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

Anti-Bullying Week

21st-27th January 2009

Hello everyone and Happy New Year! It’s that time of year again 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 Empathy.

empathy: the power of understanding and imaginatively entering into another person’s feelings….

Empathy, a truly beautiful human virtue, is the ability to imagine the lives of others. If we feel empathy for someone or some creature we can never knowingly cause them to suffer or stand idly by and witness their suffering. In fact we cannot bear the suffering of any living being. Empathy comes from the heart, a kind heart, and through reflection on stories and poems of people who experience pain we can cultivate and practise this kindness. We can also develop a deep sense of justice and recognize the importance of the bystander or witness.

We believe that discussions and lessons on empathy 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 3-6 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 empathy, 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!