To prevent pupils from drawing attention to themselves while using this activity no sound has been used.

Bullying still takes place in all schools. Since 1999 head teachers, must by law, have a policy to prevent all forms of bullying among pupils. Challenging bullying effectively will improve the safety and happiness of pupils, show that the school cares and make clear to bullies that the behaviour is unacceptable.

You can help by ensuring that the children in your care know and understand what bullying behaviour is and how upsetting it can be to be on the receiving end. Use Stop the Bullying with your class as part of a scheme of work on anti-bullying and make sure that everyone has worked their way through the activities. An excellent way to use this activity would be to use a projector and whiteboard (where available) and show it to the whole class. You could use drama sessions to role play bullying situations and to explore the ensuing emotional responses. Pupils should be encouraged to consider the social and moral dilemmas they come across in the activity and discuss their thoughts in a group or whole class situation.

This activity will be updated at a later date to include translations into Community languages.

National Curriculum

This activity covers both the PSHE and Citizenship curricula. It provides learning opportunities for pupils to gain the knowledge, skills and understanding necessary to play an effective role in society at local, national and international levels. It:

• helps them to become informed, thoughtful and responsible citizens who are aware of their duties and rights.
• promotes spiritual, moral, social and cultural development, making them more self-confident and responsible both in and beyond the classroom.
• encourages pupils to play a helpful part in the life of their schools, neighbourhoods, communities and the wider world.
• encourages respect for different national, religious and ethnic identities; and develops pupils' ability to reflect on issues.

Further classroom activities:

• Make sure the children know from Day 1 that bullying (verbal or physical) is NOT tolerated at school by ANY of the staff at ANY time.
• Discuss bullying and its effects with your class under the guise of Citizenship.
• Let the children be part of the process of setting rules for behaviour and consequences if rules not followed.
• Have your class carry out a survey on bullying in the school. This should be done in a sensitive and confidential manner. The general results could form the basis for an assembly.
• Make sure that children know what to do if they are bullied and discuss with them who they could talk to eg a teacher, an adult worker in the school, a parent, a friend, a friend of the family or a religious leader.
• Offer alternatives to talking to someone e.g. have a written contributions box in school/the classroom.
• Follow the school policy when bullying takes place. Talk to both sides, inform parents, other school workers etc.
• If bullying is taking place because of a particular issue such a death in a child's family, carry out an education programme on that topic, but obviously not focussing on the child concerned. Involve parents where possible and get their support.
• Use peer pressure to break up bullying groups by using the dynamics of group work to separate members of the group.
• Teach children to be assertive. Ask your head teacher to buy in a programme from an outside company such as Kidscape to use with students and staff. Again, involve the parents.
• Encourage your class to celebrate differences and reward individuality.

Web links

Birmingham Education Services' Anti-Bullying site with key advice and contact numbers for professionals, and parents & carers.

Kidscape : A fantastic site for teachers, parents and children offering straight forward and practical advice. Many examples of dealing with bullying in school, including an anti bullying policy and links to schools that have successfully carried out anti bullying work.

The Guardian's own collection of web links to some excellent sites for information, advice, resources etc.

National Bullying Helpline is the web site of the UK national Workplace Bullying. It contains information for teachers who are being bullied themselves.

This activity was created from an original idea developed by the Ethnic Minority Pupil Support Unit.

Pupil Notes

Have you ever been bullied? Or do you know someone else who may be and doesn't know what to do? It's thought that 8 out of 10 children are bullied at some time. We all know that bullying goes on in all schools. It's how it's dealt with that matters and it won't stop unless you do something about it. Quite often people are afraid to tell someone because they think that the bully will find out and things will get worse. This is a very natural fear, but schools can and do stop the bullies without the bully ever finding out who told.

Bullying can include being called names, people taking your belongings away from you, getting you into trouble when you haven't done anything, hurting you physically and taking your friends or maybe your money away from you. Being bullied can be very frightening and can make your life totally miserable.

Have a look at this activity. It'll give you lots of ideas on how to stop bullying and who you should tell. Remember, no one deserves to be bullied.

If you or your friends are still having problems look at these websites that have loads of advice for young people. Don't accept that bullying is right. You CAN stop it!

This activity will be updated at a later date to include translations into Community languages.

Web links

Schoolhelp. Set up in January 2001, this BGfL site was made to help kids at school who might have problems. It's made by kids for kids and gives advice on a whole variety of different problems such as bullying, stress, exclusion and many more things.

Kidscape is an organisation committed to keeping children safe from harm or abuse. It talks about famous and successful people who were bullied at school and offers lots of help and advice.

You can email them at help@bullying.co.uk

ChildLine has a special magazine section for young people full of stories about people who have been bullied and how they stopped it.