St Clare's Primary School Harold's Cross Dublin 6W

Anti- Bullying Week
January 20th-26th, 2010

Hello everyone and welcome to our Anti-Bullying Week. It's that time of year when we pay special attention to the issue of bullying. The principle aim of this special week is to ensure that all of the children in our school can learn and play in a safe and caring atmosphere, not just during this week but all year round. This year our theme is Tolerance.

Tolerance: the ability to understand and accept the differences in other people….
allowing the right of something that one does not approve….. allowing the views and actions of others: tolerance toward race and religious minorities is crucial. Tolerance implies allowing views, ways of life and conduct with which we might not normally be familiar or experience ourselves.
Tolerance of others and of their ways is vital in the building and cultivation of fairness and justice.
Synonyms:
patience, sufferance, forbearance, impartiality, open-mindedness, fairness.


We believe that discussions and lessons on all aspects of bullying are the key to the prevention of bullying and all sorts of unkind behaviour. Teaching pupils the importance of their role of bystanders or witnesses is a very important aspect of tackling bullying. We make it clear that we are a "telling school" where pupils are encouraged to report incidents so that even if the victim is too frightened to say anything the bully will know he/she cannot get away with unacceptable behaviour.
As usual during this week all aspects of bullying will be explored. The junior classes will have lessons on bullying from the Stay Safe programme. At the senior end the following lessons from our own school's Anti- Bullying Programme will be taught in 3rd-6th Classes: - What is Bullying? Ways we are Different. Using Poetry.
- Property and Bullying. What to do when we are being bullied.
- Making Rules and Contracts
These lessons involve discussion, poetry, story-telling, drama, group-work and decision-making and art. Each class devises a Charter of Rights and makes its own class rules to prevent bullying. Each child can draw up his/her own individual Behaviour Contract. All children are taught how to assert themselves if they are ever confronted by bullying behaviour. During the week we hope to have a visit from a member of the Garda to the senior classes with helpful advice, especially on bullying in the community and the use of technology in bullying.
Miss Costello will visit all classes during the week and will teach lessons on tolerance, offer support and take suggestions and queries in the middle and senior classes. She will set up a Worry Box on the corridors where children with serious concerns and worries can confidentially drop a letter and request a meeting to help deal with their worries.
We award a Certificate for Kindness and Consideration to one pupil in each class at the end of June and we award additional CKCs during this special week.
We hope all the children will enjoy the discussions and the poems and stories and art work. We hope they'll be inspired to read and write and we will put up the pupils' work around the school and on the website. So, get writing and drawing and creating everyone, so that we can display all your fabulous work!