Liverpool City Council produce anti-bullying kit
The next generation of teachers are being challenged to tackle racism in the classroom – aided by an anti-bullying creative tool kit.
Liverpool City Council’s cultural unit, Culture Liverpool, is to launch its Government backed ‘Senseless’ education pack as part of the city’s Year of Health and Wellbeing at a conference today (Tuesday, February 23) by asking 320 PGCE students to map out its lessons across the national curriculum.
‘Senseless’, which is the fifth educational resource of the city’s Capital of Culture ‘It’s Not Ok’ anti-bullying programme, features a 20 minute film, CD Rom, lesson plans and ideas for curriculum links.
The previous It’s Not Ok project – ‘Denial’ – dealt with homophobic bullying and successfully led to a drop in schools, according to the City Council’s Bullying Audit 2009.
Results
The launch of Senseless to student teachers has been inspired after a police officer and a teacher applied the toolkit to a six week English Literature module, analysing the GCSE text ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ by Harper Lee, which led to great results in behavioural tests.
The Senseless film and interactive CD ROM were used by PC Jenny Slater and Suzanne Russell at Childwall Sports College to break up the study of the text and to put the issues of racism raised by the book into a modern context.
Both will be addressing the social inclusion conference, organised by Liverpool John Moores University at Crowne Plaza Hotel at Liverpool Airport, which is the first the city council has taken its nationally lauded anti-bullying programme to.
Councillor Keith Turner, Executive Member for Education at Liverpool City Council, said: “It’s Not Ok is a fantastic legacy of being European Capital of Culture and brilliantly demonstrates how creativity can make a difference to every day issues and lives.
‘Huge impact’
“Senseless tackles a huge problem in our society and taking its lessons to the next generation of teachers is going to have a huge impact in the classroom and beyond.”
Ariel Trust, a Liverpool based charity which specialises in multi-media creative education, has devised the Senseless pack for Liverpool City Council.
Paul Ainsworth, Director of Ariel Trust, who will also be addressing the conference, said: “By providing 300 teachers with a resource like ‘Senseless’ we hope to reduce the incidence of racially motivated bullying in Liverpool school.”
From liverpool.gov.uk