullying?' video uses pictures to explain cyberbullying.
Listening
If you're not able to show a video in your classroom, you could find a suitable video to be used as a 'live listening' – copy out the transcript and read it to the class.
For very young learners, there are many different picture books which explore anti-bullying themes such as being an upstander, being a bystander or being kind. You may be able to find them in your local library, bookshop or online.
Reading
You could choose an online article, or you may decide to write your own fact sheet based on information found online. You could also use real life stories, a questionnaire, a quiz, a poster or a poem as reading texts.
Speaking
Once learners have the language they need to talk about bullying, you could give them scenarios (a description of an example situation) to discuss in small groups. This will help them develop critical thinking skills. You can either find these online or write your own. For example in the Anti-Bullying Alliance's 'Reach out' lesson plan for Anti-Bullying Week 2022, learners identify the different roles they see in each bullying scenario and talk about how each person could reach out to stop the bullying.
Writing
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Learners could write their own acrostic poems, using the ideas and language that they have learned in the lesson. An acrostic poem is one where the first letters of each line spell a word or phrase. You could choose the phrase ANTI-BULLYING for example. The poems could then be displayed in the classroom for others to read.
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On the theme of kindness, you could create 'Kindness paper chains'. Each learner writes their name on lots of coloured strips of paper. Then all the learners circulate around the class and write kind comments on other people's papers. Finally, each learner makes their strips into a paper chain.
Extension projects
You could ask students to make a poster with key anti-bullying advice at home, and to bring it to the next class and present it to their classmates.
Ending the lesson
At the end of the lesson, it's a good idea to re-cap the most important points in standing up to bullying and reiterate the importance of reaching out to a trusted adult if anyone experiences or sees bullying. You could even provide an anonymous comments/questions box and pieces of paper, so that learners can write anything they wish to share or ask as a result of the lesson.
Further reading:
https://www.nspcc.org.uk/what-is-child-abuse/types-of-abuse/bullying-and-cyberbullying/
https://pacerkidsagainstbullying.org/what-is-bullying/what-is-bullying-videos/
https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/bullying
https://au.reachout.com/articles/5-reasons-to-be-an-upstander
Jo Blackmore began her career in children's book publishing before training as a teacher of English. Since then, she has spent more than twenty years teaching English in the UK and France with a particular focus on primary learners. Jo also works for the British Council's LearnEnglish websites, creating and editing content for a wide range of learners, and has contributed numerous primary lesson plans to TeachingEnglish. Jo has a love of children’s literature, and enjoys languages and travel.
If you crate materials it's import to recap important points at the end