Help with Bullying 2 (other websites)

Fortunately for educators and instructors there’s a growing number of free anti-bullying packs available to download which are beginning to include Microsoft PowerPoint presentations suitable for guidance and instruction for both parents and children. There are also some great ideas for activities plus images to help young people explore bullying and understand what it means and its impact on others including the long-term consequences.

If you click on the ‘info and advice’ tab on the homepage of UK Childline you’ll see the link to ‘Bullying, Abuse, Safety and the Law’ which neatly breaks the subject area down into cyberbullying, social media, homophobic and transphobic bullying, racism, religious, etc. Their ‘Bounce Back from Bullying’ tool is particularly useful for young people as it guides them through their current position and history and gives advice in relation to how they answer such questions as “Do you think it’s your fault when someone bullies you?” or ” Is the bullying happening online?”. From the site: “It’s normal to start to feel that it’s your fault if you’re being bullied. Especially if you’ve been bullied for a long time, or someone tells you it’s your fault. If someone’s being nasty, it can make you wonder whether you’ve done something wrong or even that you deserve it. But bullying is never your fault. No one should be bullied, no matter who they are, what they look like or what their culture, sexuality, race or religion”.

Entirely appropriate of course that Microsoft provides us with some on-line safety information. That link should take you to the ‘Online Safety’ section of their website which covers everything from grooming and hate speech to privacy and phishing. Take a good look around, there’s plenty of valuable advice along with Powerpoint presentations for schools and parents to use such as ‘Help young people stand up to online bullying’. We also spotted a really neat printable that could be used as ready-made handout on cyber-bullying or as reference material for a project. The first line of the leaflet (available as a free downloadable fact sheet or tri-fold brochure) reminds of us of how things have changed for young people; it simply states that because kids more or less ‘grow up’ online it should not be a surprise that bullying has moved to the internet.

Of course you’ve heard of McGruff … he just wants to make the world a better place … and if you type BULLYING into the search box you’ll find a whole host of articles and teaching resources suitable for kids, young people and teenagers. Cyberbullying is heavily featured of course and explains not only ‘What kids need to know’ but just as importantly ‘What parents can do’. For Grades 1-2 and grades 2-3 there’s a number of planned classroom activities such as kids thinking about the experiences of a fictional person in a story, spotting the bullying and working out what the correct action would be i.e. an emphasis on identifying behaviours and providing strategies.

Select the ‘For Kids’ menu item at the top of the homepage for Bullying. No Way! and you’ll find plenty of interactive on-line activities for kids. For 8 years and under there’s ‘Allen the Alien’ who is a visitor from another world who is trying to work out how to get along with Earth kids; this is a great way for young children to learn about how it feels to be different and how to help others who feel in a similar situation. Along with an “Allen Adventure” video there’s also an app to download so that kids can help Allen the Alien to fit in … but better than anything electronic they have printable colouring pages which can be used on their own or maybe incorporated into a lesson plan or booklet. This is a great site that is fun, interesting and interactive.

The quickest way to the printables and freebies at Childnet is to type ‘bullying’ into their search box. You’ll get lots of results for blog posts but sprinkled amongst them are links to (for example) a set of printable PDFs with guidance on understanding, preventing and responding to cyberbullying along with details for school staff about the law surrounding data protection, health and safety, etc. From their site: “Schools are required to provide staff with training and information relating to abuse, including cyberbullying; have procedures in place for addressing cyberbullying incidents; and include acceptable use in relation to online and mobile communications in their staff behavioural policy”.

Last but not least on this page is the UK’s Safer Internet Centre. Over at saferinternet.org.uk they provide a diverse range of activities and resources to help kids, teenagers, parents and educators to have a safe experience while travelling around the internet. Not only do they co-ordinate the UK’s ‘Safer Internet Day’ but they continue to meet the challenge of emerging trends and changing technology that throws new risks, hazards and dangers at young people. With separate areas for primary school children and secondary school kids and teens they can help with all issues from cyberbullying, grooming and illegal behaviour to inappropriate content and criminal content. You’ll need to navigate to the bottom of the ‘Safer Internet Day’ page to find links to all the fun stuff, resources for parents and schools, colouring sheets, workbooks, etc

Take a look at our other page of bullying resources too.